Saturday, December 05, 2009

2009-11-26 Pune

Basically from mumbai I am in pune on weekdays for office work.
Sometimes when i stay over the weekend i visit a small tekdi just at the end of the road perpendicular to the paud road.

Location and the area that i have explored is marked in the map below (courtesy: google earth).


This hillock is mostly barren with patches of trees mainly Babul, Australian Acacia and Gliricidia at the base and mostly Gliricidia and some other trees at the top of the hillock.

On the barren lands are seen birds like Red wattled lapwings, Indian robin (abundant), large grey babblers (making a lot of ruckus).
On the small shrubs and Babul trees are large grey babblers, red vented bulbuls, Brahminy starling.

Other than these most common seen are the following species
Common hoopoe
Small minivet
Common woodshrike
Pied cuckoo
Shikra
Tree pie
Golder oriole
Oriental White-eye
Plain prinia
Grey breasted prinia
Tree pipit
Jungle bush quail
Purple sunbird
Purple rumped sunbird
Pale billed flowerpecker
Black drongo
Long tailed shrike

Some pics of the birds(taken with my Panasonic FZ28) seen on 26th Nov are here and some other pics taken earlier are in this blog
Tekdi April 2009

Indian Robin (Male)


Indian Robin (Male)


Indian Robin (Female)


Plain Prinia


Large Grey Babbler


Common Woodshrike


Pied Crested Cuckoo


Pied Crested Cuckoo


Small Minivet


Small Minivet


Great tit



Great tit


Other blogs of trip around pune
Sinhgad valley Jan 2009
Kavdi Jan 2009
Bigwan Jan 2008

Sunday, September 13, 2009

2009-09-13-Talawe

Last minute plan was made with Mom and Dad to visit this place.
I had not been to Talawe anyway for a long time atleast 7months.

As usual started with loud calls of Ashy and Plain prinias.
Plain prinia


Plain prinia


Also a nice sighting of a painted grasshopper was a nice start for the trail.

Then there was a sight of the scaly breasted munias on the grass on the side and then came and sat on the trail in front of us.

Going ahead on the right hand side grass we could see the white eared bulbul and a pair of yellow eyed babblers calling out.
White eared bulbul


Butterflies and other insects were also visible in plenty. There were the black caterpillars, common grass yellow, salmon arab, chocolate pansy, common crow, common rose, peacock pansy, blue tiger and lovely green grasshoppers and robber flies.
Painted Grasshopper


The red munias were collecting nesting material and food and hence could be seen a lot flying around and sometimes landing in front of us on the trail.
Red Munia






Atleast 2 long tailed shrikes were sighted.
Long tailed shrike


A flock 5-10 birds flew past and i tried to click some quick pics.
These were a flock of chestnut tailed starlings (blythii subspecies which is also considered by some as a separate species).
Chestnut tailed starling (blythii subspecies)


A lone osprey and a brahminy flew above our head.
Osprey


Cormorants were seen sitting on the mangrove bushes.
A pair of spot billed ducks and a lone one were also seen.
There black winged stilt, red shanks and red wattled lapwing in the water.
Black winged stilt



Near the farms we could again see the chestnut tailed starlings, spotted dove with nesting material, a long tailed shrike, red vented bulbuls, green bee eater, white throated kingfisher, munias and jungle babblers.

There was nothing much on the sea shore as there were some fisherman and also since it was a very low tide.

All in all a good many species seen.

List
1) Ashy prinia
2) Plain prinia
3) Red munia
4) Black headed munia
5) Scaly breasted munia
6) White breasted kingfisher
7) Common kingfisher
8) common sandpiper
9) Common red shank
10) Little egret
11) Grey heron
12) Glossy ibis
13) Zitting cisticola
14) Yellow eyed babbler
15) Brahminy kite
16) Osprey
17) Chestnut tailed starling
18) Long tailed shrike
19) Spotted dove
20) Laughing dove
21) Cormorant
22) Red wattled lapwing
23) Gull billed tern
24) Grey heron
25) Jungle babbler
26) Green bee eater
27) Black winged stilt

Monday, September 07, 2009

2009-09-06 Uran

The first halt decided this time was at a petrol pump just ahead on the main road before we take right to the police station.
The halt was for the search of black breasted weavers.

