Grey francolin

  Commonly called in Hindi as the Teetar, because of the call it makes. An inhabitant of the cultivable land, grassland and the scrub forest. The male birds of the species can be identified by the two spurs on their legs while the female birds lack them. Males have an anchor shaped black mark on throat that is absent in females. Males larger than females. These birds are extremely shy and when approached would generally take to running and if persisted with the approach will take to their wings and fly for a short distance. They mainly feed on the grass seeds, grains. Some of the times they are observed to take termites and insects too. These birds are classified as least concern as per IUCN. These birds are hunted for meat and are sometimes grown as pets and are used for fighting.

Black Drongo

  A black bird with the fork V shaped tail is a resident of India. Photographically this is a very tough bird to expose, I generally prefer to wait til the light is about to harsh and then make images. This gives the sheen in the black feathers of the bird, as sheen here. While driving through one can observe these get extremely interested and approach very close to your vehicle. They do that hawk the insects and other prey like grasshoppers, bees, ants, termites, dragonflies etc. The adult black drongo is identified by a white spot at the base of its gape line (mouth) as can be seen in this picture. They are really aggressive and fearless birds and have seen on numerous occasions they have much bigger eagles, buzzards, hawks etc.

Bay backed Shrike

The shrikes are lovely posers, they perch right on top of the twings, shrubs and give a clear view, however they are the toughest to approach to make an image. This was one such occasion when the bird cooperated to make an image but still further away to my liking. These are residents of the scrub lands and grasslands, feeding on insects and other small worms etc. Sometimes they are known to impale the prey on a sharp object like a thorn before devouring them.  

Eurasian Cuckoo – hepatic female, Bangalore

  Hepatic-morph cuckoo also refers to the red-brown coloration and this coloration is mostly on the female birds. A passage migrant through Asia, winters in Africa. The cuckoos are brood parasites – which rely on other birds to raise their young. They lay their eggs parasitically along with other birds egg in the nest by pushing out one of the hosts egg from the nest. As the egg hatches it is raised by the other bird as their own. Cuckoo also evolves to lay eggs that imitate the hosts egg. As the cuckoo egg hatches it pushes out the host birds eggs or if the hosts eggs already hatched it pushes out the chick of the host. The bird is generally found in the open land, feeding on insects and caterpillars.

Eurasian Cuckoo – male, Bangalore

A passage migrant through Asia, winters in Africa. The male eurasian cuckoo looks like sparrowhawk and this helps in protecting while the female lays eggs. The cuckoos are brood parasites – which rely on other birds to raise their young. They lay their eggs parasitically along with other birds egg in the nest by pushing out one of the hosts egg from the nest. As the egg hatches it is raised by the other bird as their own. Cuckoo also evolves to lay eggs that imitate the hosts egg. The bird is generally found in the open land, feeding on insects and caterpillars. Close