Wishing you a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year
Some of the birding visits to Bangalore, Chennai, and Point Calimere
Thanks to Nitin for the birding in Bangalore. We did two trips to Hesserghatta lake bed. The first trip on the 9 th mainly to see the Raptors. The lake has some water but most of it is dry and with grass land and some trees that have been planted which in the end will destroy the grass land.
The first trip just saw two raptors-the Brahmini Kite and the Common Kestrel. Our aim was to spot the Raptors, as such we did see some waders sandpiper green, wood and common. The booted warbler was in a feeding frenzy and was a good model for the photographers. Yellow Billed Babbler, Tawny Babbler, Number of Bay Backed Shrikes, Black Drongo, Pipit, Rosy Starlings, Buchchat Pied male and female I will post the image of the female which is a little different from what we see in the north, Grey Francolin, Barn Swallow, Painted Stork, Cormorant Indian, Pelican Spot Billed, all egrets etc
Having missed the Raptors on this trip, Nitin And I decided to do another trip in the evening on the 14 Dec. The sightings were more or less the same with the raptors added to the list-Sparrow hawk, Marsh harrier male which was a lifer for me. Finally at near sunset Nitin took me a surprise area-at least 20 marsh harrier coming in for roosting, with one lone Pallied harrier. Watching the Harrier land in the field and then fly off to the final roosting place was a sight not seen earlier. Thanks Nitin. The last day a Bangalore we moved to Chennai for a 15 days trip.
On 17 did a trip to the Pallikarannai Marsh on the OMR and the Classic farms to see the Marsh land adjoining the Classic farms and the link road. This was followed by another trip with Sonika form Delhi bird and we also covered Kolvalam. The link road from OMR to the East coast Road.
At the Pallikarannai we saw grey headed lapwing, Bee eater green, Swaphens in large numbers, Terns, Jacana Pheasant Tailed, Openbill, Spoonbill, Painted stork, Common coot, Fulvous whistling Duck, Coot nesting with Chick, Egret great, Intermedite and cattle, Grebe little, pelican Spotbilled. A large number of waders but a distance, Sandpiper wood, green and the plovers were seen. A vist to Kovalam was rewarded with the Eurasian Curlew, a large no of Pelican Spot billed, there is a heronary in the Ocean Institute in the area, as it is a restricted area we were unable to get a good view. A pair of pied kingfisher at Kovalam, tern Caspian, Brown Headed Gull, Yellow wattled lapwing, red wattled, Terns to be Ided etc.
A thrid trip on the 29 we saw a large number of waders that had arrived. One single Common snipe, the the final sight of the osprey with a fish flying over head and final settled on the pylon to feast
The family made a trip to Point Calimere. Thanks to Dr Balachandran, we had the help of the guide at the site. The highlights were the little tern, Gull billed tern, Brown Headed gull, large no of painted stork, Egrets all types, Brahmini kite, Spotted dove, Blue Cheeked Bee Eater, Curlew Eurasian, Common sandpiper. Plover little ringed. The number of birds was less and the migratory birds would be three only by mid Jan.
The last visit was on the 28 to pulicate lake. The water has dried up and the area under water has reduced considerably. In spite of that we saw a large number of Flamingos in flocks of 300 to 500, and more that 10 such flocks along the drive from the main road and then on the road to Sriharikota and the dirt track to the right, Large number of waders with the little stint and the Little ringed plover, sandpiper, Ashy crowned, Pipit, grey heron, Shrike, Black winged Kite, Kestrel Common, and the surprise was seeing almost 2000 northern Pintails. Etc.
A nice birding trip with the family. The grandkids kept us on our feet and we loved very moment of our stay.
Vijay
wingco@icon.co.in
veena@icon.co.in
Wg Cdr Vijay K Sethi (Retd)
PH 011-26491538
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