Birding in Himalayas: Part 3

Kaziranga West Zone

One of the elephant calves from the day

I saw the cutest elephant calves that afternoon in the western zone. There were two in a group of tame elephants (driver called them the park elephants) mounted by guards. That safari turned out to be the calves and chicks special; we saw rhino calves, elephant calves, wild-boar piglets, grey-headed fish eagle chicks, and a juvenile Pallas’s fish eagle.

More calves and elephants

Many times we had to wait on the road as there were lone tuskers standing in the middle of the road or a herd of elephants too close to the road for comfort. Every time Mr. Gogoi decided to wait, he reminded us that we don’t have a guard in our jeep; we had seen armed guards in some of the other jeeps. We waited till the elephants moved away or some other jeep came near, and we went in a convoy (though I didn't understand how the convoy helped). I kept wondering why such precautions; I usually get answers pretty fast, and this time that was the most exciting part of the safari.

Should I charge at these guys?

At some places the jeeps went on raised roads, which were about 7-8 feet above the grassland where the animals were grazing. The climb from the grassland to the road is quite a steep one. We saw two rhinos grazing peacefully on the grassland near such a raised road.  While we were just passing by them, one looked up at us. After that everything happened pretty fast.  The rhino climbed on to the road in a matter of 2 seconds and charged at our jeep. Man, that massive animal can run so fast. Mr. Gogoi stepped on the gas like there is no tomorrow. Those roads are almost as bad as Bangalore roads and are meant only for safari jeeps going at speeds of 20-30 Kmph.  So when Mr. Gogoi started flying the jeep, I held on to the iron bar in front of me as if my life depended on it and held on to the camera with the other hand, lest I or the camera start flying out of the jeep. I was still staring at the rhino with my mouth so wide open my chin was flapping around in my lap. After a few seconds of the chase, the rhino stopped (almost yawned) looked at the other jeep which had stopped a little behind us because of the whole drama, and walked away with a swagger.

After we managed to get our breath back, Mr. Gogoi kindly informed us that once in a while an odd incident happens where a rhino topples a jeep. Later when I narrated this to a friend he asked me why I didn’t go for the elephant ride. Apparently elephant rides are more popular because of the possibility of rhinos charging at jeeps. I have got forwarded videos of elephants getting tortured; I haven’t watched any of them, I don’t have the stomach for that. But knowing that elephants are getting tortured had made me decide against taking any kind of animal rides any more. A rhino charging at my jeep is a small price to pay for that I guess.

On second thoughts, the roads were not as bad as Bangalore roads. The Rhino would have toppled the jeep if they were that bad, or even worse, the jeep would have toppled on it's own at that speed.

Grey-headed fish eagle, on the lookout for its fish

The birding session was another great one with a total of 50 species and 5 lifers.

Awesome colours on the Roller's wing!

Note: All pictures are taken by me. 

You can find the eBird list here (more pictures too).

Next in series: Part 4
Previous in series: Part 2

Birding in Himalayas: Part 2

Kaziranga East Zone

Resort. Pic credit: S

The picture of the resort where we stayed is what dreams and picture postcards (when they existed) are made of. In reality, it looks a shoddy younger brother of the picture. This was the place which was chosen for our stay last time when we traveled, we changed it (for some goofy reason like low rating) and just had lunch and a relaxed afternoon here instead. The uber pleasant staff sort of made up for the not so maintained old building, the fans and bulbs that don't work, and the missing dessert during lunch (Really, No dessert?). S says he prefers this to the place where we stayed last time, as they served tea 4 times a day. Apparently the other place gave him a hardT time. The place is a hot spot for birding with 70 reported species. I guess there would be easily double that number or more as there are only 3 people who have recorded the birds around here, including me.

Once in the North-East of the country, the first thing one needs to do is getting adjusted to the virtual daylight saving time. Everything advances by an hour or more. I started my morning birding at 5.30 and recorded 23 species of birds in an hour. The problem with birding at a new place is getting a picture of every new bird. I am a birder and not really a bird photographer. I carry a camera while birding as I can't identify most of the birds directly and do not have the memory to check in the book later and identify. Sometimes even if I have seen a new bird, if I have not managed to get an identifiable picture of it, I have missed it irrecoverably. The highlight was a Crimson Sunbird that came and sat on a hibiscus plant, so close to me that I might have touched it with my elbow when I turned, if it was not fast enough to fly away. Obviously I didn't get a picture, but that was one bird I could identify without a picture.

