Sunday, January 14, 2007

Tungareshwar December 2006

TS Chanakya Jan 2007

My self and my friend Dr Saurabh Jindal started the walk at around 8am on 14th of Jan.

This is the trail map (picture taken from google earth).


As soon as we left the palm beach road and started on the trail towards the talaw we were welcome by the Barn swallows and wire tailed swallows flying very nearby us giving us a good look at them.
There were also a few palm swifts flying higher.

Near the talaw we saw a plain prinia and mostly a young of common stone chat.








In the talaw there were a lot of waders. A large group of stints flying farther away, a group of common redshanks, sandpipers, a little egret and a lone grey heron.
Also there were pond herons and little cormorants.





The other water bodies beyond the lake have dried by now and we could walk across them towards the other side near the more grassland to look out for munia.
We got a closer look at pond heron in this area.



On the other side we saw a huge gathering of red munia. Around 30-40 of them sitting on grass and on ground. It was red every where.






A lone pied bushchat was also sitting in the background (see image below)



A pair of Red wattled lapwings. This one shot a little later.



Long tailed Shrike



There were atlead 8-10 spotted doves and similar number of laughing doves.

Laughing Dove


As there were lot of red munias on the ground there were also a lot of Ashy crowned sparrow larks. A shot of male and female below.

















Also saw a Singing bushlark (correct me if i am wrong)




The day was made by a blue throat hopping around for a long time giving us ample time to admire it.




There was lone Common bushchat disturbing the blue throat.


Further ahead we saw around 4 hoopes and a pair of green bee earters.



On the sea front we could see some grey herons, egrets, plovers, sandpipers, red shanks and eurasian curlews.
On the way back we saw a shikra female perched on a tree nearby and a black kite sitting on a stone.

All in all a great day !!!

Bird List
1 Drongo Black
2 Redshak Common
3 Prinia Plain
4 Stonechat Siberian
5 Sandpiper Common
6 Heron Grey
7 Egret Little
8 Cormorant Little
9 Stints
10 Tern Gullbilled
11 Kingfisher Common
12 Munia Red
13 Buschat Pied
14 Lark Ashy crowned
15 Dove Spotted
16 Dove Laughing
17 Bluethroat
18 Lapwing Red wattled
19 Beeeater Green
20 Hoopoe Common
21 Oriole Eurasian Golden
22 Bushlark Singing
23 Robin Magpie
24 Shrike Longtailed
25 Swallows Common
26 Swallows Wiretailed
27 Swift Palm
28 Kingfisher White Breated
29 Shikra
30 Shrike Long tailed

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Fruit Bats

Few shots of bats roosting on a casurina tree behind the punjab wadi stop.
There are around 100-150 bats.
These are the India fruit bats also called as flying fox.
There main food is fruits mainly mangoes,bananas,etc


Monday, January 01, 2007

Uran bird watch Dec2006

Road map from Palm beach road end to JNPT
(This is my first time so the route may not be completely correct.
This who know please correct.)




At Jasai on the way to Uran-JNPT
A great spot where we sighted a lot of waders and some rare bird sightings too.

As we got down of the bus we were greeted with Black headed munias






Blue throat (thanks to adesh)

Plain prinia

As we crossed over to the other side of the road and walked on a trail leading away from the road there was a water body to the left of the trail.

On the right as well as right as well as the left hand side of the trail there were lot of waders.

The once which were prominently visible were the painted storks and the grey herons.

One great sighting was that of a lone White stork. As per information from Adesh there are only 2 white storks migrating from Europe to this area. So it was a rare sighting

Other waders sighted black winged stilts, Spotted redshank (these can be seen in the snap below)

Some snaps of collection of waders. One can see a eurasian spoonbill on the left most side in the snap below


Some snap of painted storks


Then we also saw oriental skylark flying past and sighted Ashy crowned lark




and
Rufous tailed lark


Next surprise was the Black breasted weaver. Magnificient bird !!








Long tailed shrike



Siberian Stonechat



With so many different birds to see the halt finally extended to more than 2hrs.
Its was a pleasurable one.

Ahead we halted at one more place in between where we saw Red Munia , Green bee-eaters, Shikra, Black drongo.

Later Adesh took us to a standard spot where he knew we might find a Perigrine falcon and because of Adesh sharp and trained sight he could spot the falcon sitting on a very far away electric pole and we could see with his spotting scope.

Again from the view point near the JNPT training centre there were huge number of sightings of different kind. Garganeys, coots, cormorants, Bronzewinged Jacanas, Osprey were a few of them








Starting Adesh got a news from our Navi mumbai bird watchers that there is a huge flock of Brahminy ducks nearby.

We got some other interesting birds there like the western reef egret , avocet and common blue kingfisher







Last but not the least a scally breasted Munia perched on a bush 2ft from me.





Finally the bird list

1 Prinia Plain
2 Munia Blackheaded
3 Munia Red
4 Stonechat Siberian
5 Lark Rufoustailed
6 Lark Ashycrowned
7 Skylark Orinetal
8 Stork Painted
9 Stork White
10 Heron Grey
11 Egret Little
12 Egret Cattle
13 Spoonbill Eurasian
14 Duck Spotbilled
15 Harrier Marsh
16 Heron Purple
17 String Little
18 Stilt Blackwinged
19 Redshank Common
20 Redshank Spotted
21 Tern Gullbilled
22 Gull Brownheaded
23 Greenshank
24 Sandpiper Green
25 Sandpiper Marsh
26 Weaver Blackbreasted
27 Shrike Longtailed
28 Shikra
29 Beeeater Green
30 Kingfisher White breasted
31 Koel
32 Eagle Booted
33 Kite Pariah
34 Falcon Perigrine
35 Duck Garganey
36 Coots Common
37 Grebe Little
38 Moorhen Purple
39 Jacana Bronzewinged
40 Warbler Booted
41 Flowerpecker Plainbilled
42 Sunbird Purple
43 Swift Palm
44 Swallow Wiretailed
45 Egret Westernreef
46 Duck Brahminy
47 Warbler Blythsreed
48 Warbler Clamarousreed
49 Kingfisher Common
50 Osprey
51 Munia Scallybreasted
52 Lapwing Redwatled
53 Egret Large
54 Bulbul Redvented
55 Cormorant Little
56 Tailor bird
57 Iora Common
58 Wagtail Grey
59 Wagtail Yellow
60 Heron Pond
61 Avocet Pied
62 Kite Brahminy
63 Drongo Black
64 Ibis White
65 Godwit Blackwinged
66 Ruff