Bear with me for this long mail :)
As I was out birdwatching today, about 10-15 minutes from my residence, a Signature Spider caught my eye - something I had never seen here in Manipal before. Two new species to the checklist earlier in the morning - an Oriental Turtle Dove and a Ruby-throated Bulbul, and this was turning out to be one of the better birdwatching morning of late.
A slight movement behind the spider web caught my eye, and initially I thought I'll ignore it - probably a Booted or Blyth's reed Warbler. None of the skulkers were calling at the time anyway. Then I caught a glimpse of the bird again - only the body and the tail, and a fat mouse like bird, clearly bigger than any acrocephalus/hippolais I see here (and definitely not a Clamorous Reed) and a hefty tail to boot. I immediately thought locustella! This guy was too small to be a Rufous Babbler and too quiet! I waited. And got nothing but moving leaves, and eventually the bird went to the other side of the bush.
By then, with camera in hand, I stood using a tree trunk as a cover - listening to the Malabar Pied Hornbills who were moving into the area. And then the movement again. this time much more obvious, and much more obviously clumsy. The tail was all I saw for most of the time. A broad brownish tail that would constantly be moving up, down, left, and right. The body had no marks on it, and I was getting confused - not a locustella after all. And then I saw the yellow on the beak. A juvenile of whatever it was.
I focussed on the spot through my viewfinder, increasing the ISO and all - just in case. It's full body came out of that dense thicket for the first time in 30 minutes and thankfully, my fingers remembered to click. I still had no idea what it was but now my mind knew what it wanted this bird to be. It went on to a higher perch on the same thicket, waved it's tail and right back down. I immediately looked into the LCD display of the cam, and I felt ridiculous for even hoping that it might be a Broad-tailed Grassbird. But nothing else was coming to my mind. I came home, looked at images elsewhere and it did nothing to do make me feel otherwise.
Is it what I think it is? A rare high altitude grassland bird of the Ghats in the middle of a secondary forest at 117m above sea level? I don't know. But from what I saw in the field, not helped by not getting to hear anything, I knew that it couldn't be anything but a Locustella sp. The photograph only makes me want to believe further that it is indeed a Schoenicola platyurus.
Link to the photo: http://s10.postimage.org/sbqbx3fo9/IMG_4161.jpg
In Manipal, Karnataka on 05 Dec 2011.
Cheers!
Ramit
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