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
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| 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.
Verditer Flycatcher
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| 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.
Indian Pitta
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| 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.
Loten's Sunbird
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| 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.
Black Drongo
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| 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.
Ashy Prinia
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| 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.
Black Kite
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| 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.
Spotted Dove
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| 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.
White Breasted Kingfisher
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| 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.
Cinereous Tit
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| 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.
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.
