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Monday, December 24, 2018

A photo blog - of a day’s visit to Najafgarh drain


A photo blog - of a day’s visit to Najafgarh drain

A panoramic view of the Najafgarh drain - now a wetland
             Me and my friend, who is also a keen bird watcher, had been contemplating a visit to the Najafgarh drain, since last few weeks that is situated at the outskirts of Delhi, along the Gurgaon border.  My friend, Mr. Prabhat Kumar has immense knowledge about the identity of the birds and their habitats.  He is also a keen blogger, but had been bogged down due to personal difficulties being faced by him since the last one year, he has a blog running in the name of – Birds in Delhi (India) - here is the link to his blog - http://birdsindelhi.blogspot.com/.  We had planned the trip twice since November end, but due to some last minute glitches, the visit could not materialize. 
Long tailed Shrike

Greater spotted eagle
Territorial warrior - the black Kite 
A long distance shot of a group of Starlings
A Baya weaver bird (male)
             Finally, on the 22nd of December, 2018 we were finally able to proceed ahead with our proposed outing.  However, the sun light had started fading, due to the light veil of cloud that had covered most of north Indian plains and is an annual feature, at this time of the year, but being determined to make the trip, we went ahead as planned.  The stretch of drain is vast and the region has been declared as an ‘Wetland’ recently, the length that we traversed was about 20 odd Kilometres and we saw a plethora of Birds, some I was able to shoot, whereas some just scooted away before the camera could focus and the greatest disappointment for me was not being able to shoot the Red Munia (both male & female) that were visible at many spots.  I have spotted around more than 50 bird species during the trip and here are some of the photographs of the birds (albeit not the full repertoire), some of them shot against the light, so enjoy the viewing –
A flock of Common Coot

Woolly necked Crane
Purple Heron
Grey Heron
A Painted stork about to land
A Cormorant drying its' feathers in the sun
A Red wattled Lapwing
A Jungle Warbler
Great Cormorant in water
Baya weaver bird (female)
Black shouldered Kite
A Jungle Owlet
A Plain flower pecker
Indian Robin
A Plain prinia
A Common Stonechat
A Bluethroat
Siberian Stonechat
A Pied Kingfisher
A White throated Kingfisher
A Pond Heron
A Common Buzzard
A Common Shank
Purple Moorhen
A White Wagtail
A pair of Sarus Crane
A Black Ibis
A Oriental White Ibis
A Black Drongo
A Black shouldered Kite in flight
A pair of Grey francolin
A Spot billed Duck
A Purple Sunbird
Greater Flamingos
The ducks take flight
As the evening sets in the birds fly homewards in a formation
Greylag Geese roosting
The water birds take to flight - as the evening sets it
© S. Roy Biswas

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Birds of my backyard in Timila Village (A photo blog)

Birds of my backyard in Timila Village
(A photo blog)
Grey hooded warbler
     I have described the geographical location of Village Timila in many of my blogs.  However, for the new visitors to my blog, I will give a brief description of the destination.  Timila is a nondescript little village situated about 14 Kms. from Ranikhet bazar on the main Ramnagar-Ranikhet State Highway in Tarikhet block.  As the entire belt above the road side on this stretch is reserved forest area, there is quite some greenery albeit a little stealing of wood by the villagers around, especially during the winter seasons.  However, human inhabitation being sparse the jungle has survived and so has the avian species to some extent.  The photographs in this blog have been captured by me during my stays for short duration's of time, during the various seasons spanning from summers, monsoon, autumn, winters and spring and in a vicinity of about 500 meters around my residence.  Hope you enjoy the photographic extravaganza of the avian species seen in and around in Timila village -
Bar tailed tree creeper

Black francolin (female)

Black francolin (male)

Black headed jay

Black throated bushtit

Blue whistling thrush
Chestnut thrush
Chestnut belied nuthatch
Cinerous tit
Common Kingfisher
Fire breasted flower pecker
Great or Himalayan barbet
Green backed tit
Grey bush chat (male)
Grey bush chat (female)
Grey fantail
Grey or Himalayan treepie
Grey winged blackbird
White cheeked or Himalayan Bulbul
Himalayan griffon vulture
Himalayan woodpecker
Hoopoe
Indian paradise flycatcher (female)
Jungle babbler
Khalij pheasant (female)
Khalij pheasant (male)
Oriental white eye
Red beaked blue magpie
Rusty cheeked scimitar babbler
Scaly bellied woodpecker
Spotted turtle dove
Streaked laughing thrush
Verditer flycatcher
Yellow breasted greenfinch