I had requested for the resident birding guide in the resort, but apparently he was already booked by October last year by the Brit couple we had met the previous day. Now I understood why the manager kept trying to save me money by offering me a driver who would double up as the birding guide even after I told him many times that I would rather keep the guide than the money. 

Mid-air clash of a Grey-headed fish eagle and Lesser Adjutant

Our driver cum guide picked us up and we started our birding safari in the East zone. East zone is claimed as the best birding zone and I think it is quite right. It has quite a bit of wooded area compared to the other zones where the grassland dominates. Before we reached the gate of the park itself we could see a Crested serpent eagle sitting on the tip of a tree; it was a great starting for the birding. After 3 and a half hours we left the park and the birding session ended with 6 Citrine wagtails sitting on an electric line. With 54 species which I managed to identify and 14 lifers (seen for the first time by me) it was quite a birdful morning.

One of  my lifers: Green-billed malkoha

Berries for the walled up female.

The best part of the birding was a Great hornbill nest, a little far away from which we waited for a while. Some more jeeps were waiting for the male to come and feed the female who was walled up inside its nest. The bird came with its beak full of berries, took them out one by one and fed the female before flying away for more. 

Walking towards us so purposefully! Should we turn and run!

We also encountered Elephants, Rhinoceros, Wild boars, Water buffaloes, Sambar deer, Otter, and Rhesus macaque. When there were no birds to aim at, I managed to train the camera on some of the animals too.

Note: All pictures are clicked by me, except where picture credit is given to S.

You can find the eBird list here.
Previous in series: Part 1 
Next in series: Part 3

Birding in Himalayas: Part 1

Guwahati Waste Disposal Site

In my life I haven’t seen such a big garbage dump, will never ever see again either. Except for the Greater Adjutant Storks which live there, I need not have known about the existence of such a place. But I went there. I also committed one of the greatest mistakes in my recent past; I pulled down the window to take pictures of the stork. I didn’t know what hit me, once the stench hit me, my brain refused to work, and the only thing I could think of was how fast I could get out of that place. Even though I had planned to be around there and do a thorough birding at that place for 15 mins, I ran, my car sped off from there after exactly 3 mins of my being there. Now when I look back even the 3 mins I managed to be there were long 3 mins. I didn’t get a picture with one full stork in it, for that I needed to plan, move, and possibly get out of the car. I wouldn’t have done that if my life depended on it. So, ya, I ran.

Greater Adjutant

I think this is quite a strange looking bird. When I showed the picture to my friend he said "Beautiful". I hope he was talking about my talent in photography (duh) and not about the beauty of the bird. 

Later in Kaziranga, at the resort we stayed when we started talking to two Brits about birds and when they mentioned Greater Adjutant and the garbage dump, I appreciated their decision to avoid the place. I wouldn't want that experience even for my enemies.

I started on a 20 day birding trip with S, to the foothills of Himalayas (East and then West) which included Kaziranga and Nameri in Assam, Dirang, Sangti Valley, Mandala, and Sela Pass in Arunachal Pradesh, Sattal, Pangot, and Corbett in Uttarakhand.  Earlier I have written one or two travelogues. But somewhere I stopped recording my travels and thereby writing about them too. These will be reminders to me on what I did after retiring at 40 (a lot of people do ask me that), even if it is not read by anyone else. 

After going crazy on birding and doing some frenzied birding in South India, which included Thattekad, Goa, Bangalore, Hampi, Karwar, Manipal, Mysore, Pune and Bhigwan (not so South, still), this is the first trip I made out of South of India for birding. All places except Corbett were already visited by me earlier, before I turned a birder, and revisiting them was extremely nostalgic, but a completely different experience than when I was traveling as a tourist.

