Point Calimere Coast: Flamingos & Blackbuck

Where the coast turns

Point Calimere, Kodiakkarai in Tamil, is the low headland where the Coromandel coast turns west into the Palk Strait. Behind it lies the Great Vedaranyam Swamp, a maze of mudflats, lagoons and salt pans that is part of a Ramsar wetland. In winter (roughly October to March) it holds tens of thousands of migratory waders and ducks, and greater flamingos feed in the shallows.

The day

We start at dawn on the public roads and bunds around the salt pans and backwater edges near Kodiakkarai, scanning for flamingos, painted storks, avocets, sandpipers, plovers, gulls and terns. After breakfast in the village we enter the Point Calimere Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary on its designated roads, with entry tickets bought at the Forest Department gate (included), to look for blackbuck, spotted deer and the birds of the dry evergreen forest, ending at the lighthouse and the beach.

Good to know

The host drives a small vehicle and the walking is short and flat. Bird numbers depend on the season and the rains; the sanctuary keeps its own rules and closures, which we always follow. Bring a hat, water and sunscreen: there is little shade.