Sunday, March 06, 2011

2011-02-26 Birdrace

Participated in the Mumbai bird race held on 26th Feb 2011.
Me, Kunal, my dad and Prachi formed the team.
Route taken Karnala-Talawe(nerul)-Airoli bridge-Bhandup pumping station-powai-MNP

We started early morning at 6:30 at Karnala.
Here we could see some interesting species very well like black naped oriole, white rumped munia, orange headed groundthrush, Shikra, Paradise flycatcher, gold fronted chloropsis, Brown headed barbet.

Orange headed ground-thrush




Ashy drongo


Black naped oriole




White rumped Munia




Gold fronted chloropsis


Brown headed barbet


Paradise flycatcher




Thick billed flowerpecker






Crested serpent eagle


Reached at around 11:00am at the waterbody just behing sea wood, thanks to Mr. Julius.
This is again a wonderful place.
Even with sun shining very high many waders were seen with little egret, intermediate egret, great egret and an Osprey circling high above.
Wood sandpiper


Osprey


Painted stork


Osprey


At around 12 we reached talawe.
The common stonechat, pied bushchat, lauging dove, black drongo, plain prinia were still very much out.
The bluethroat, red avadavat and larks were missing.
Common Stonechat


After lunch at vashi we proceed to Bhandup via Airoli.
Took a halt on the Airoli bridge and spotted large number of godwits, black/brown headed gulls, norther shovelers, black headed ibis and flamingoes.

At bhandup the timing not at all good and other than a shrike and common stone chat only spotted a gull billed tern and grey heron.

Next stop was IIT powai but it was a big disappointment.
Because of some miscommunication no permission letters were available.
With the help of one of the professors whom my dad knew we just went to the lake without much birding as we had no permission came back.
Saw the usuals purple swamphen, bronzed wing jacana, little tern.

Reached MNP early and did some birding in the campus and came accross the common birds like koel, crow pheasant, golden oriole, shikra, crimson breasted barbet.
In the river behind saw a flock of sand plovers and black winged stilts.

Overall a nice birding day!!