Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Birding at Amruthahalli Lake this week - Few new joinees

30 June 2021

Every Wednesday is reserved for walk around Amruthahalli Lake to enjoy & capture avian creatures. In continuation of my birding series, here is short post of this week's birding.

The weather can turn uncanny. Yesterday it was bright blue and was expecting same since break monsoon was in place. Unfortunately, we woke up to overcast morning with arid clouds blocking morning Sun. The break monsoon is in effect. It is weird that during our childhood no such term existed. The west coast was being savaged by pelting rains during June/July season. Nowadays, monsoon pattern seems to have deviated. We see break in rains for nearly 2-3 weeks and thus increasing worries of farming community. The next spell rains would only be after July 11. Hopefully the rains commence even before.

Meanwhile the overcast skies disappointed me extremely. Most of the captures were taken with ISO800 resulting in grainier pictures. Despite that, I was able to snap few good shots when pale Sun was visible. As the day progressed, we witnessed bright Sun but by that time my walk had already concluded. Lets start the journey

Before proceeding to thicket, lets have couple of glimpses of White Ibis, Glossy Ibis and grey headed swamp hen!





Today, thicket was abuzz with birds. Additionally I saw scaly-breasted munia and cinereous tit playing amidst the thicket which added joy despite the overcast skies







Even though I had spotted munias at hometown, capturing them had been tantalizing due to limited lens reach. They were flying away as I approached them. Today I had opportunity to view them relatively close and photograph few. They were in large group and in playful mood. Here are few pictures








The purple rumped sunbird was in no mood to pose. They too were playing and looked grumpy while I interrupted them to photograph




The cinereous tit which I spotted after long gap, presented couple of melodies before leaving



The red-whiskered bulbul as usual enticed us with beautiful melody.


The white cheeked barbet momentarily arrived for photoshoot




The oriental magpie seems to be shy in city. Every time I see only their back and not crossing the median of thicket.


The ever aggressive black-drongo was unnecessarily showing dominance in thicket chasing away other birds.


Ashy prinia is in ever singing mode.



The spotted dove is most laziest of all of them. Just stick to one position and never move


The white throated kingfisher was spotted at unusual location. It did not hesitate to pose for a while on this occasion.




The traces of Sun finally fell on the city pushing the clouds apart






Last batch of birding before concluding the walk.




Check out my Bird Series blogs here : NKBirdSeries

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Bird Series - Scaly Breasted Munia

I have seen them on numerous occasions at my village especially over harvested paddy field. Never had luck to grab in my camera till date due to their small size and lesser reach my lens has. They used to shy away as soon as I approached them. It was not possible to stealthily approach since the area was open. Finally after a long wait, I managed to capture them decently at Amruthahalli lake on an overcast day. Even though the camera had to bump ISO to 800, the final pictures turned relatively sharped than expected. These tiny birds were in playful mode early morning moving rapidly between trees. I captured while they were resting for a while. There were around 6-7 to capture which means these birds are social creatures. These birds seem to be well-adapted to urban environments as well. Their scaly pattern under belly gives them adjective "scaly-breasted". I have seen them mostly over the fields means they forage on grains or perhaps insects? Not sure. Here are the pictures from overcast day. Hopefully I will be able to capture them in detail on bright sunny day too!







Looks their privacy was severely affected. One guy promised to have a watch on me.

I feel threatened and ashamed by that guy watching our activity.



You guys continue. I will have watch on him offered the other bird


He seems to be same idiot capturing in camera. Shameless fellow. Never mind, he is harmless. You guys continue your activity and I will clean myself.



Check out my Bird Series blogs here : NKBirdSeries

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