The travel itself started with a late Bangalore-Guwahati flight; I should have guessed that that late flight was a sign of further delayed flights during the trip. There we were picked up by Mr. Gogoi. He agreed to take us to the garbage dump en-route. He wouldn't have been able to dissuade me from going there, but he could have warned me not to open the window. I hold him responsible for my one hour of misery. 

We lunched at the same place where we had lunched together with R and P 4 years back when we were traveling from Kaziranga to Shillong, there started our nostalgia. I did 15 minutes of birding while waiting for the food to come. Another 3 hours of drive and we were in the resort where we would be staying for the first 3 days of our trip. It was already sundown being more to the East, so there was no more birding that day. Our first day of the trip concluded with the promise of many more birds the next day.

Next blog in the series: Part 2

My garden birds - II

Wicked conspiracy, that is the answer. I ended the first part of My garden birds wondering why I don't get House Crows (HC) in my garden. I started writing that as I included Large-billed Crow (or Indian Jungle Crow)(LbC) in my list. After I wrote about the LbC I realised I don't have a picture of LbC. So I removed the write up on the LbC but retained the note on HCs. Then started the wait on the terrace to get a good picture of LbC. I got more than I bargained for.

The day I decided to try for a picture I witnessed a strange phenomenon. There were about forty crows, half on the eucalyptus tree just behind my garden and the other half on another a little away. They were flying around, cawing loudly, in a circle for a few seconds and perching on the tress for some time, then again flying. This was repeating for a few mins. I took a few pictures of the birds when they were perching and tried to take some in flight. I took a crow in flight and then I got a doubt whether it was really a LbC or HC. 

The House Crow being chased around by the Large-billed Crows

I checked the picture and found that to be a HC, and there were two of them. I saw that the HCs were being chased around by the LbCs. So the whole phenomenon of the forty LbCs cawing and flying around looked like a way to keep the HCs out. The ruckus continued for almost 15 minutes. Then I saw the two harassed and dejected HCs flying away. So the question is answered, there is a wicked conspiracy among the LbCs to keep the HCs away. I have seen LbCs and HCs together. So I don't understand why the conspiracy here (And no, I don't want an answer to that next time I go up on my terrace, it is a rhetoric question). 

Large-billed Crow

I have two big bird nests on the rain tree in front of my house. I haven't seen any bird using them. But I see Large-billed  crows on that tree every day and I think those are possibly Large-billed crow nests, now abandoned. 

Large-billed Crow on the Eucalyptus tree (in between harassing the House Crow)

Visible throughout the year.

Wikilink

Red-whiskered Bulbul

One of the very early visitors to my birdbath, these birds can be noisy or musical based on their mood, but will always make their presence known. Usually they visit the birdbath as a couple, together with the Cinereous Tits and the Oriental White-eyes. At times the birdbath gets really busy with all these taking turns in taking dips and preening on the trees and then coming back for the next dip.

Red-whiskered Bulbul

Visible throughout the year.

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White-cheeked Barbet

I first noticed this bird when I heard a constant pecking sound coming from the rain tree and thought that I might be having a Woodpecker in my garden. When searching around for the source of the sound I was surprised to see a round hole on a dry branch of the rain tree and this beauty pecking away to  round perfection. Every year after that I see a new hole on the same branch and we are on the fourth one this year, and possibly running out of space there. Their kutroos become background music in the garden through most of the day.

Towards perfect round. White-cheeked Barbet working on the 4th hole on the rain tree.

Visible throughout the year.

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Ashy Drongo

During winters Ashy Drongos either join the Black Drongos or take over from them the leading of bird waves. I see more Ashy Drongos during winter and lesser Black Drongos. Their calls sound like there are two different birds calling, the musical call followed by a sound like the bird is clearing it's throat. These aggressive birds are seen chasing Shikras and even Black Kites above my terrace.

Ashy Drongo on silver oak.

Winter visitor.
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Asian Koel

A lot of us have grown up responding to these very musical birds, calling back to them in the same tone and rhythm. When we call back, we find them singing back with even more vigour. I really don't know whether that extra vigour was imagined or real. At my layout gate there is a ficus tree full of berries at this time of the year and almost every day we count up to 6 Koels on the tree.

