2009-09-06 Uran

The first halt decided this time was at a petrol pump just ahead on the main road before we take right to the police station.
The halt was for the search of black breasted weavers.

Before that went to the railway crossing just to drop Mayuresh where he was going to meet others.

There were some good sightings while going towards the railway crossing. Wire tailed swallows sitting on a parapet wall just near the road, a tree full of cormorants and most of all a mongoose right on the side of the road.

But it did not give us enough time to click its pics but was blessed later.

Behind the petrol pump are a lot of reeds and a big water body behind it.

In the water body we could see spotbilled ducks and coots. On the shore were a pair of were lesser whistling teals and the amazing thing was it had 2chicks under its wing.

Lesser whistling ducks with chicks


There was also a little grebe in the water but was sitting on a nest, another of first timer for a me.

Little Grebe on the nest


The black breasted weavers were seen going and coming into the reeds and mostly had a nest there. So were the red avadavats, black headed munias atleast 6-7 of them.

Black headed munia


From there we proceeded to the police station road.
We decided go straight to the end of the road to search for rudy breasted rails and painted snipes.
No luck finding them but on the way next to the road in the grasses just in near the water we came across a flock of male and female baya weavers and the scaly breasted munias feeding on the grass seeds.

Baya weaver (female)



Baya weaver (male)



A little on the usual spot, the wires we saw the huge flock of migrating barn swallows.

Barn swallow



Barn swallow





We went out of the car in the search of the rail but no luck.
Till this time the rain started pretty heavily and even with jackets we were pretty wet.
Interesting spotted a black winged stilt calling loudly as we were walking on the road but still sitting still near by.

Later we found the reason being that it had its chicks around and it was hiding them below its wings. There were 2 of them.

Black winged stilt chick



From there we came back to the water body next to the police station a location to find pheasant tailed jacanas, common moorhen, etc.

We could not see these but saw cotton pygmy geese, many terns and a little grebe.

Little Grebe


As we were watching the little grebe a baya weaver flew in and sat on the grass blades near to us. It tore the grass blade nicely into 3 threads :-) and soon we could see where it was building the nest. All this we were watching from within the car at a long distance so as not to disturb it. In fact there was a colony of atleast 4-5 weavers.

Baya weaver collecting nesting material


Baya weaver nest


Just then we saw a small blue kingfisher perched on a tree.
It came and sat on a pole in the center of the water and a second one sat on a bush very near to the water.


Common kingfisher


Common kingfisher on the bush


Then one of them dived twice to catch a fish and I could get one in flight and then with a catch in its mouth.

Common kingfisher fishing


Common kingfisher with the catch


Common kingfisher from the back


Till now the rain had stopped and decided to go back in search of the rail.
This bird at first put us into a bit of confusion initially but we finally concluded it to be a ruff and then also confirmed by experts.

Ruff




As we were looking around we could see a huge black cloud coming towards us. It was not a rain cloud :-) but a flock of atleast 200 gulls.
These were huge birds. There were 2 types of birds. One which had spots on the belly and brownish colored. The other one were plain white from below and a beak having a red dot. As per expert these are Heuglin's gull first one is 1st winter.

Heuglin's gull (juvenile)






Big flock of Heulglin's gull




From here decided to back to the police station and try the standard trail which leads to the water body at the back along the railway tracks.

Here we got fantastic view of 2 mongoose and red munias.

On the trail just in the front of the police station
Red munia, Spotted dove and a mongoose in the background.


The mongoose


Spotted dove


Red Munia (Male)






We decided to one final chance at getting some photos of the black breasted weaver proceeded to the petrol pump.
It started raining so heavily that we had to wait for atleast 10-15 to get some clear view let alone photo opportunitly.

In this rain the black headed munias and the Ashy prinia gave some good view by pearching on the nearby bush.

Black headed munia in rains




Black breasted weaver