Brown Hawk Owl...

This is one bird that took my heart ever since I first saw it in July this year. The birds were interesting and listed common but difficult to spot unless you discover it by chance or someone points out the exact location to you - and then too you have to be lucky enough to have light to spot it and photograph it. Well it seems I was lucky on all the above points. Well the story is simple - I had one friend over from Hyderabad for Birding and this was his 'Very high on priority' - bird to see list. Well I had seen it once and was fairly confident that I will see them again... how wrong can I be ?

The sleeping beauty that still kept an eye on us... 

Wrong I was - means - three months is a good time for the bird to fly over and go anywhere else - no? This was the only small point that I missed out in the entire gambit of planning for hunting this bird. I planned hunt for this bird in the afternoon - when the sun is high - the bird is roosting and there is some light in the thick foliage - the place the birds like to roost during the day.

The mate was roosting well hidden and was just pure chance that we spotted it...

As the afternoon approached we reached the spot and were immediately mobbed by mosquitos. When I say mobbed - I really mean it - they were all over us - attracted perhaps the sweat and the CO2 we were exhaling. Braving all this we peered the top canopy of trees expecting to find some movement or the dark ghost like silhouette outlining the birds. Straining the neck the better part of 15 minutes did not reveal any bird. I personally was disappointed as I was so sure when I promised the birds sitting at the location pointed out by me. In desperation - my partner asked me if he should ring and ask somebody else of location of the birds. My ego was hurt to no bounds - but I had to agree. As he went to fetch his mobile from the car parked in the parking - I peered harder. Suddenly - Voila - there in the thick of the leaves I saw the silhouettes that looked like an Owl. I shouted to him - got it I almost screamed. He ran over and we started the game all over - peering and straining our eyes to find the bird sitting almost 30-40 feet above our heads in thick canopy. Seeing the outlines we at once started taking shots to identify birds. Alas - the birds turned out to be Indian Scops Owl - I mean they are really beautiful and not something you see everyday but then we were expecting something and we did not get it.

Finally after another 15 minutes I resigned to the fact that birds were not there any longer and I asked my partner to ring his friend to ask if there were birds at any other location. He gave us the location and we were off driven to the point specified - 4 km away. There too we were just not convinced that the birds would be there. The logic was simple. The place had a lot of movement and there was what can be constituted as disturbance to birds like owls. We looked around and were ready to move - abandoning the hunt when my partner decided for one last call to see if he can help us with location of the Owls. he had just put his mobile to his ear when he spotted the bird and put down the mobile almost jumping with joy. It was the time I too picked up the bird sitting on a branch. Oh what a sight it was...

Hawk Owls are smallish, small-headed and earless hawk like owls with yellow eyes and longish banded tails. As far as the Brown Hawk Owl is concerned, well - this bird is a 32 cm mid-sized owl with a small white spot over bill. This bird is nocturnal and crepuscular often sitting on top of tree hawking insects. It preys on insects, small bats or other small prey. The bird sounds are included below.

The Lesser Goldenback

I have seen this bird (Lesser Goldenback) virtually all over the country where ever I have gone expect when I recently went to Sikkim for birding and I saw the Greater Goldenback there. A beautiful bird with the Golden back that justifies its name. This bird is a common one and often seen in and near the city parks, trees and plantations. Today we saw the birds in what seemed a pre-mating ritual (breeding season being Feb to Jul). The birds were seemed to be chasing each other and two places that I saw them today there were three in the group. How they were interacting with each other was great observing. One surprising thing was that in this group of three two were males and one female... Ummm...

A very very common pose of this beautiful bird: Lesser Goldenback

One bird used to fly off to a branch and the other two used to follow. One of the birds, generally the one that had flown to the branch used to peck it like woodpeckers do and then another one of the three used to fly off to the next branch - a different one, with other two following. This was repeated three times over that I witnessed. 

The birds have two subspecies seen with one having white underparts (Central Indian Plains) and the another sub species have pale yellow underparts (North Western Indian subcontinent). 

Same bird as above - the one that took the lead this time over in flying to this branch and pecking.

Though I have observed these birds nesting always in nest excavated in the trees but it has been reported that they have been noted nesting in Mud Embankments too.

Lifer update: Little Forktail

The Forktails as a group are very distinctive pied, entirely 'Riverine Chats' and are generally long tailed. These birds songs are reduced or absent, and voice typically consists of buzzes, rattles or high pitched short whistles.

The Little Forktail is the smallest of the forktail with short, notched tail with black in the centre and the whites in the sides. The bird is about 12 cm and occurs in NE Afghanistan, N Pakistan through Himalayas to NE Arunachal and S Assam hills.

Little Forktail

It spends its summers from 1800-4000 m and moves down in winters to 1000 m (Locally 300 m) (Oct to Mar). It pumps and flares its tail like a Plumbeous water-redstart.

I got this lifer on a day - when I was almost bored to death and decided to go out birding in Lower Himalayan hills near Chandigarh at a place called Chakki Modh.

Chandigarh Bird race: Feb 2015

The bird race in Chandigarh for the year has been conducted on 15 Feb 2015. I missed it two last years so was eagerly looking forward to the race. Like a ‘Fauji’ I tried to prepare: maps - check, vehicle prepare - check, Camera - check, snacks, Route - check and misc - check… What I did not count on was the fever and bad throat I will have on the day of the bird race. 

