Favourite bird of Nilgiris

It was a long time, I was waiting for a trip to Ooty for birding, after seeing the great images of birds made by my co-clickers. Ooty is an area of colourful birds, and almost all the birds are among the charismatic class, in other words, most celebrated by bird photographers.

So, I planned a trip to Ooty in the beginning of March, for a sat/sun. The summer vacation crowd was just starting. The main two areas to cover were - Botanical garden and Doddabetta, as per an expert's advise.

First place I visited was the Botanical garden. I was invited by few Oriental White-eyes which had just started their day, collecting honey from the Bottle Brush flowers. Soon after that, I could see the Nilgiri Flycatcher - the 2nd most popular bird locally. 
After a while walking, I could only see couple of Indian Pond herons, Sparrows and Red-whiskered Bulbuls. I was told, the Kashmiri Flycatcher has not visited Ooty this year. Then after sometime, I saw the most popular bird of Ooty - Black and Orange Flycatcher. I fell in love with the bird, the first time I saw it. It was a curious little bird, with black and orange colours in its plumage as its name say.

In Ooty, I could feel that the birds are very much used to humans and are not as shy as the birds I have seen in western ghats. In the botanical garden, I saw Black and Orange Flycatcher, Nilgiri Flycatcher, Grey headed Canary Flycatcher, Bar-winged Flycatcher Shrike, Plenty of Indian Black Birds collecting nesting materials, Red-whiskered Bulbuls, Great tits, Common Moorhen, Indian Pond Herons, Spotted Dove and lots & lots of House Sparrows. 

Then I started to Doddabetta after a quick lunch. It was around 7Km from Ooty town, and another 3 Km was reached via a four-by-four jeep drive. In Doddabetta, I found the Nilgiri Laughing Thrush, White-bellied Shortwing and Common Rosefinsh. Also I saw the Nilgiri Wood Pigeon and a Black eagle. The birds here are adapted to feed on the throw-away of fruits from the vendors.  

Out of all the birds I saw in Ooty, I liked the Black and Orange Flycatcher the most. The curious little bird is so cute to watch. The way they behave after seeing a person in its territory, the way it calls with its bright orange tail spread to show the territorial display, everything was beautiful about this bird. I saw 2 pairs of them, and a single male, in both botanical garden and at Doddabetta. 

Black-and-rufous flycatcher (Ficedula nigrorufa):

The main population of this bird is found in the high elevation plateaus (above 1500m) areas of the Nilgiris, Palani Hills, Biligirirangans (Bellaji and Honnametti) and Kannan Devan Hills. They prefer areas with high leaf litter and undergrowth in open shola grassland habitats. 

In the breeding season, March to May, these birds are very vocal. They feed on insects by flycatching low over the ground and also pick insects from the ground. Territories are maintained by a pair throughout the year. The threat display involves the male pointing bill up, fanning the tail, opening wings and producing "keet-keet" notes. Males are usually involved in defense but females may sometimes join in. The nest is built by the female, placed in a low bush or fern. Two greyish speckled eggs form the usual clutch. Young birds are brownish and speckled. The nest is unlike that of most flycatchers and is large, coarse, ball-like and made from sedges. The nest has a foundation of dry leaves and ferns. The nest has an external diameter of about 6 inches (15 cm) and the egg cavity which is devoid of any lining is about 2 inches (5.1 cm) in diameter and 2 inches (5.1 cm) deep. The nest is placed usually at the centre of a bush at about 1 to 3 feet (0.30 to 0.91 m) height with an entrance hole close to the top.

The peak feeding activity of the birds is early in the morning and towards dusk. During these period they capture as many as 100 insects an hour whereas at mid-day they are half as efficient.

Refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-and-orange_Flycatcher

Other birds of Ooty...

Nilgiri Flycatcher (male)

Grey headed Canary flycatcher

Bar winged Flycatcher Shrike

White bellied Shortwing | Nilgiri Blue Robin

Nilgiri Laughing Thrush

Great Tit

Common Rosefinch (male)

Oriental White Eye

Overall, it was a great trip to Nilgiris, and I still remember the call and jumping of the cute little Black and Orange flycatcher. 

A Defensive Posture

It was monsoon... June end, 2013. We were in Coorg for macro photography. During a morning walk, we saw a really huge caterpillar munching a leaf. It was almost 12 Cm in length. We spent sometime there observing the beautiful green creature finishing off all the leaves in the branch, in a speed beyond we could imagine. It was an eating machine.

It was green in colour, with "S" shaped blue and yellow stripes in the body. It had a prickly horn like single projection in its tail.

