water birds at Kelageri lake

On Feb 22nd Sunday morning I had skipped a function and spent an hour at Kelageri lake park. Sitting on the low platform in the shade of a cherry tree, I watched the waters and life on it. There are several clusters of hyacinth floating close-by. On the clusters were several birds, both webbed and palmated feet. The ones spotted and shot were water-hen, grey duck, white heron, spotted duck and purple heron. All these birds were busy looking for food. They have to feed as much as possible during the day time. Unlike human beings they do not feed after dark except nocturnal birds.

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Malabar Pied Hornbill

 Saturday morning while plucking flowers in our building's parking space  I heard a strange call. A few minutes later I could locate the source. It was coming from a coconut tree. From the fourth floor balcony I got a clear view of two birds perched upon coconut tree.

The other birds was partly hidden by coconut leaves. They let watch and take pictures for a couple of minutes before they took off.

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Indian Hornbill with its prey

Spotted a hornbill landing and perching on a coconut tree opposite our apartment on a cloudy morning. The hornbill had caught a large grasshopper in its beak.

Between the two shots, the hornbill swallowed its prey, rested for a few seconds and flew off. Maybe it was looking for another prey.

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Red Whiskered Bulbul

A bulbul couple decided to raise it's babies in our home. In the first week of April the bulbul couple built a nest in our utility area, on the clothesline pipe. We tied a foot wide basket under it as a safety catch. Soon after the nest was ready, eggs were laid and one of the bulbuls would remain in the nest most of the day, keeping the eggs warm.  The eggs hatched in the second week, we got one look at the chicks on the 14th. The couple was busy, both taking turns to guard the babies and fetching food. We could hear the feeble chirps of the babies crying for food, they were hungry through out the day.

These pictures were shot on 20th morning..

head turned 180°

Bulbul holding food for the chicks

A few minutes after shooting these pictures I saw the chicks perched on the basket rim. They were ready to leave the nest and face the world outside. Within the next hour both chicks left the nest.. all the best to the little ones!

To see more pictures, click Red Whiskered Bulbuls.

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Shikra having breakfast

This is the first time I ever saw a Shikra closeup. It's also called Prairie Falcon. One of the website called it a "Leopard with wings."

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Bulbul pair relaxing on coconut tree

Jan 3, 2024. Though a sunny day, it was cold inside the house. May be it was cold in a shaded place. i happened to notice a pair of Bulbul on a coconut tree. The bulbuls look like they are trying to keep each warm.

As I took pictures, one of the bulbuls looked in my direction. I feel it heard the camera's beep or may be it sensed that they are being watched.

After a few minutes they separated, maybe it's time to head home, where ever it was. Another thing, notice how slime the bulbul looks while standing.

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Spotted Owl

A spotted owl has been visiting the African Tulip tree next to our apartment for the past few months. It looks the same owl, so I'm assuming it's the one I finally framed using my Nikon P900.

It was around 6-30 pm Pushpa spotted it perched on a branch. We immediately got the camera and a powerful lamp. Pushpa kept the owl in the spot-light while I took several shots. The owl was hardly stationery, it turned its head left-right-left-right for some reason. Anyway, I managed to capture a few decent shots.

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Bulbul on African Tulip tree

Perched on a branch of a African Tulip tree, this Bulbul was shaking vigorously to rid itself of dirt and insects from its feathers. Then it cleaned its beak. The ritual went on for couple of minutes.

 

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Brahminy Kite seen early morning

I've been trying to shoot kites for several weeks, not a dedicated effort but whenever I go to the building top. Couple of times I waited with my DSLR but none came within the lens range. A few times they flew low but I hadn't got a camera, not even my mobile phone. One of the mornings, it was early and cloudy, a kite flew in my direction. As soon as I lifted my phone to shoot, the kite veered away. I think the sudden movement scared it. Here are the three pictures I could get. They are basically silhouettes, nothing more. 

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Bulbul silhouette

One morning I was on our building terrace with my cameras, looking for birds. A bulbul with an catch in its beak happened to approach one of the pipes. It perched on the pipe, a second before I clicked, it let go of the catch, an insect of some sort.

The bulbul stayed on the pipe thinking what to do next. It lifted its wings, poked itself with its beak, wiggled rapidly. Probably it was trying to expel a pest lodged in its feathers.

It remained still for a few seconds. May be it was watching for its next prey.

Then it took off.

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Spiked Bulbul

Bulbul seen in our utility area on Apr-26-2022. I was barely six feet away, Bulbul remained there for two minutes or so. Of the 20+ shots, these two were the best. I think this bird is generally known as Red Whiskered Bulbul.

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Spotted Munia nest at our home

Our utility space has a little garden of five planters with Tulasi, Doddapatre, Marigold, Chilly and Aloe Vera. The chilly plant is a rare variety called Jeerige Menasinakayi which is small and grows upright. They turn red as they ripe. Bulbuls come and eat the red ones. So now I know that besides parrots, bulbuls too like chilly. Recently we noticed that another type of bird had taken to our chilly plant which turned out to be Spotted Munia also called Nutmeg Finch.

 

In the past two weeks the spotted Munia have been checking out the exhaust fan vent in our utility area. They would perch on the plants, fly in, hover around and then dash out. About Five or six days back, the birds started bringing blades of grass and grass shoots. They had selected our utility as their nest site.

They occupied the exhaust fan vent. Three days back, a clump of grass was dangling. We pushed it up with our mop stick. By evening, the grass was on the floor. We moved it from the floor to the planters but the birds did not recycle, they wanted fresh leaves. They got busy flying out and returning with green grass and still continue to do that.

They work in pairs. While one is out foraging, the other one keeps a watch. I've seen them make a trip every minute... swift workers. At times, both fly out and return after several minutes and then the frequent trips happen.

Looks like they were resting.

Then another bird joined them. Looks like the other bird has come to help the pair. 

Its nice to see them flying in, hovering, perching on the plants or grills and sometimes chirping. Looks like they are readying a nest to grow their family. Eagerly waiting to see what they do next.

 

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green bee eater

 One afternoon we sat in our balcony watching couple of green bee eaters. They would sit on one or two select spots on the Fire tree branches next our apartment building. Their heads were continuously turning left, right, up and down... looking for preys. Suddenly they would take off, fly swiftly in arcs and return only to do it again and again. After five or six attempts, one of them caught an insect.

Since they were hanging around, I decided to take pictures of them. By the time I got my camera, one of the birds had flown to another tree. These are few pictures of the bird which still remained on the Fire tree. It's shape changes significantly, when this bird relaxes it looks plump and when it stretches it looks lean.

I tried to get a shot when it was airborne but he bird was too swift. This is the moment when the bird aborted a takeoff. Its feathers remained spread for a second before it relaxed.

Its eyes must be capturing a hundred frames per second.. looking for preys and predators at the same time. The dark jutting streaks from its eyes look like eyeliner.

Looking straight into the lens.

The bird stretched to look over a branch or a leaf that was blocking its view. Notice the difference in size because of a small movement.

There are plenty of green bee eaters in this locality. Some times five or six of them perched together on a tree or cables. They usually takeoff one at a time, rarely seen them takeoff together,

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