Male Asian Koel on silver oak

Female Asian Koel on silver oak

Visible throughout the year.

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Shikra

After I started getting a lot of small birds in my garden, one day I spotted a slightly bigger one attacking couple of birds sitting on the electric line. It was quite fast and I couldn't get a good look at it to identify it. Next day early morning at my terrace I was pleasantly surprised to see this guy sitting on the (now famous) rain tree. I spot this beautiful bird once in a while on the neem tree and the eucalyptus. I hear the Drongos imitating the Shikra call also once in a while.

Visible throughout the year.

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Oriental Magpie Robin

Last winter two Oriental Magpie Robins adopted my neighbor's birdhouse as their nest. After that they were continuously in my garden whistling their high frequency, long whistles. I didn't see their chicks, but I assume that they were there and they flew away with the parents a few weeks after they were born. This winter they have come back, but they are not using the birdhouse next door. I don't know where they have nested, but I guess it is quite far away enough to be not seen very often in my garden this season.

Female Magpie Robin at my birdbath
(I have special love for pics of birds on my birdbath)

Male Magpie Robin on reed

Winter visitor.
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Brown-breasted Flycatcher

I wrote about how I moved from butterflies to birds; I have a strong feeling that this was the guy who caused it. Last winter a Brown-breasted flycatcher was seen quite often in the garden, I have seen it some previous winters too, but this year it has given a slip to my garden. Not just my garden, I haven't seen this little fellow at all this winter till now.

Brown-breasted Flycatcher on a dry silver oak branch

Seen last, last winter 
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Red-vented Bulbul

The otherwise common bird is not so common in my garden. If I go to the lantana bushes near the railway line just 400 metres away from my house, I see at least one of these birds every time. But they visit my garden very infrequently. I don't know whether these Red-vented and Red-whiskered Bulbuls have similar rivalry like the Crows which makes these stay away from my garden.

Red-vented Bulbul on my pomegranate tree

Vagrant visitor
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Blue-capped Rock Thrush

This colourful bird has been seen earlier also in my garden, the same year when we saw the Indian Pitta for the first time. This winter Blue-capped Rock Thrush was spotted only twice in my garden; I don't know where it disappeared after that. I am still waiting for it and I need a much better picture of it.

Blue-capped Rock Thrush on my Sapota tree

Winter visitor
Wikilink

I have more birds in my garden. Writing my story about them, together with finding a presentable picture is turning out to be more taxing than I have expected. But I am going to be at it till I finish.
All pictures are taken by me in my garden.

First part of this blog is here - My garden birds - I

My garden birds - I

I have a garden, in my Bangalore home, which I call my mini forest. I have a grass land too, which is my un-manicured lawn (it was never meant to be a lawn though) growing wild and up to almost knee height. This grass fosters huge amount of small insects. I have put up a birdbath inside the mini forest. With all these, together with supporting gardens of my neighbors, and trees along the streets, I get a lot of birds in my garden. These birds have become a passion to the level of obsession. With neighbors who are similarly obsessed with birds, I spend a lot of time watching and photographing them.

Some time back I had posted about the butterflies in my garden. Earlier I was behind butterflies and once while trying to photograph a butterfly, a small bird swooped down on it and caught it. While this drama was happening my focus changed from the butterfly to the bird. That was a funny way to change from lepidopterology to ornithology.

Here I present my garden birds.

Tickell's or Pale-billed flowerpecker

Tickell's flowerpecker on my lychee tree

This is the smallest bird you can find in India and is seen in the southern part of India and Srilanka. Possibly the earliest visitors to my garden were sunbirds. At some point in time pale-billed flowerpeckers joined them during their visits. But due to their tiny size and fidgety nature, I didn't manage to get a decent picture till recently. Now a days I count up to about six flowerpeckers within the foraging party.

Visible throughout the year.

