Birding Diaries– A pied kingfisher looking for its dinner

Somewhere on the way between Tranquebar and Karaikal, late one evening, I found this pied kingfisher looking for dinner in some thorny bushes. The colours had anyways faded and hence, I chose to post it as a black and white version..I like the black and white better..what do you think ?

Travel Tuesday– Go bird watching- Black headed ibis

Drive barely a few kms out of Bangalore and sights like these are very familiar. Here is a flock of black headed ibis foraging for food in the paddy fields

Birding in Hebbal Lake, Bangalore watching pelicans

I was in Hebbal Lake in Bangalore, watching pelicans with some friends. I shot a couple of videos when we saw these beautiful birds in the waters. A friend explains the different kinds of pelicans while you watch them flying

Birding in Hebbal–Pelicans in flight

Pelicans in Hebbal Lake, Bangalore

Birding in Ganeshgudi–the many shades of blue

In Ganeshgudi, you see many shades of blue when you go birdwatching. The Tickell’s Blue and the white bellied flycatchers, the verditer , the monarch, the malabar whistling thrush, the asian fairy blue bird and the blue capped rock thrush show off their plumage as you gaze at them lovingly through your lens. Here are some birds that make you go blue in your face…

Asian Fairy Blue Bird above and the Blue capped rock thrush below


The verditer above and the malabar whistling thrush below


Tickell’s blue above and the white bellied flycatcher below

The monarch

Birding in Bandipur

It is not a good idea to bird while you drive down Bandipur as parking is not allowed here. But I could not resist stopping for a few seconds when  the husband sighted this streak throated woodpecker on the tree.

Birding in Ganeshgudi - malabar whistling thrush

The school boy was planning to have a nice warm bath when we spotted him in the little tub

Birding in US - The brown pelican

We had just come back from the whale watching cruise in Monterey when we saw the pelican perched close by. He was so still that we were wondering if it was " real " after all. I just wished I had spent more time birding in the USA

To me the birds have always been the symbol of Independence Day..so happy 4th July to folks out there 

Birding diaries - Crested serpent eagle in KMTR

I was driving through parts of Kalakadu Mudanthurai Wildlife Reserve in Tirunelveli last January. Located very close to my native village, Kallidaikurichi, this is one wildlife reserve that I would like to revisit again. We did not see much wildlife, but we managed to spot this crested serpent eagle there

And the eye of the eagle, although I wish that little green spot vanishes

Valparai and the Great Indian hornbill

One of my favourite birds is the hornbill - ask any birder and most of them would die to see this bird. The sight of it with its wing spread out , flying in the sky is an image one can never forget. In Valparai, we were lucky to see this bird and here are some photographs of it

The story of a crested serpent eagle and the indian roller in Kabini

Was rummaging through my hard disk this morning and I found myself looking at a trip I had made with my parents three years ago to Kabini. Found this photograph of the crested serpent eagle.

The indian roller and the black drongo would not let it perch quietly though and they chased the raptor away.

Ironically I made three trips to Kabini that year and now, I havent been there for three years..Note to self - Go in 2012.

Birding in Masinagudi

I was in Masinagudi a few days ago and went on a birding trip with Atul, the manager of Club Mahindra Zest property - Casa Deep Woods. My first visit to Casa was almost a decade ago, when it was not a Club Mahindra property .Incidentally it was my first ever trip to Masinagudi. It was sheer serendipity as we drove towards Mudhumalai forest after being told that we had no accommodation in Bandipur. The property was very new and Masinagudi was still very much not a tourist destination. I have visited Masinagudi several times, but this trip was sheer nostalgia.

And what a birding haven it turned out to be -the iora, the sunbird, the white eye, the warbler, the flycatchers, the thrushes - we sighted almost 50 species of birds in just one session and the best sightings were that of the pitta and the paradise flycatcher .While the pitta was hanging around for more than half an hour, walking around the dry stream , barely a few feet from me and at eye level, the paradise fly catchers were rather elusive. An entire family was high up in the leaves , right above us and we watched them fly with our binoculars.

The pitta chased the orange headed ground thrush that landed finally up in the branches of the trees.

My favourite of course was the poser tickell's blue flycatcher. For more birds and photographs, do see my album on my travel page on Facebook. For the entire story, please read here

Birding in Coorg

I was in Coorg last week on an assignment for Club Mahindra and we spotted more than 30 species of birds. We would have probably seen more but for the rains that came tumbling down. However, my bird for the day is the malabar whistling thrush. The school boy was the first to wake up me with his song but he vanished into the dark shadows of a sunless dusk when I went to greet him. However I spotted him later and we spent a good 20 minutes together as he went foraging in the grass for his breakfast.

Some of the other birds that posed for me was the blue capped rock thrush and a pied wagtail among others. To see more photographs , visit my Travel Page on Facebook. To read the entire story, visit CLAY, the travel blog from Club Mahindra

The spotted owlet that wishes me good morning

I have been lazy most of last year, but this year,  I have been pushing myself to wake up and head out for walks in the morning. And the motivation is a spotted owlet that greets me with a scowl whenever I chance upon it on my early walks. The owlet and I are half asleep but we spend a few moments gazing at each other, it looks down at me and makes a face and I grin at it.

On my birthday however, I took a few photographs of the bird and I found out there were two of them , probably nesting in that little hollow of theirs. Only one posed for me, that too rather reluctantly, while the other flew away.

I decided not to disturb them again by taking pictures, but we still greet each other every morning .

I saw it today as well on my morning walk and it did come out and sun itself on the branch for a while before disappearing into its home

2011 Flashback - Kingfishers of Goa

 I was birding in Goa, January last year and was lucky to have spotted many varieties of the kingfisher - white breasted, the black capped , the stork billed , the not so common kingfisher and the white collared kingfisher besides other birds.

The photography credit for both these photographs goes to the husband . 

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2011 Flashback - A birding haven in Kaggaladu

The early part of this year, I was an avid birder and travelled to several destinations - known and unknown in search of birds. One such trip in February 2011 led me to Kaggaladu, a small hamlet near Sira in Karnataka which gives shelter to painted storks that come here every year to breed.

The villagers greet their visitors every year with great gusto and go all the way to protect them. My story was published in Deccan herald as well

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2011 Flashback - Srilankan Frogmouths in Thattekadu

I started 2011 in Thattekadu ,walking in the forests around midnight bringing in the new year. And birding of course. It was my first sighting of the Srilankan Frogmouth and I had written about how we found this bird in the wilds in my column , The Hindu. A story on Thattekadu was also published in Gonomad.com 

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