Birding around BR Hills

What began as a day visit in May stretched a bit longer and had a fantastic outing in the wilderness of BR Hills. Due to last minute planning could arrange accommodation nither at K-Gudi nor at Gorukana, but somehow managed with basic accommodation at Biligiri Bhavana run by temple authorities.

This one was shot enroute BR Hills. With lot of sericulture activity around the area, the kites were huge in numbers around. They must have got used to the presence of human beings around and allowed me shoot from a closer range. They were having gala time feeding on worms around.

Brahminy Kite

Brahminy Kite- Juvenile?

Since we couldn't get accommodation in K Gudi, we drove through the BR hills to K gudi a few times and spent around BR Hills doing birding. We roamed around few Soliga hamlets and couple of plantations around. Birding in thick green forests is a real challenge for amateurs, you enter some place and you will hear variety of sounds but only few birds will really show up. Recognizing just by calls is really fantastic but I guess we have still miles to go to reach there.

We were happy to sight and observe crested serpent eagle from close ranges. Every time I drove though K Gudi route this fella would make at least one appearence. Most of the times spotted this on the road side trees, but quickly it will disappear it greens. Probably its lesser wing span makes it easier to fly in across thick forests. On one more instance we had to abruptly stop our car as this was happily munching right on the road in front of us. As we watched it, after some time it took its prey on to a low branch and continued to savour its half finished meal. Once it was done with its prey, it walked around the tree branch and gave us a nice stare!

Crested Serpent Eagle

Saw a group of Racket tailed Drongos, lifer for us. But they were too high on the tree tops, to get a decent picture.

On one of the drives, we thought we will take a Jungle safari ride run by Forest Department during the evening. Knowing our interest in birding one of the rangers there told us we might want to head towards the scrubb jungle enroute Chamaraja nagar. We decided to head out in that direction ditching the Safari. I guess it was right call when we found this.

Red Wattled Lapwing

This Red wattled lapwing was sitting pretty. So far we hadn't seen any lapwings with out making the lovely call :-) We guessed that, it must be up to something and we just stopped there at quite a distance. We hung out there for sometime and RWL flew off after some time. Slowly reaching there (again from some distance) made us realise that it was incubating its eggs there. We quickly disappeared from there, not to disturb the bird and not to attract attention.

During an evening near the lake, we found this wagtail, happily jumping through the lotus leaves in search of food. The jumps were so precise that, it knew exactly where there was leaf and water.

White-browed Wagtail

Just a walk around the BR Hills village/around Gorukana/around Lake provided good opportunites for birding.

Pallid Harrier(?) Oriental Honey Buzzard - Seen hovering over

Indian Hanging Parrot

Oriental Magpie Robin - They were so many of them, everywhere!

Here is the birdlist from the trip.

Francolin, Grey
Kingfisher, White throated
Myna, Common
Myna, Jungle
Myna, Hill
Bulbul, Red vented
Bulbul, Red whiskered
Stork, Asian Open-billed
Ibis, Black
Kite, Black
Kite, Brahminy
Egret, Cattle
Babbler, jungle
Prinia, Ashy
Warbler, unIded
Koel, Asian
Swallow, Red rumped
Sunbird, Purple rumped
Starling, Brahminy
Robin, Oriental Magpie
Robin, Indian
Munia, Scaly breasted
Hornbill, Indian Grey
Lapwing, Red wattled
Barbet, Coppersmith
Barbet, White cheeked
Drongo, Black
Peafowl, Indian (Female)
Jungle Fowl
Drongo, Racket tailed
Eagle, Crested Serpent
Coucal, Greater
Hoopoe, Common
Wagtail, White browed
Dove, Emerald
Water hen, White breasted
Heron, Pond
Flycatcher, Tickell’s Blue
Flycatcher, Asian Paradise
Treepie - No id
Spotted Creeper (?) - Saw it climb a tall tree upwards!
Bush Lark
Woodpecker, Black rumped flameback
Harrier, Pallid Oriental Honey Buzzard
Another one similar Warbler, which had a very distinct 9-note call that went twit-ti-di-twit-ti-dee-tweet-tee-dee!
Another one sang like a Birthday song - in the evergreen forests

Ranganathittu - 16042011

We were on our way to Bandipur and it was a suprise call from Balu that made us to visit Ranganathittu. With nesting season around and we were lucky to spot these..