By mistake, one of us touched the plant, and the caterpillar got to know that it is being watched. 
Suddenly it changed it's posture. The head freed from the munching leaf, facing upwards and folding all its tiny legs towards its face, as if like praying.

It was looking cute, but I couldn't interpret the meaning then. I thought, it is trying to convey to us, "go away".

Later, when identifying the caterpillar, I understood that it is a Death's-head Hawkmoth's (Acherontia lachesis) caterpillar.

Death's-head Hawkmoth got its name because, this massive hawk moth has the spooky image of a skull on its thorax, and its horizontally banded body reminds us of the ribs of a human skeleton. Add to this fact that the death's head hawk moth can squeak when alarmed and that its huge caterpillar can make clicking sounds.

This is a defensive/camouflage posture to make the caterpillar looks less like food to hungry predators. When disturbed, late instar hawkmoth caterpillars puts them in a good position to employ another defensive response: clicking and puking sometimes. 

The Defensive Posture

  

Eating machine

For more details, refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acherontia_lachesis

Tiger luck

Mid-May of last year, we visited Tadoba for Tigers… Lot of funny things happened throughout the trip… Some of them are shared here…  

The first safari… we started as the last jeep to the park, and the Naturalist we got was not talking at all. To start a conversation and get comfortable with him, I asked "What birds do you get here?". Then I noticed that his mouth was full of pan, overflowing, which might be the reason he was quite. Still he bothered to answer - "You don't get birds here. Only tigers". I thought, "WoW! what a naturalist we have got". 

During the safaris, he asks for the tiger activities from other jeeps or village people or forest guards he meet on the way, and nods his head for whatever they say. But shockingly, he never goes to those places where they said there could be tigers. We couldn't understand his strategy. At one point, we thought he is scared of tigers. He never stops at a place to observe the activities, unless there is something he finds like Guars or Barking deer. He will be the first one to get out of the forest, at least 10-15 minutes than others. 

On a morning safari, we drove the jeep through some places, and found a tiger cub (one of Teliya female cub) somewhere far-away inside the bush. Though we were not able to photograph, we were ready to wait for it to come out. But our naturalist was not ready, and we started from that place. As usual, he didn't stop anywhere else, but just roamed around the forest, though there were 3 jeeps waiting for a tiger to come out, near a lake. He said, its time to leave and we almost reached the exit gate. All of us in the jeep were irritated and cursing our 'tiger-luck'. Forget about tigers, he is not even stopping for any birds. 

When we were just few meters away from exit gate, for all our surprise, we saw a huge male tiger resting in the shade. We were crossing a small 2 feet wide bridge that was over a tunnel. We stopped the jeep there and started clicking. All of a sudden, a female tiger came out from under the bridge. It was almost at a touching distance from the jeep. They were the mating couple the one we missed the previous day, and they were mating for the past 2 days, very close to an agriculture land. The male was called 'Leopard face' and the female was called 'P2 female'. All tigers are named and have their own star value here in Tadoba.

Then the tiger pair started doing some courtship rituals, right in front of us. I could manage to get the photos of some of the sequence. Later they vanished inside the bushes.  

The Groom

The Bride

Following her...

Face-to-face

Courtship rituals

Tigers' Courtship

Tigers don’t have a set season for reproduction to take place. Instead they are able to engage in the activities throughout the year. However, most of the time it will occur from late November through early April. Males are ready to mate when they are approximately 5 years of age. For females it is about 3 ½ years of age.

During the courting process you may hear tigers making a variety of howls and whines for each other. The males usually start this off but the females are very likely to respond. When they do come into contact with each other a dance of smelling each other, purring, and even rubbing against each other is very common. Some couples will go as far as to lick and to groom each other as well.

When a male and a female decide they would like to mate with each other, they will engage in the act several times over the course of a couple of days. That is how long the female will remain in heat at any given period of time. It is common for a male to mate with several different females as long as he is healthy and his basic needs are being met.

It was a wonderful experience to watch the Tiger pair, at an unexpected moment, when we were exiting the park. We might have missed the pair if we had waited at the park for some more time. That's nature - we never know what happens at what place. During my recent birding trip, an expert told me - "It is nature. No predictions or expectations. We should enjoy what it gives". 

A day in Mandvi coast

During my recent visit to Greater Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, we spent a day in the Mandvi coast, for observing and photographing the waders near the sea shore. Mandvi is a coastal area in Gujarat, near Greater Rann of Kutch. 

We saw many many species of birds, but the highlights of the day were - Oystercatchers and Crab Plovers. 

