Weekend birding at Amruthahalli and Jakkur Lake - First sighting of Painted Stork

18,19th December 2022

The weekend was fruitful one I would say, primarily due to maiden spotting of Painted Stork. Here is a short tour.

Even though Amruthahalli Lake birding walk was prior to Jakkur one, I had valuable memories from Jakkur Lake. So let me start from Jakkur.

Jakkur lake is brimming with avian creatures especially aquatic ones. The road to jakkur lake is closed due to maintenance activity and hence we had to take long detour to reach the place. It was already dusk unfortunately. With poor light threatening to thwart my birding activity, I was skeptical that I can capture something good.

This time we chose the entrance near railway track and rewarded aptly! The islands at this part of lake hosts plenty of wetland birds including pelicans, herons, stork, cormorants, grebes and many more. I was thrilled to watch the painted stork for first time. The bird stood like a statue for long duration which enabled me to capture them clearly despite the poor light.

The Little Grebe was enjoying evening swim in lake. Its face though always feels like grumpy :-)

The Grey heron too stood still like the painted stork.

The flock of pelicans were perched on the tree in island basking under feeble Sun.

Jakkur lake is ideal spot to capture wetland birds in flight when Sun is bright. You see them frequently here flying across islands! Jakkur Lake was fruitful visit. Perhaps I would frequent my visit to this place. If you are bird enthusiasts, choose the entrance near railway track. The islands nearby is home to diverse wetland birds. Hope to visit this lake during morning hours to catch glimpse of many more avian beauty

Back to Amruthahalli Lake for morning scenes

The grey headed swamphen is fearless poser as always!

The black headed ibis too are adjusted to this wetland. You can shoot plenty of in-flight shots of them in morning hours.

The coppersmith barbet was calling its partner from tree top.

And so was female pied-bushchat!

The valiant white throated kingfisher caught its breakfast and staring at me if I needed one :-). Its expression was like "Keep aside the camera, go home and  have your breakfast on time like me" :-).

Another one posed due east of lake. It was as if "What who's behind? Just another annoying photographer to disturb our morning routine" :-)

The spotted dove was peacefully basking under the Sun camouflaged in entwined vine, Perhaps it needed peaceful warm-up to be undisturbed by ever aggressive Black-Kites.

The plumage of glossy ibis faintly glowed owing to feeble sun. It had sharp eyes on the photographer and his moves. Perhaps, they are skeptical of lake fencing :-). Its stillness for a while seemed like testament to my theory

A great morning in amruthahalli lake. Perhaps the lack of vegetation is primary hurdle for avian creatures to thrive. Amruthahalli lake has potential to grow but lacks administrative push which is common in India.

Bangalore has been scoring an average 120+cms annual rainfall from past 3 years. If enough attention were given for aggregating rain water channels., this lake would have been waterbody now than remaining as mammoth empty bucket.

Check out my Bird Series blogs here : NKBirdSeries