Before that went to the railway crossing just to drop Mayuresh where he was going to meet others.

There were some good sightings while going towards the railway crossing. Wire tailed swallows sitting on a parapet wall just near the road, a tree full of cormorants and most of all a mongoose right on the side of the road.

But it did not give us enough time to click its pics but was blessed later.

Behind the petrol pump are a lot of reeds and a big water body behind it.

In the water body we could see spotbilled ducks and coots. On the shore were a pair of were lesser whistling teals and the amazing thing was it had 2chicks under its wing.

Lesser whistling ducks with chicks


There was also a little grebe in the water but was sitting on a nest, another of first timer for a me.

Little Grebe on the nest


The black breasted weavers were seen going and coming into the reeds and mostly had a nest there. So were the red avadavats, black headed munias atleast 6-7 of them.

Black headed munia


From there we proceeded to the police station road.
We decided go straight to the end of the road to search for rudy breasted rails and painted snipes.
No luck finding them but on the way next to the road in the grasses just in near the water we came across a flock of male and female baya weavers and the scaly breasted munias feeding on the grass seeds.

Baya weaver (female)



Baya weaver (male)



A little on the usual spot, the wires we saw the huge flock of migrating barn swallows.

Barn swallow



Barn swallow





We went out of the car in the search of the rail but no luck.
Till this time the rain started pretty heavily and even with jackets we were pretty wet.
Interesting spotted a black winged stilt calling loudly as we were walking on the road but still sitting still near by.

Later we found the reason being that it had its chicks around and it was hiding them below its wings. There were 2 of them.

Black winged stilt chick



From there we came back to the water body next to the police station a location to find pheasant tailed jacanas, common moorhen, etc.

We could not see these but saw cotton pygmy geese, many terns and a little grebe.

Little Grebe


As we were watching the little grebe a baya weaver flew in and sat on the grass blades near to us. It tore the grass blade nicely into 3 threads :-) and soon we could see where it was building the nest. All this we were watching from within the car at a long distance so as not to disturb it. In fact there was a colony of atleast 4-5 weavers.

Baya weaver collecting nesting material


Baya weaver nest


Just then we saw a small blue kingfisher perched on a tree.
It came and sat on a pole in the center of the water and a second one sat on a bush very near to the water.


Common kingfisher


Common kingfisher on the bush


Then one of them dived twice to catch a fish and I could get one in flight and then with a catch in its mouth.

Common kingfisher fishing


Common kingfisher with the catch


Common kingfisher from the back


Till now the rain had stopped and decided to go back in search of the rail.
This bird at first put us into a bit of confusion initially but we finally concluded it to be a ruff and then also confirmed by experts.

Ruff




As we were looking around we could see a huge black cloud coming towards us. It was not a rain cloud :-) but a flock of atleast 200 gulls.
These were huge birds. There were 2 types of birds. One which had spots on the belly and brownish colored. The other one were plain white from below and a beak having a red dot. As per expert these are Heuglin's gull first one is 1st winter.

Heuglin's gull (juvenile)






Big flock of Heulglin's gull




From here decided to back to the police station and try the standard trail which leads to the water body at the back along the railway tracks.

Here we got fantastic view of 2 mongoose and red munias.

On the trail just in the front of the police station
Red munia, Spotted dove and a mongoose in the background.


The mongoose


Spotted dove


Red Munia (Male)






We decided to one final chance at getting some photos of the black breasted weaver proceeded to the petrol pump.
It started raining so heavily that we had to wait for atleast 10-15 to get some clear view let alone photo opportunitly.

In this rain the black headed munias and the Ashy prinia gave some good view by pearching on the nearby bush.

Black headed munia in rains




Black breasted weaver