Oystercatchers

Crab Plover

Oystercatchers

The oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) is well known as a coastal species, and is easily recognised by virtue of its large size and combination of black and white plumage, long, bright orange-red bill and pink legs. In flight there is a prominent white wing-bar, and during winter a white 'chin-strap' develops. The sexes are similar in appearance, although males often have relatively shorter, thicker bills. 

The strong, flattened bill allows the oystercatcher to prize open cockles, mussels and other bivalves that other waders cannot exploit. They also feed on worms, limpets and crabs.

They were extremely skittish and were never allowing us closer. We had to crawl inch by inch, lying on the beach with waves, to get a decent image. Luckily, the sea was not rough and the waves were not at all high. 

Crab Plovers

The crab plover is remarkable for being the only representative of the Dromadidae family, which means that in evolutionary terms this unusual shorebird has no close living relatives. This species has a distinctive appearance, with white plumage on the body and head, contrasting with jet-black primaries and back feathers, and a long, black, gull-like bill. Like most waders, the legs are long with partially webbed toes, and the tail is short. 

Noisy and gregarious, the crab plover is commonly encountered in small groups foraging on the shore for its preferred prey of crabs. These foraging groups usually comprise around twenty to thirty birds, but may number as many as 400 outside of the breeding season. The crab plover is active during the day and night, taking advantage of crabs, marine worms and mudskippers exposed by the receding tide. This species’ large, powerful beak allows it to tackle crabs without suffering injury, swallowing smaller individuals whole, and smashing larger specimens against the ground, to be consumed piecemeal.

The crab plover is unique amongst the waders for its habit of constructing its nest in an underground burrow. After moving inland from the shore to sand dunes, the birds excavate an extensive network of interconnected burrows, 1 to 2.5 metres long. The entrances of the burrows are initially angled downwards, before curving upwards and terminating in a nest chamber situated a short distance from the surface. The burrow is believed to serve two important functions, one of which is to insulate the egg against the extremely high temperatures that occur during the breeding season. The second function is that the chamber acts as a solar incubator, keeping the egg at an optimum temperature, which means that only a small amount of direct incubation by the parent birds is necessary.

They were found in a huge colony, in the morning. We managed to get some pictures, and later in the evening, they got scattered. When they found the fisherman throwing the fishing net, they actively utilised the opportunity to grab fishes near the net. They were not worried about our presence at all then. We also witnessed several behaviour like adult feeding young, hunting crabs, etc. 

Apart from that...

Apart from these two magnificent birds, we saw many more birds like - lots of Gulls like Slender billed Gull, Brown-headed Gull, Heuglin's Gull, Pallas Gull, etc., and Terns like Gull billed Terns, Whiskered Terns, Lesser Crested Terns, etc., Eurasian Curlew, Whimbrel, Kentish/Lesser/Greater Sand Plovers, Eurasian Thicknees, Ruddy Turnstones, Western Reef Egrets, Terek Sandpipers, Curlew Sandpipers, Bar-tailed & Black-tailed Godwits, Black necked Storks, etc.

A Brown headed Gull (non-breeding) with kill

Eurasian Thicknee

Later, in the afternoon while we were walking towards the jeep for lunch, we saw couple of Dolphins, very close to the shore, and a fishing boat, jumping. That was an amazing scene to watch.

Dolphins

It was one of my best day of birding, with lots of lifers, decent images and beyond that, a great experience to watch the waders' behaviour for the whole day. The day ended with a pleasant sunset. 

A day of PLENTIFUL!

A Sunday... I had planned to visit a lake in Bangalore - Hosekote lake.

It was a day of PLENTIFUL... 

Three sightings in the lake made my day... All three were in PLENTY... 

1. Barn Swallows

The moment we entered the lake, we saw a tree full of hundreds of Barn Swallows. The scene was spectacular with plenty of shining blue and white birds in trees with the sun rise falling on them. They all were taking off the tree at the same time, flying high, and settling down in the tree after sometime. This was happening for quite sometime. It was all a synchronized act. 
We couldn't move out of that place and got stuck by this amazing sighting.

  

Tree full of Barn Swallows

Taking off at same time

Settling down

2. Little Stints

After a while walking inside the lake, we saw a huge flock of Little Stints settling in the water. Then they all started flying in a synchronized way, showing their white underside all at one time, fly for a distance, and suddenly change direction, showing their dark upper side all at one time. This was magical, and they did it for 5 to 6 times like this. 
It was happening right in front of us, like a stage show. I felt like a thousand violins were played all around me, along with the birds flight. 