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Verditer Flycatcher

Verditer Flycatcher on silver oak tree

I first saw this beauty in Eaglenest wildlife sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh. So later that year when I found it in my garden I was pleasantly surprised. But when I first spotted it this year a couple of days back, I can tell that I was sort of expecting it. First day I didn't manage to get even a record picture. Two days back one afternoon when I and B went for our afternoon bird walk we took binoculars, but not camera. We landed up at a spot where we had not spotted any birds earlier and found quite a ruckus. There it was sitting in the clear, posing for a camera which we didn't have with us. I ran back home and returned with the camera to find all others still present except for the Verditer. Luckily yesterday morning's bird watching on my terrace yielded me with a passable record shot.

Winter visitor.

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Indian Pitta

Indian Pitta

This colourful bird which breeds in the Himalayan foothills migrates during winter time to peninsular India and Srilanka. Since Pitta is seen only for a few days in a year in my garden, I am assuming that these birds are using this area as a stopover site before going further to their migratory destination. This winter two Pittas were spotted together for 3-4 days in the garden. Once they were seen we watched them from inside the house and didn't go out, lest we disturb them, as they were hopping around the ground foraging for food. About 3 weeks after these two went missing, we found one more very briefly. I think this was a different one which was a little late in the migration path.

Winter stopover visitor.

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Loten's Sunbird

Loten's Sunbird on silver oak tree

Arguably the first bird I have noticed in my garden years back. Once I had a couple building a nest near my kitchen window and became fodder to an earlier blog here: Love story by my kitchen window. They go missing for a few months in the year and are not a constant presence like the Purple rumped sunbird or even the Purple Sunbird. 

Sporadic visitor.

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Black Drongo

Black Drongo on silver oak tree

These birds have made my morning alarm redundant. Their screechy calls wake me up and possibly the whole neighborhood.  They chase a lot of the other birds and generally seem very quarrelsome. Apparently they imitate the calls of other birds and start the mixed species feeding flock. In my garden I do see them first when a bird wave visits and therefore their quarrelsomeness and general misbehavior are forgiven.

Visible throughout the year.

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Ashy Prinia

Ashy Prinia

These noisy visitors are seen rarely in the garden, but they make sure that we know it loud and clear when they do. Very rarely they have been seen as part of a bird wave, but it could be that they just landed up in the garden at the same time as the others, unintentionally.

Sporadic visitor.

Wikilink

Black Kite

Black Kite on Eucalyptus tree

Black Kites being the most common of raptors, are abundant in my neighborhood. Till four days back I would have called Black Kite my neighborhood bird and not my garden bird. But then I saw one sitting on a coconut frond in my garden. I was concerned that the smaller birds will disappear with a raptor landing amidst them. But the other birds looked quite unconcerned and were flying around and perching quite close to the Black Kite. 

Visible throughout the year.

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Spotted Dove

Spotted Dove on silver oak tree

Spotted doves watch me watching birds, standing quite close to me on the terrace, especially if I am immobile for some time. I notice them only when they fly away when I start moving. Recently they have increased in numbers and at times when I am out walking I spot one each on every terrace I pass by.

Visible throughout the year.

Wikilink

White Breasted Kingfisher

White-breasted Kingfisher on silver oak tree

There used to be one very small pond just outside our layout wall when I started living here. It dried up on its own or was filled up and then encroached by someone. Now there are no water bodies around. So it was a surprise to me when I found the White-breasted Kingfisher in our layout clubhouse first. Apparently it is not a surprise and these kingfishers are seen much away from water bodies. It is not a daily visitor to my garden, but it makes a pretty sight when it is seen sitting on the reed shoot which has grown above all the trees in front of the house.

Visible throughout the year.

Wikilink

Cinereous Tit

Cinereous Tit on the birdbath

These birds head for the birdbath straight, once in the garden. Sometimes up to three of them can be seen together dipping into the water. They announce their visit with a lot of chirping. Usually they visit with Oriental White-eyes and their flying around the birdbath and preening their feathers afterwards in the pomegranate tree are a pleasure to watch.

Visible throughout the year.

Wikilink

The one bird which is conspicuous by its absence is the House Crow. I have never seen one in my garden or in the neighborhood. I wonder why!

There are some more birds to cover, which I will post in another two posts.

Note: All pictures are taken by me and all birds are seen in my garden. Some pictures are not exactly from my garden, but in the neighborhood,  as the thick foliage and the forest like shade makes photography quite an impossible endeavor.

