2009-01-26 Tamhini

Started from our place in pune at 6am. Caught the 6:30am ST harihareshwar which goes via mulshi-tamhini.

Reached Tamhini by 8am. Visited the temple and met its trust members.
Got info on how to proceed towards the forest (devrai) behind the temple.

It was full of bamboo trees and they were all flowering.
Bamboo flowering




At the start of the trail itself we got the Common Rosefinch on a bamboo tree. But they were very shy and did give very good poses.
So proceeded further towards the forest. At the entrance of the forest itself came across a huge numer of bamboo trees. On each one there were around 20-25 common rosefinches. So in all there were atleast 100+ of these.

Common Rosefinch









There were others like the pied bushchat in the fields just at the start of the forest. Then there were the other smaller birds like the warblers and the tailor.

Warbler







There were some sunbrids chirpping around which turned out be the crimson backed sunbirds.

Crimson backed sunbird



The large green barbet was calling almost continuously.
A dog was following us for some time though we tried to shoo it away. A little distance we lost it and it went ahead of us. Soon there was some comotion ahead and I could just a glimpse of the birds which flew off which looked like some fowl and could be a red jungle fowl. Then made it a point to make the dog run away.

There was a painted francolin calling away at a distance on our side and another one was responding from the other side of the valley.
After going a little ahead the call was coming from much nearer.
So we tried to follow the call and find it out. But alas we were never able to find it.

During this following we were sitting still for long time and during this time we sighted a group of jungle babblers, paradise flycatcher, red throated flycatcher, white rumped shama, purple sunbird, common rosefinches were anyway there and a puff throated babbler.

At one of the openings in the forest we heard a lot of chirpping on the trees above us. There we saw atleast 20+ black bulbuls. Withing there was a scarlet minivet and large green barbet.
Black Bulbul





It was nice experience to visit such a nice forest !!