Dates:                   12-13 Dec 2015

Who:                     SB and a couple of colleagues

All the images used in this post were clicked by S. Balajee.

BIL B wanted to take a couple of colleagues on a short birding trip and invited me along. His colleagues R and R could only manage a day trip while the two of us stayed back for the night, leaving after breakfast the next morning.

The weather was surprisingly warm and muggy for this time of year, with the sun blazing through the day and some marginal coolness creeping in well after dark. There was little cloud cover.

Common kingfisher (S. Balajee)

Thomraj was in his elements, ferreting out sightings with his impossibly precise visual acuity. After paying our respects to pairs of Brown hawk owl and Indian scops owl in the camp, we started on our outings which for most part comprised floating down the river on a coracle and then trudging back on foot.

For some reason, White-browed bulbul were ubiquitous and noisy this time around. Other frequently heard calls were of Tailorbird, oriole (I usually associate the short, ascending crrrrk with the Black-hooded oriole, but we did spot a Golden oriole calling this way too), Purple-rumped sunbird, Asian brown flycatcher and White-browed wagtail (on the water). Stork-billed kingfisher called occasionally as did Spotted dove, Green imperial pigeon, Jungle babbler, Green bee eater and Golden-fronted leaf bird.

Yellow-throated sparrow (S. Balajee)

We had uncommon luck with raptors. Walking back to the camp from the Muthathi side, we first flushed a Crested serpent eagle that flapped away on great wings. We were trying to trace its position when a Black eagle emerged from pretty much the same direction, and settled on a tree a considerable distance away. We got off the path for a closer look and resuming the track, we were surprised by yet another raptor, which we identified back at the camp as the Tawny eagle. This worthy made a reappearance later in the day while we were on the river. BIL wanted a shot of a Lesser fish eagle and we found an exceptionally obliging individual on the day 2 outing.

Lesser fish eagle (S. Balajee)

For the first time, we were compelled to beach the coracle and hop off twice midway – once to tail a pair of Brown fish owls, which were being baited by a pair of crows, as they shifted one perch to another; and again to confirm a shikra’s ID. While we were after the owls, a sloth bear was spotted across the river from our position by a couple of staff members lounging on the bank a hundred meters downstream. We had heard chital calling from across and had discussed the possibility of a leopard being afoot.

Small pratincole (S. Balajee)

While on this topic, incidentally, I asked Thomraj why chital alarm calls were heard virtually every half hour on some visits, and never heard at all on others. Thomraj’s explanation was that chital were skittish when dhole were in the area and tended to call frequently then.

Winter is the time of courtship in our jungles, and the stillness on the river was occasionally shattered by rutting calls of chital stags. We watched a courting pair of Red-wattled lapwings. The pair flew in together and while the female settled on a rock, the male did a noisy, dipping-flight courtship display before joining her.

Shikra (S. Balajee)

We found occasion to catch a bunch of fascinating jungle anecdotes about Thomraj’s colorful pre-JLR days. About running into a leopard that killed one of the goats he was grazing as a fourteen year old, to plucky-while-mischievous deeds from jungles long ago.

1. Ashy prinia
2. Asian brown flycatcher
3. Asian paradise flycatcher
4. Barn swallow
5. Black eagle
6. Black-hooded oriole
7. Blue-faced malkoha
8. Brahminy kite
9. Brown-capped pigmy woodpecker
10. Brown fish owl
11. Brown hawk owl
12. Brown-headed barbet (calls)
13. Chestnut-headed bee eater
14. Cinereous tit
15. Common francolin
16. Common hawk cuckoo (calls)
17. Common iora
18. Common kingfisher
19. Common myna
20. Common skylark
21. Common tailorbird
22. Common woodshrike
23. Coppersmith barbet (calls)
24. Coucal (calls)
25. Crested serpent eagle
26. Darter
27. Golden-fronted leaf bird
28. Great cormorant
29. Green bee eater
30. Greenish warbler
31. Grey junglefowl
32. Golden oriole
33. Green imperial pigeon
34. Hoopoe
35. Indian grey hornbill
36. Indian robin
37. Indian scops owl
38. Indian silverbill
39. Jungle babbler
40. Jungle crow
41. Jungle owlet (calls)
42. Large cuckooshrike
43. Lesser fish eagle
44. Lesser flameback
45. Little cormorant
46. Little egret
47. Magpie robin
48. Painted spurfowl
49. Peafowl
50. Pied kingfisher
51. Purple-rumped sunbird
52. Red-rumped swallow
53. Red-vented bulbul
54. Red-wattled lapwing
55. Red-whiskered bulbul
56. River tern
57. Rose-ringed parakeet
58. Scaly-breasted munia
59. Shikra
60. Small pratincole
61. Spotted dove
62. Stork-billed kingfisher
63. Unidentified swift
64. Tawny eagle
65. Tickell’s blue flycatcher
66. White-bellied drongo
67. White-breasted waterhen
68. White-browed bulbul
69. White-browed wagtail
70. White-cheeked barbet (calls)
71. White-throated kingfisher
72. Wire-tailed swallow
73. Yellow-billed babbler
74. Yellow-footed green pigeon
75. Yellow-throated sparrow

76. Chital
77. Grizzled giant squirrel
78. Tufted langur
79. Mugger