Fever or no - man has to do what he has to do … so gulped in half a dozen antibiotics and was out of the house @5:30 to pick up my team members and go. The team was named ‘Painted Stroks’ and member included myself, Mrs Alpana, Mrs Saroj Gulhati.

The basic stats for the day included, 12hrs 30min spent on road hunting birds. covered 250 km (approx) and bagged 107 species of birds. Oh ! let me not forget to mention that the winning team bagged 180+ birds. In all 200 species of birds were sighted that day. This can make the mouth wide open and turn green with envy the most avid birders I am sure. What a day it was, there were three lifers for me that I clicked that day. As the tradition goes - the beer will be served to all those who care to join me whenever and wherever...

The oldest birder that day was 'young' lady of 73+ (Mrs Inder Grewal) and the youngster of eight  (Master Chirag Sharma, son of Capt Sharma). The event was organised by Mrs Rima Dhillon and Sh Navjit Singh of Avian Habitat and wetland society,Chandigarh. HSBC was the official sponsor of the group. The winning team was "Kingfisher" the team members had an unfair advantage of having group members who can tell with the eyes closed where, which tree and which branch to find a particular bird at any time of the day ;-). All the same Heartiest congratulations is in order to Mr Rajive Das (Team leader) and Mr Siddharth, Prof MS Sekhon, Mr Mahesh Garg and Mr Praveen Malhotra.

Ok I will describe the day in a little bit more of detail. Chandigarh as often say - that it is a little birding heaven in India. Being virtually at the foothills of the Himalayas has the best of both the plains, the hills and a good migration stopover. It also happens to be almost the western most point of the birds that do the East/West migration in India. That being said February is one of the best times for birding. Though like any other place - there were some birds missing but then one cannot have it all - can we ? Well I say that it is one of the best one as winter migrants are here. Also because of snow in upper himalayas - a lot of birds are down in the foothills (like Red fronted Serins and Jays etc), The foliage that was dense earlier starts thinning down and the sunshine is bright.

Of the hotspots that are around Chandigarh I covered the following

1. Chakki Modh

2. Chappar Chirri

3. Mote Majra

4. Chhatbir Zoo area (wild birds only of course)

That being so - what did I miss ? A lot actually. Infact I had included Sukna lake in my initial route that I had planned but dropped it at the last moment as I was running late and expected the Mote Majra to cover up most of the birds that I would have missed.

1. Sukna lake

2. PGI and University area

3. Traffic park

4. YPS park

5. Baddi road

6. Morni

It was almost impossible to include these areas as I was slow by all means but am sure that I would have bagged a couple of dozen or more birds had I speeded up to cover some more area. 

All in all - an Adrenalin Rush by chasing so many beauties and gourmet snacks served by the team members made it one of the most memorable Birding days of my life...

Red-vented Bulbul

House Sparrow

Red-billed Leiothrix

Grey Bushchat

Grey-headed Woodpecker

Grey Bushchat (Female)

Chestnut -bellied Rock Thrush (Female)

Rosefinch (Female) P.S: leave comment if this is wrongly identified.

Streaked Laughingthrush

Griffon Vulture

Golden bush robin

Golden Bush Robin

Plumbous Water Redstart

White-crested Laughingthrush

Steppe Eagle and House Crows

Cattle egret

Wood Sandpiper P.S: leave a comment if the ID is wrong

Black-winged stilt

Painted Stork and Purple Swamphen

Northern Shoveler

Knob-billed Duck

Peacocks

Pied Avocets

Spotted owlet

Well before I wrap up the blog there was this small little bit thing - our team bagged the bird of the day. 

Visit to Chakki Modh: 04 Jan 15

I got up yesterday morning with a good mind to do some birding and Chakki Mod was ideal spot or so I thought. The weather at chandigarh was predicted to be gloomy, I had a feeling that the Chakki Mod would be okay so I decided to take a chance and just got up and went. I was late in the sense that I generally am out of the house by 5 / 5:30 but today I was just walking to my car at 0700 - the sunrise being at 07:22 or so. 

Reaching the turn of Chakki Mod - there was not bird at all behind the shops. It was a disappointment and not a good beginning so as to say. Next stop was at the fan factory tea stall and it made up for all the short comings. The highlight was an Albino - red-vented bulbul. It seemed to be of a larger size but finding no reference I summed up the bird to be an albino bird only.

Albino Red-vented Bulbul

Long Tailed Minivet

This is also the place where I saw a Long-tailed Minivet, Crimson Sunbird and a pair of Slaty-blue Flycatcher. The male of Slaty-blue Flycatcher gave a photo opportunity but the female was just too busy.

Crimson Sunbird

Crimson Sunbird

Slaty-blue Flycatcher

 Other than this I drove upto 3 km short of Bhognagar and the list of species I was was impressive. However the main attractions during the period were: -

Black chinned Babbler

Verditer Flycatcher

Rusty Cheeked Scimiter Babbler

Rufous-breasted Accentor

Whiskered Yuhina

Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker

Red-fronted Serin

Rufous bellied Niltava

Red-billed Leiothrix

Black Chinned Babbler

Verditer Flycatcher

Rusty-cheeked Scimiter Babbler

Flock of Red-fronted Serin

Closeup of tree with Serins

Rufous-breasted Accentor

Rufous bellied Niltava (Male)

Whiskered Yuhina

Whiskered Yuhina

Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker

Red-billed Leiothrix (also know as Peking Robin)