A loud shrill call made us to look up and a crested serpent eagle was sitting up there. The boat man told us there was a nest around and he took us nearby. There was another one sitting in the nest, probably there were chiks inside. We kept watching that for a few minutes expecting some chicks, but it didn't move a bit.


Further down, these Streak Throated Swallows had made their nest, and were moving around in unison. Further reading pointed that, these swallows build colonial nests like a honeycomb with mud.


This pond heron in breeding plummage was sitting pretty...


So was this Spot Billed Pelican family...


and there was this Black Crowned Night Heron..


Got to know, why a Spoon Bill is named as Spoon bill :-)


Painted Storks were in plenty and doing acrobatics


and this Open billed Stork, Posed for a good shot with its open bill clearly visible.

Around Hampi, Kamalapur and Daroji

After more than four months from the trip to Hampi, here comes a post on it along with some pictures. Apologies to those who we kept waiting for this long....

The 3 day trip in the end of December was an amazing one, with a pretty decent list of birds, for us beginners. What was satisfying was that this time I religiously maintained notes during all the three days while birding. As always, we spent more time with the nature than with the monuments and ruins :) There were birds almost everywhere - in and around the ruins, on the road sides, Kamalapur, the JLR property (we didn’t stay there but visited there and went on the nature walk with them), the road next to the canal, leading to Daroji....

This White throated Kingfisher in one of the ruins site let us go very very near to it - up to almost 8-10 feet! Every time I see it, I am awed by the beautiful, vibrant colors it is made of!

Rose ringed Parakeets were in huge number

So were Plum headed Parakeets; watched a huge group for a long time.

Saw the Pied Kingfisher for the first time. It’s amazing to watch it fishing. It eyes on its prey in water at almost 20-30 feet above the surface of water and stops mid air at the same point by continuously flapping its wings. And at a suitable point in time, sometimes after about half a minute of staying at the same point in mid-air, it dives down straight into the water - as if it fell off losing gravity. And in the next moment, comes out flying, if lucky, with a fish in its beak! We were lucky to witness the whole drama many times during those three days.

Spotted Owlets were pretty common too, mostly near the ruins, staring straight back at us!

Yellow Wattled lapwings were in groups on the stream side

So were these tiny Ashy Crowned Sparrow Larks
This Green Bee Eater gave a pretty close access for a long time

So did this Rufous Tailed Lark (Please correct if we're wrong in Id)
This Little Cormorant also stayed still for a long time

Some of the other birds we managed to click....

The cattle Egrets who had a meeting by the stream side
Yellow Wagtail

White Wagtail

Common Sandpiper

Rufous Backed Shrike

A Common Kingfisher (has not been so common at least to us!)

This Pallid Harrier (Juvenile)? gave us a short glimpse before it flew off

Brahminy Starling

Blue Rock Thrush ?
Here's the complete list of birds we managed to note:

Hampi - Around the monuments and ruins

Kingfisher, White throated

Sparrow, House

Bulbul, Red vented

Egret, Cattle

Wagtail, White Browed

Wagtail, Yellow

Parakeet, Rose Ringed

Dove, Laughing

Hornbill, Grey

Bee Eater, Green

Parakeet, Plum headed

Hoopoe, Common

Owlet, Spotted

Robin, Indian

Barbet, Coppersmith

Cormorant, Little

Egret, Large

Sparrow-Lark, Ashy Crowned

Cormorant, Little

Tern, River

Shikra

Kingfisher, Pied

Around JLR, Kamalapur and way to Daroji

Common Pochard

Sparrow-Lark, Ashy Crowned

Cormorant, Great

Tern, River

Kingfisher, Pied

Lapwing, Red Wattled

Sandpiper, Common

Kingfisher, Small Blue

Starling, Brahminy

Francolin, Grey

Sunbird, Loten’s

Coucal, Greater

A Warbler, making very loud, shrill calls.. Could not id it

Shikra

Wagtail, White

Lapwing, Yellow wattled

Koel, Asian

Swallow, Wire tailed

Bushchat, Pied

Weaver, Baya

Pallid Harrier

As always, please do correct us if we've wrongly Id'ed some bird.

Cheers,

Sumana & Deepak.

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