Little Stints

Imagine with a 1000 violins ;-)

3. Fishes

There were muddy bunts in the lake, separating water from one areas to the other, just like mini-dams. We noticed that the water was continuously disturbed like someone is shaking from inside. They were fishes, in plenty. A lots of fishes, were swimming through the water, pushing the muddy little walls, making ways and swimming to the other side of the lake. 
It was surprising to see the action, with such a small creature, using strength of numbers, breaking through the mud and swimming to the other side.

Small fishes swimming through

The Moving Home - Jungle Cat's

During my recent visit to Little Rann of Kutch, a surprise awaited us in our very first safari. We started from Bangalore early morning, and reached Zainabad by noon. After lunch, we started our first safari. On the way, we stopped for couple of Black winged Stilts which were posing really nice. All of a sudden, we noticed a kitten little far away in the middle of the reeds. There were more than one kitten, which we initially thought was a domestic cat. Honestly, we didn't even expect or think about a Jungle Cat at that time. So we were not excited in the start. Slowly, one after the other kittens came out of the reeds. There were totally four kittens and a mother. Then we realised that all the kittens are looking alike, which is highly unlikely for a domestic cat. Then, after seeing the mother's tail and hind legs, we understood that those are Jungle cat mother and kittens. 

WOW! we enjoyed the scene - the kittens playing with each other, trying to catch one other's tail and all. The mother was watching all of them as well as our movements. It was amazing to watch the kittens' behaviour. Each of them showed different personalities - one of them always stayed with the mother, which could be the youngest one, one was little aggressive and trying to dominate others by blowing arms and showing canine tooth, one was playful and one was watchful, etc. 

Their home was in a mount of reed bed, with a small water body near by. 

The first kitten

Mother and kitten

Tried to fit the entire family in one frame

Later...

We wanted to visit the place again, to see the cute cat family. So we tried the place on the 3rd day. But we couldn't see even a single cat. During our 1st visit, they were not disturbed or they never looked threatened. They were quite comfortable but watchful with our presence. But the home is not there now!?
Not sure, if the mother moved all the kittens to a different place, or if they all were out for search of food, or hiding/resting inside the home.

Moving Home...

Cats usually move their home periodically. 

The mother cat moves it's kittens when she feels they aren't in a safe location, it's too cold/drafty, too bright, or she can't adequately watch them. 
The mother cat move her litter to a new location, especially during the first few weeks after birth. Establishing a new nest is part of the cat's instinctual behaviour to safeguard her young by not remaining in one place too long.
Apart from safety, temperature is another reason feral cats move kittens. It is only the mother's body that keeps the kittens warm. If she gives birth in a spot that isn't protected from the elements, she will carry them to better protected location.
Feral cats also move kittens when food for the mother is scarce. Once the mother and litter are in a place where food is more abundant, she does not have to roam as far from her kittens to get it.

Jungle cat:

The jungle cat is the largest of the living Felis species. It has a small tuft on the ears, a comparatively short tail, and a distinct spinal crest.
They inhabit savannas, tropical dry forests and reedbeds along rivers and lakes in the lowlands, but, despite the name, are not found in rainforests.
Jungle cats are solitary in nature. They rest in other animals' abandoned burrows, tree holes, and humid coves under swamp rocks, or in areas of dense vegetation. Although often active at night, they are less nocturnal than many other cats, and in cold weather may sun themselves during the day.
Jungle cats can climb trees. Like most cats, they utilize not only sight and hearing while hunting, but also their sense of smell. While running, they tend to sway from side to side. They mostly hunt for rodents, frogs, birds, hares, squirrels, juvenile wild pigs, as well as various reptiles, including turtles and snakes. Near human settlements, they feed on domestic chickens and ducks. They catch fish while diving, but mostly swim in order to disguise their scent trails, or to escape threats, such as dogs or humans.
Like most other cats, they hunt by stalking and ambushing their prey, and they use reeds or tall grass as cover. They are adept at leaping, and sometimes attempt to catch birds in flight. Although they can run at up to 32 kilometres per hour (20 mph), they rarely pursue prey that escapes their initial pounce.
Mating has been recorded in February/ March in Central Asia and October in India. Females usually set up their dens in reed beds or thick vegetation. After a gestation of 63-68 days, females produce a litter of 1-6 kittens. They weigh around 4.5 ounces at birth and gain an average of 22 grams per day. Their eyes open between 10-12 days, they are weaned at 3 months, stalk and kill prey and reach independence by 5-6 months and are sexually mature at 11 months.