My travelogues: bird watching

Showing posts with label bird watching. Show all posts

Sunday, February 10, 2013

HSBC Mumbai Bird-walk

26th Jan 2013

'Lord, only if I could soar,

Would I roar, shout and shriek

Only if I could flap, frit and perch,

One flight in the blue skies would end my search!

I hope....

- SDC

This was the first time I was out bird watching with a professional team. The event was 'The HSBC Mumbai Bird-walk'. We met at Vashi and the venue for bird watching was to be a small pond adjacent to the Palm Beach road. Though, on paper, the initial list of bird enthusiasts was long, a very few actually turned up for the event. So, armed with binoculars, sophisticated cameras and informative books, we walked the narrow path with dense water hyacinths and other water plants on one side and a wide open space looking like a dam backwaters with very small amount of water on the other side.

Our fist sightings were a couple of stilts and some wood shrikes. I was amazed at Pravin and Ravi (the organizers and experts) finding and locating birds out of nowhere and at the most difficult places. At times it felt stupid to not be able to locate the birds even when they were being pointed out. They detailed us about integral features of the winged fancies telling us if they were residents or migratory, pointing out the difference between the male and female species, explaining their unique identifying features. They would point out, identify and were bang on target when we compared what they said with the bird books that they had with them!!

Am sure if I would have been on my own on that path, would have missed quite a few of them, though I am getting much better at this sport. A few days later, at Coorg, I saw many more species and what a wonderful lot they were!! - More about that later. We were lucky to find a flock of Red Avdavats or Munnias. The chirpy lot posed at length for us. We saw 3 different varieties of herons itself, WOW!!

Once we exhausted the lot at this marsh, we ventured to Karghar Hills and after a lot of persuasion of the authorities (some accidents had happened here recently – suicide, lootings etc. – hence the reluctance), we took our cars up the hills. We were again lucky to see a scampering quail and the booted eagle and some shikaras, which I was told are a rare sight these days.

Well, an enthusiastically spent Republic Day. Thanks to the organizers and HSBC for such events. Looking forward for more of them.

Stilts

Water Hen

Jacuna

Ducks

Pond Heron

Purple Heron

Little Egret

Greater Egret

Grey Heron

Sparrows - Earlier a common sight, now a rarity!

Red Avdavats

Munnias

A sleepy Red Vented Bulbul

Cormorant

Sea Gull

Jacuna

The Birders

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary (Phansad Vanya Jeev Abhyaranya) - Kashid

Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary

There is something about colors...and then there is definitely something when you hear the luring voices made by this fanciful wings of colors!!

A bit of innocence, a lot of teasing, a bundle of shyness, elusive haughtiness; your patience is tested by the smallest of flutters.

What is the fun in bird watching? I ask myself, and there are no ready answers!!
Is it the rawness of walking in the midst of nature where you can be with yourself, is it the deafening silence of the forest that makes even your breathing sound as the drums of a rock song, is it the delightful fright of being pounced upon by a wild animal or is it the common ugly human mentality of trying to capture something elusive and pride yourself later...maybe none, maybe all!!
But one thing I am sure, being armed with my Canon DSLR, being on the pursuit of the winged chirpiness, walking meaninglessly or rather meaningfully amongst the wilderness DOES MAKE ME HAPPY!!

This time I got another friend of mine hooked to it and his excitement told me that he now enjoys this hobby!!

The Phansad Wildlife sanctuary (Phansad Vanya Jeev Abhyaranya) is about 20 km from Kashid. It doesn't seem to be a popular destination as I hardly saw anyone for the 2 days that I visited the sanctuary. The encore of the sea at Kashid beach is more
delightful for all and sundry, it seems. Take a left when you see the Phansad board when you go beyond Kashid. The sanctuary is on the road to Roha.
You can take your vehicle inside the sanctuary and it might be advisable to do so as the sanctuary is well spread and covering it on foot would be rather difficult. The attendant at the entrance told us that with lady luck shining, you might see Sambhars, deers crossing your path. The Shekru (Giant brown squirrel) is also found here, however we didn't see any. We did see a big squirrel, but it wasn't a Shekru.

The sanctuary is a dense jungle with pathways leading to different open spaces in different directions. We landed at the sanctuary at 4:30 pm the 1st day, thinking it would be time for the birds to come home and we could get good sightings, but this was not to be. Though the chirping, whistling, cooing indicated our friends were there, but they preferred to stay elusive. The dense foliage makes photographing the birds difficult with the branches and twigs eating up your focus. There are watch towers inside. At the entrance of the sanctuary, we saw tents for accommodation. I think it would be a great idea to stay overnight in the tents and venture on your bird watching expedition early morning. The tented accommodation costs around INR 400.

What lies ahead....

Watch Tower OR watched tower??

And I stared into the shining sun (Pink Floyd)

We saw the brown kingfisher and some other birds the 1st day but not many. A funny incident worth mentioning happened. Right from the time we started our trek from the entrance to wherever we went inside the sanctuary, a dog watched over us, sometimes
guiding, sometimes just being there. If he ran ahead, it waited for us to catch up, if we didn't it found us, if we were to tread ahead, it just followed, if we stopped, it stopped, it waited for our idiosyncrasies to get over as we stood gaping at the trees to catch a sight. Why he did this, we didn't know, but he did and we liked it...our saviour for the day!!

Armed Guard

Walking on one of the pathways, a caretaker coming out of nowhere told us that he had spotted a flock of green pigeons (do they exist?) and barbetts, a little away from the sanctuary, at a place called Devrai where tiny fruits borne on some trees seemed to
be the reason for the flocked fancies.

So next day we parked our car at the sanctuary and ventured to Devrai, which is a small village. Crossing a field and asking for directions we came to an open space across the field with a small temple. We looked and we looked, we glared and gaped, but all we could see was a kingfisher. Just when our disappointment caught up on us; like magic a flock of around 20-25 birds, out of nowhere took the air-borne route. We now knew we were at the right place and could see the small fruits mentioned to us earlier.

At the village of Devrai

Did we lose the green??

At work!!

We held our patience and were rewarded. We saw many varieties, the names I have to search over, but we did see many, some perfectly camouflaged, some not so shy. Had seen a drongo many times before but this was the first time was seeing it sipping

nectar from a flower. Though the photographs aren't something I am very proud about, but the field trip and every drop of sweat spent on that sunny morning and afternoon was worth it!!

The Kingfisher

Camouflaged.....look in the centre and zoom

Why do u look the other way, my black beauty??

Sipping nectar

Drongo

Barbett

Friday, January 13, 2012

Have you seen the flamingos??

Other weekend getaways

07th January 2012

Sewri is one of the stations on the Mumbai Harbour train line.
Sewri is characterised by its' dock, a harbour lined by huge container ships, cranes where loading and unloading, black smokes of huge industrial units are the norm of the day.
Sewri, not a very handsome locality is one of the unique places where you see train tracks on the road and can experience a green flag being waved in the middle of the road for the huffing engine to pass by, while the four wheeled comrades wait their turn.
BUT, BUT and BUT, a small drive from the Sewri station, near the docs, the jetty opens to the sea AND then there are mud flats lining the shores AND the pink visitors choose these mud flats of all places....

Every winter, a flock of these FLAMINGOS are spotted in the Sewri mud flats. We were the not the lucky ones as we didn't spot any. It was high tide and that was probably the reason. We did spot many other water birds though and had a great time watching the sunrise in the backdrop of ships in dilapidated conditions and huge container ships. Some shied away, while others posed for the shutterbugs.

Will try my luck again to see the shades of pink!!