Everest Base Camp Trek, Day 2

We braced ourselves for the long and arduous trek. Chhiri had warned us that the trek is going to get really difficult in the afternoon. I do not know whether the my fellow trekkers wondered whether they will survive the day, I did. But I was ready to take it from moment to moment and kick the shit out the day. It was a climb from 2610 mtrs to 3480 mtrs, almost a km of vertical climb. The trek started out like the previous days, a little climb up and then a little down and then a stretch of plain. The whole day the accompanying music was of the chirping birds and the gushing of the Dudhkoshi river. 

Dudhkoshi river flowing past a resort

Most of the time we walked along the river while climbing up, down and ahead and many times crossing it over tall long steel hanging bridges. I forgot to count the number of bridges, but it felt like we were continuously moving from one mountain to another over these bridges, throughout the climb.

At times we had to wait at the end of a bridge for up to 10 mins till all the mules carrying load from the other side could cross the bridge.

Rakhi, Lakpa, Preeti and Chhiri, waiting for the mules to pass

The morning walk was a walk in the park, which made me wonder how difficult can the afternoon walk be. Oh! I was in for a rude shock. After lunch Chhiri informed us that another 40 mins more we would be walking in similar conditions. I always led the group in the morning, almost pushing the lead guide to be with me instead of waiting for the rest of the group. That gave me enough rest stops as there were points where we regrouped fully before continuing.  After that 40 mins or so The Climb started, man, was it steep! The oxygen levels had dropped and I could feel that in my lungs and sometimes in my head. The initial climb was done with gusto, without falling behind. Slowly the younger ones in the group overtook me and went ahead. The competitive streak in me shook its fist at me to climb faster, but my body wouldn't listen. I stopped after every minute to catch my breath for 30 seconds. It was more physically excruciating than anything I had ever done in my life. My calf muscles cried out loud in pain and every ounce of weight on me made its presence felt. With much difficulty I held on to my camera, resisting the temptation to throw it into the river. 

Encounters of a spiritual kind

When I started on my journey to Kathmandu I had thought that refusing to hear the concern of friends and family would be the hardest thing I would be doing. I would be proven wrong multiple times through the rest of the journey.

Not many times we were reminded of the earthquake till then. But here the small boulders were perched high on the hill as half the hill was lying down. We were asked to run across the path which was hardly walkable, as there was no guarantee that the boulders wouldn't come loose upon us while we were crossing. And run we did.

Trekking through the landslide

I climbed bistare, bistare (slowly: the only word of Nepali I learnt during my month of stay in Nepal) and I kept calculating in my head how many more hours I needed to climb like that. The lack of form of R and sprained leg and altitude sickness of P meant I wouldn't be at the end of the pack. I panicked a few times when P went ahead of me, but I claimed my middle position soon enough to relax and climb again, bistare, bistare.
We met a French couple coming down from Base camp. The girl said she has some really bad memories of this particular climb, this being the worst of all days. It soothed me. I knew if I survive this day, I do not have to worry about the rest of the climb till the Base camp. There would be the challenge of Kala Patthar, but we would face that when we reached there.

Resort where not many tourists can reach, that is the irony.

The leading trekkers were waiting when we reached a small check post and were they a little disappointed to see us approaching so soon after they stopped. They were looking for a slightly longer rest. A big map of Namche Bazaar made me feel that we are at the entrance, almost done. We haven’t had any water sources for the last 3 hours or so and I was running on a 1ltr bottle full of water and conserving to last till the next source. I finished what ever was left and filled the bottle, ate some snacks and started again. It was not that done, it was another one hour when I managed to drag myself up the last climb to our hotel for the next 2 nights. 
Since the next day was our acclimatisation day, we were looking forward to a shorter climb and then rest. With the days climb I felt I deserved 2 days of rest before I could climb further. I plonked myself next to M and N who were cheering me till then from the dining room window, that dining room which will hold us during the rocking event the next day! I joined them in waiting for P and R and cheering them when they appeared. We settled down to some hot tea and well earned rest after 7 hours of climbing.