My car pool partner, who is infected with my birding habits, drew my attention towards an article before our X’mas vacation, published in Prajavani and Deccan herald about 2000 odd Mangolian beauties flocking at Magadi lake near Gadag. Since we were heading that direction for the vacation, we went ahead a hundred more kilometers to have a look at these myriad Bar Headed Geese.
Having done some research about the place, we also read that geese headout for food during morning and return to the lake only after 11AM, we decided to go by evening and we reached around 4.30 PM. The whole lake was abuzz with geese and I must say a couple of hours flew by as we kept watching them.
We surely felt there were more than 2000, the whole huge lake full of these geese! The whole area was echoing the continuous loud quacks that seemed to never end! Even the Lapwings’ loud calls were blotted out.
As I was photographing them, a few hundred more swamped the lake making loud calls, with some really good acrobatic show.
It was a real treat to watch them, and a hundred kms of extra drive was worth the effort to watch these migrants who have traveled a few thousand kms across Himalayas. As per my knowledge they are already here more than a month now and supposed be here for couple of more months. Go visit once, it’s definitely worth it!!
Bird List: There was little or no time to watch others there :P nevertheless here is the bird list.
- Lapwing, Red Wattled
- Cormorant, Little
- Moorhen, Purple
- Swallow, Wire Tailed
- Swallow, House
- Bee Eater, Green
- Dove, Eurasian Collared
- Drongo, Black
- Iora, Common
- Coot, Common
- Egret, Cattle
- Shikra
- Marsh Harrier, Western
Western Marsh Harrier(??) or White Eyed Buzzard (Confirmed by the experts): Posed for a long time and allowed me to capture from very close range.
Shikra
Location Information:
Magadi Kere (Tank): Magadi Tank is located in Magadi Village of Shirahatti Taluk, Gadag District. On Gadag Haveri route, its around 40 Kms from Gadag and around 60 Kms from Haveri. The lake is fenced towards the road side and there is also a 3-storied watch tower built for bird watching.
Some useful links that we found while reading about Bar Headed Geese.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Bar-headed_Goose
http://audubonmagazine.org/birds/birds0011.html
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/altitude.htm
Nice shots dude!! The first one looks like a white eyed buzzard to me !!
ReplyDeletehey have you visited Kokkre bellur on the way to mysore.lovely place, if not visit it now, as the birds will still be there
ReplyDeleteThanks Hrishikesh, Musica for stopping by..
ReplyDeleteYes Musica.. we are planning one visit sooon.