Birding around Chitradurga Fort, Vani Vilasa Saagara, Shanti Saagara

Chitradurga was a pit stop for us during our journey to Hampi. Fort and a few other places offered us a great opportunity for birding as well and we had a superb start at Vanivilas Sagar (or Marikanive). We began by spotting a few Egyptian Vultures.

About Places
Vaani Vilasa Saagara(Mari Kanive): Around 20 Kms from Hiriyur, on NH4 highway. Vaani Vilasa Saagara is a reservoir built during Mysore Maharaja’s period. We reached here at around 10 and had a few sightings, I am sure if we could have managed a bit early, we could have had a great day. Nevertheless, Egyptian vultures made the day for us.
Laughing doves were in huge numbers and they were laughing quite a bit at us!
Chitradurga Fort: Fort offers a lot of opportunity for birding, but unfortunately we took a guide with us, who was more of a nuisance and kept on reminding us not to look at the Spotted Owlet as it was considered a bad omen. Anyway, Sum and I kept ignoring him and were gazing at the Owlet in awe, when he was explaining about the history of the fort! Fort definitely needs another few visits dedicated to birding.
Shanti Saagara (SuleKere): Around 35 Kms from Davanagere, second largest lake in Asia, didn’t offer us much except on our way to the lake.
Silhoutte of a Black Ibis - Couldn't take a good shot due to the unfriendly light.

Bird List
Kite, Black
Myna, Common
Bushchat, Pied
Egret, Cattle
Egret, Little
Pond Heron, Indian
Parakeet, Rose Ringed
Hoopoe, Common
Dove, Eurasian Collared
Kingfisher, White Throated
Bee eater, Green
Drongo, Black
Egret, Median
Swift, House
Dove, Laughing
Bulbul, Red Vented (there was not a single Red Whiskered Bulbul in the entire trip!)
Swallow
Vulture, Egyptian
Kite, Black Shouldered
Wagtail, White Browed
Treepie
Robin, Indian
Babbler, Jungle
Dove, Spotted
Sunbird, Loten’s
Owlet, Spotted

A short-toed Snake Eagle. Thanks Prashanth for helping us to id this.

Visitors from across Himalayas - Bar headed Geese at Magadi Tank

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.

1. Lapwing, Red Wattled
2. Cormorant, Little
3. Moorhen, Purple
4. Swallow, Wire Tailed
5. Swallow, House
6. Bee Eater, Green
7. Dove, Eurasian Collared
8. Drongo, Black
9. Iora, Common
10. Coot, Common
11. Egret, Cattle
12. Shikra
13. 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

Happy New Year-2011

May all your dreams come true in 2011, Wishing you a great year ahead. The resolution is to have more birding trips this year :-)

Around Mandagadde, Shimoga and Bhadravathi

Last weekend we had been to these areas and we did birding for 3 mornings and an evening in and around Bhadravathi and Shimoga, it was a good outing and we were able to spot hornbills(Indian grey) ourselves for first time. And this time it was a more systematic birding trip after the NTP. Here’s a bit of detail about the spots.

a> Around Bhadravathi: Bhadravathi to Chennagiri road, offers lots of opportunities, with Bhadra canal running across you can find lot of irrigated stretches of paddy fields and arecanut plantations. During our initial days of birding, some 6 months ago, we had come here and we were fascinated spotting Asian Paradise fly catchers. Hence decided to come back here again, and the APF didn't disappoint us.

b>Around Shimoga: Shimoga to Theerthahalli road is another destination with lot of vegetation. Hornbills were found perched typically on roadside ficus trees. We had our stop at Sakrebyle Elephant camp and had a good time with birds. We did have a look at the upcoming JLR camp on the other side of the road, just in front of the elephant camp. The JLR camp area looks very promising. Unfortunately we couldn’t spend much time here.

c>Around Mandagadde: Inspite of visiting here during the off season, this didn't disappoint us. Of course there was not much of activity around the sanctuary area, but we crossed Mandagadde and stopped near a village called "Donigahalli". It is a small sanctuary surrounding a water body and not much space to walk around doing birding. However, from there we took a boat ride to another village "Muttinakoppa" and had a good birding outing there. The best time to visit this place is during the months of June to September/October during the nesting season.

This Yellow footed Green (?) Pigeon, let us watch it from under the tree it was perched on for a long time.

Here’s are some of the shots.

The Indian Grey Hornbills perched on a roadside ficus tree on the second day. There were 2 of them, no 3.... 4....5... and finally 6 of them on the same tree!!

The Brahminy Kite which posed for us for over 15 minutes
The Brown Shrike, which I initially mistook as White browed Bulbul :(
Common Iora
Black crowned night HeronIndian Pond Heron in non breeding plumage, these were in huge numbers

Black headed Oriole

Chestnut Headed Bee Eater
Black Drongo

Oriental Magpie Robin, female.... the ones here were much bolder when compared to the ones I've seen around Bangalore.

Here’s the list of birds... this time around we didn’t aim at numbers, rather we did justice to whatever little we saw and confidently identified.

Hornbill, Indian Grey
Hornbill Malabar Pied (We spotted a pair flying very close for a few seconds, but couldn’t capture them)
Egret, Cattle
Egret, Median
Egret, Little
Coucal, Greater
Ibis, Oriental White
Bulbul, Red Whiskered
Bulbul, Red vented
Myna, Jungle
Kingfisher, White throated
Kingfisher, Common
Wagtail, White browed
Bee eater, Little
Bee eater, Chestnut headed
Swift, House
Swallow, Wire tailed
Heron, Grey
Drongo, Black
Pigeon, Yellow-legged Green
Kite, Brahminy
Kite, Black
Crows, House, Jungle, Large-billed
Parakeet, Rose ringed
Pigeon, Blue rock
Dove, Spotted
Dove, brown
Bushchat, Pied
Indian Roller
Cormorant, Large
Cormorant, Little
Iora, Common
Oriole, Black headed
Shrike, Brown
Robin, Oriental Magpie
Fantail, Couldn't Id which one
Peafowl, Indian
Flycatcher, Asian Paradise
Lapwing, Red-wattled
Pond Heron, Indian
And heard Coppersmith Barbets and White cheeked Barbets
And this one we could not Id... It was perched quite far off, I felt the size was Bulbul+, we debated between Yellow Browed bulbul, White headed babbler, but feel it is neither now....
As per the experts, it is a Golden Oriole, female
And there were many more little birds and some big ones like eagles/harriers that we couldn’t Id, in spite of following the systematic process. May be we need some more time :). And I still don’t have a pair of binocs :(, but as the guru-ji says that’s not stopping us from birding :)

Birding around Dechu : Rajasthan

Having spent a good time at Khuri, it was time for another outing with birds this time around the Manvar resort where we stayed. Religiously we spent our early mornings and evenings in birding. After knowing our interest in birding, our driver ChandaRam, enthusiastically stopped the jeep whereever he spotted one, and explained us with lot of local details about the bird. I wish we could have followed the way it was taught to us in NTP, nI just have go back to photos to id the birds. A good lesson learnt, better late than never!

Black Shouldered Kite

Common Raven, locals believe that, if this bird enters a house during Deepavali, it is considered as good omen and its believed that the house will be blessed with lot of fortune :-)
Little Brown Dove

Indian Peafowl: These are so common, across the country side in Rajasthan, you are guaranteed to spot a few every time you venture out!


Indian Roller


Rose Ringed Parakeet (Male &Female)

Red collared dove
Variable Wheatear

Id needed for the following! the first two should be some female Wheatear, but we weren't able to ID them yet.
Common Babbler.

Rosy Pastor or Starling.