(delhibirdpix) A morning at Sinhagad Valley

Hi Guys,

I made a short trip to Sinhagad Valley,Pune with Mihir today. We were also joined later by Viraj and Yash.

We started off the morning with about 15 Jungle Bush Quails by the stream as soon as we reached. As we watched them scramble up the slope in their ever clumsy manner, a curious black naped monarch came by to investigate our presence. With a few quick flits he was gone. We proceeded to the fields waiting for the sun to rise and hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the early morning skulkers. Sure enough, we saw a lone Scimitar babbler who disappeared into the thickets when he saw us but remained vocal for a bit after that. Suddenly we heard the rustling of dry leaves near our feet and looked down to see a puff throated babbler standing inches away from Mihir's foot. Neither of us were ready to shoot since we hadn't even set the cameras coz we weren't expecting shots in that light. We then realized that there were 4 of them foraging the leaf litter in the dried stream below. One of them would occasionally would go onto a clearing like a rock or branch and puff himself up and ruffle his feathers a few times before returning to the foraging. Was very interesting to watch them at close quarters for about 20 minutes before returning to the stream.

Some of the regular sightings there were the white throated fantails, the tickell's blue flycatchers, lots n lots of Eurasian blackbirds, ioras, white-eyes, small minivets, white throated kingfishers, chestnut shouldered petronias, a lone black shouldered kite and the other commoners. I was keenly on the lookout for the Asian brown flycatcher which a lot of people seem to have sighted over the last two weeks but unfortunately dipped on that one. The sun came up strong and hot by the stream so we decided to head up to the fort for raptors. After a quick "misal" at Amruteshwar, we drove up to the top, encountering some pied bush-chats, crested buntings, bay-backed and long tailed shrikes and a crested hawk eagle enroute. After some searching near the tower we found what we had come for, the peregrine falcon(F.p.peregrinus). This adult soared onto the tower and sat there for a while after taking off again and kept making sallies over the fort. Finally he dived into the rear valley and we lost sight of him.

It was a really good visit by means of observations though not for photographs coz of the harsh light. If anyone has also made recent trips there, kindly do add sightings.

p.s. Attaching a photo of the bold puff throated babbler that came to check us out.

Species:- Puff-throated babbler

Date:- 12-05-2010

Location:- Sinhagad Valley, Pune

       Equipment used:- Canon 40D with Sigma 70-300mm APO DG Macro(Non-IS)

 

-Regards,
Rohan

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