Eventful birding at Amruthahalli Lake

11 April 2021

Today was indeed an eventful birding day at Amruthahalli lake. I spotted plenty of birds and captured the elusive ones. When the walk was over, the DSLR was 3GB full! One lesson was that the morning hours sees plenty of bird activity. The birds know the importance of basking under morning Sun! The expansive light over the lake during morning hours also is ideal for birding with natural light without inflating ISO. Here is the chronicle from today's birding activity.

The thicket due west of lake where apartment construction ongoing is home to plenty of grassland, bush resident birds. Lets start with oriental magpie robin. This is my first spotting in Bangalore. The bird was perched on electric line.

The "White Cheeked Barbet" next. Though I had been hearing their calls, rarely was able to spot them. Today this bird perched open for a while. The bird was singing koo-proo, koo-proo, at nearby tree which I couldn't shoot due to head-on sunlight

"Mr. and Mrs. Bushchat" always perch near this area. They are quite habituated to the human movements and are easy grab despite the tiny body.

This female stuck some thread into its body. She was struggling to remove it. Human wastes are quite disastrous for wildlife.

Later comes the "Ashy Prinia". I have seen them umpteen times. Their fidgety behaviour and restless movements inside dense bushes is extremely difficult to capture on poor autofocus camera. Finally these guys perched open and singing. I had some pictures of them too finally!

The surprise was "Yellow Billed Babbler". I was excited but the pictures did not culminate well :-). Nevertheless, now I know that they are here. Hope to have good opportunity in coming days! This babbler was basking under Sun behind the enmeshed twigs. Camera thought I was focusing on these twigs :-D. This resulted in poor focus unfortunately. Later the partner joined and started cuddling the bird :-). Eventually both of them flew under the bush for cover (or they have habitat?). Here are pictures.

This "Purple Sunbird" was sucking nectar from nearby flower plant. Only one image I could grab since frequent movement of walkers impelled the bird to fly away.

When I was looking around for birds, this "Rose Ringed Parakeet" drew my attention with typical call. It was like "What buddy. Just because you saw new birds, you ignore us ?". I had couple of shots of it to pacify the bird.

The "Black Headed Ibis" came close to the boundary of lake. Some shots of it.

During the concluding part of walk, I saw this new bird with strange call or rather new call for me :-). I was not aware of the bird ID. After googling, I realized that this bird has name "Pheasant Tailed Jacana". This bird was alone and anxiously calling someone. May be lost its herd or partner. Not clear shots but for record.

The "Indian Spot Billed Ducks" too were absorbing Sun and preening. This was first time I saw them in idle position!

Couple of "Grey Headed Swamp-Hen" pictures to conclude post.

There are black-drongo. coppersmith barbet, spotted dove, red-whiskered bulbul, tailor bird, Brahminy kite, black kite and egrets too residing nearby lake. Some of them have already been shared in exclusive "Bird Series" post. Rest of them will be shared in separate post. There are warblers and shrikes too, but till date their pictures have been elusive to take.

Check out my Bird Series blogs here : NKBirdSeries