17 November 2007
Yellow-wattled Lapwing
Seen just walking around right beside men working the fields en-route between Bharatpur and Bund Baretha. It is a common sight in India to see birds walking around right beside people, who have never hunted them, so there is little fear between bird and "man".
27 November 2007
Himalayan Rubythroat
For me one of the quintessential Himalayan birds, that has brought me some magic moments-most notably in Sichuan where on a tour in spring 2006 we watched a pristine male singing its heart out on the slopes of Balang Shan, while this whole dramatic high mountain scene was swathed with thick, newly fallen snow. However, seeing this one with a good friend of mine in northern India was not quite so magical. We dropped down into a deep gully to search for this among other things after a long eventful day in Sat Tal. The tricky part of getting the bird though was not finding the rubythroat itself, but avoiding the 'minefield' that had been laid for us along the narrow track leading down to the scrubby gorge. We soon realized that this path was viewed more as a toilet by the locals than an actual path. Getting the bird once we'd got through this mess (not completely unscathed either), was actually fairly straightforward, the bird angrily appearing on the top of a near bush when tempted with a little playback!
30 November 2008
Ibisbill
This was one of a 'regular' trio of birds along the banks of the Kosi River in late 2008. These reliable birds were in stark contrast to their poor form over recent years, that saw them being a very difficult bird to come by on this north Indian circuit. Even on this occasion we tried a couple of times unsuccessfully at the same site, before finally getting them after an exhaustive search with one of the other tour participants, Tom. This involved wading across channels, precarious balancing on makeshift 'boulder bridges' and the like, before we were eventually waved back to our starting point (birds all too frequently seem to get the least laugh), by a relaxed and dry-footed Hein, who was calmly watching them at his leisure! However, no one was complaining at this outcome, as every encounter with an Ibisbill is pretty darn good no matter what the effort required. One of the theories about their poor form in recent years was that they had abandoned this area due to the high levels of disturbance in this popular tourist area. However, these ibisbills made a mockery of this theory, as they stood there seemingly completely unperturbed by the noisy families that came down to the riverbanks while we were there, and clattered about as they washed their pots and pans with noisy vigour! (This made my attempts at making sound recordings of one of the calling Ibisbills a little tricky to say the least-thank heavens for the power of editing software!)
12 December 2007
Common Kingfisher
Digiscoped using an ATS HD 65mm Swarovski scope.
30 November 2008
Great Thick-knee
This came hot on the heels of an incredible group of three IBISBILLS that we had just gorged on at the same site. Having had our fill of the most enigmatic wader in Asia, we went after this striking shorebird, that Hein had found a short time earlier. Hein had noticed this giant stone-curlew while he was staking out the Ibisbills for when Tom and I returned from our wider, and fruitless search for the same species, that of course Hein had by then been calmly watching alone!
Walking back to the same stony bank of the Kosi River, initially all we could find were the abundant River Lapwings, before we noticed this bug-eyed bird standing inconspicuously amongst the pale boulders. We were a bit surprised to find it at this site (which was basically a 'one bird wonder site'), and were much more expecting to pick it up later on the tour along the sandy banks of the Chambal River. Right at the end of the trip we did indeed see a further 7 or 8 of these birds by the Chambal as expected, although none gave us the winning views this one did!
7 December 2008
Indian Courser
I had visited Sultanpur two times previously, each visit being completely motivated by my longing to see this smart shorebird, (this desire being further strengthened every time I would recall that one of my best friends from the UK had already got this one 'up on me' some years before). On each occasion a local had sidled up to me and offered up near guarantees of the courser, that would then turn sour when we left bereft and empty-handed. On this final occasion I had just finished a private tour with a couple of excellent Dutch birders (before which I had also tried and missed the courser at Sultanpur), and had a morning free before my flight out of Delhi, so could not resist one more crack at the courser. As so often happens in birding, you break your neck trying to see it and failing, but when it does come the sighting is all too easy and makes you wonder if the earlier legwork was really ever going to be necessary. On this day I pulled up to the same set of fields that I had worked several times before. Some of these were awash with tall yellow mustard flowers, while others were more barely vegetated. It was these latter ones I focused my attentions on - perfect courser habitat. As I began my walk out past the thickly vegetated (and seemingly unsuitable), mustard fields I thought I'd have a brief scan of the near bare fields, and immediately found my eyes had homed in on a striking white supercilium running around the field. Cursing the fact that I'd been so pessimistic of getting the courser that I had left my digiscoping gear in the car, I frantically backtracked with barely a glance at the bird under the belt. It was only when I began walking back to the field, this time armed with the gear I should have had with me in the first place, I started to realize that I had shamefully only given the courser the briefest of looks before running for my camera. A feeling of dread rose in my gut as I realized that I should have really made the most of that fantastic chance as I might now get back to find a bare, courserless field, and I had just chucked a perfectly good sighting away in the pursuit of the 'digital dream' (i.e. a photo). My dread was soon in check though as a sweep with the bins revealed not just one courser but three regularly tipping themselves to feed in the sparsely vegetated field. Well the digital dream of a good photo never came, although getting the species full stop was sweet enough, especially after having suffered a run around or two first!