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.  

Swinhoe’s minivet

Swinhoe’s minivet A first ever record of this species for Bangalore. We found this vagarant mixing with other minivets and glad to record this bird in Bangalore. Once we heard the sighting of this bird a quick check was made on the possible location and the next day morning (saturday) we were there to see if we can see this bird. We searched for an hour or so and then managed to sight this bird and also record a few images. Swinhoe’s minivet or brown-rumped minivet is a species of bird in the cuckooshrike family, Campephagidae. A bird that is commonly found in temperate forests, sub tropical or moist low land forests.

Montagu’s Harrier Female

Montagu’s Harrier Female The Montagu’s harrier is a migratory bird of prey of the harrier family. Its common name commemorates the British naturalist George Montagu. This was one of the boldest harrier seen, it would allow us approach very close and not get disturbed at all. In this particular scene the harrier was first seen early in the morning when the light was poor and then we made a full circle and came back after a couple of hours only to find this harrier perched in the same position. This sub adult seemed to be performing a Yoga pose for us.