Birder's Blog...: Blue-faced Malkoha

Wednesday, 27 April 2016

Blue-faced Malkoha - the sulker...

Indian Subcontinent has four Malkohas in all. I have resided in the recent years in the home range of two and though I will not say that I am not obsessed - I surely have been chasing them. These two are - the Sakeer Malkoha - the one with red lipstick painted bill and the Blue-faced Malkoha.

Malkoha are from the cuckoo family and the group name is derived from the Sinhala word for the Red-faced Malkoha - and Mal-Koha means Flower-Cuckoo. They are sulking birds that prefer - not only thick bushes - but particularly the epicentre of these thick bushes.

I was lucky really when two odd months back I was able to see the Blue-faced Malkoha. Saying that I saw them might be an overstatement really, they were the fleeting glances as it hopped in thick bush… The first encounter was in KBR National park, when I managed to rip my T-shirt trying to follow it in the bushes to get a good glance and the second in Nallamalla Forest when it just flew across the road we were travelling and disappeared into the thick bushes across.

Well season changes and now with the temperatures touching 44 degree celsius - the leaves on most of the trees have shrivelled and dropped of leaving those thick bushes as scraggy mass of branches. The visibility through the bushes have improved but photography is still a no go as the camera focuses on the thinnest of the branches ahead of the bird and refuses to focus behind. I was in a terrible fix when two things happened - I out of curiosity used the focus ring to get the bird in picture and the second one - while waiting in the heat of the day - a water pipe that was leaking attracted the bird. I will not say that I got the best of the shots - but am terribly happy with pictures under the circumstances.

Presenting below are the few of the hundreds I managed to bag...