Flamingos live until they are about 40 years old but only breed every five or six years. Non-breeding birds do not return to breeding sites until they are ready to breed again. This and rapid loss of habitat has put this bird in the near threatened list Tweet
Long-legged Buzzards from the Balkan and Russia are mostly migratory and spend the winter in northern Afrika or in the Sahel. Some birds spend the winter in Hungary or Greece. Sometimes Long-legged Buzzards are seen farther in the west, for example in Austria and Germany. A map on Wikipedia shows that the ones found in [...]
A fact that I learnt today about this species today is that are able to see near ultraviolet light, allowing the birds to detect the urine trails around rodent burrows as they shine in an ultraviolet colour in the sunlight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Kestrel Tweet
European Roller, Coracias garrulus is a long distance migrant and at times a few straggler can even reach up to Nagpur. This individual was however taken on our recent trip to Kutch, Gujarat. Tweet
Twitch: a British term used to mean “the pursuit of a previously-located rare bird.” Wikipedia During our previous visit to Kutch, Gujarat, we had manage to photograph almost all the major bird species, however, the Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) had eluded us. Yes, we had managed to get a sighting but I was not happy [...]
All good things come to an end would be a cliché but then they do and today was the last day of this mega birding trip and it was a fitting end I would say! We had reserved the morning for the McQueen’s Bustard. The day started with a close encounter with a Steppe eagle. [...]
26th Jan, 2010: Roughly 250 kilometers on bumpy terrain with temperature ranging from 7 degrees Celsius to 34 degree Celsius and lots of dust. Am dead tired, my face it all chapped but it was the best Republic day celebration for me ever Tweet
25th Jan, 2010: This can be termed as “The day when nothing much happened”. We left CEDO, Nakhtrana at 6:00 am and reached Rann Riders , Dasada at 12:00 a distance of 350km. Tweet
24th Jan, 2010: A day of “Super specialty birding” is what I would call the day! Swati and Aasim opted to stay back due to yesterday’s tiring drive. So I went along with Mr Jugal Tiwari to a thorn forest near Banni grassland searching for the first target species of the day. “White-naped Tit” – [...]
23rd Jan, 2010: Started the day with an excyrsion to the Naliya Grasslands. The trip started off well with spotting of a Male Pallid Harrier soaking up the heat of the early morning sun. As soon as we had enough of the Harrier we spotted another beautiful lifer Black Francolin. Tweet
