Indian Roller with catch

  The state bird of Karnataka goes by the other common name of Neelkanth meaning blue throat. This is a colorful bird with varying shades of blue and Indigo usually seen perched on wires and tree tops. It will sit patiently observe the ground for some movement and make a quick plunge to capture its prey. The roller has a wide diet and is known to feed on insects, anarchids, snakes, amphibians, reptiles etc. They are known as rollers because of their display – the male is known to perform twists and turns during the breeding season and consequently this name. This bird is found across Indian subcontinent and is classified as least concern by IUCN.

Grassland

Pristine grassland are a very difficult find these days. These vast tracts of land with tall grass that become a golden hue when they dry host myriads of species of avifauna. This image is one such that shows the beauty of the grassland with two of its inhabitants – the Black buck and the Black Drongo. What makes the subject very interesting is the blackbuck seems to have lost a part of the mighty horn that it has. The blackbuck is also called as the Indian antelope, is a near threatened species as per IUCN. The main reason for the diminishing blackbuck is the habitat loss, hunting. Blackbuck is the state animal of Andra Pradesh. There are many tribes that rever blackbuck and there is some cultural reference and the blackbuck is called as krishna mrig / Krishna Jinka.

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.

Changeable hawk-eagle – Attitude

The stare , the look and attitude of a bold raptor, that’s what we saw with this individual. As with the tradition whenever we have seen a CHE perched in the open like this we have always spotted a tiger next. We did see the tiger tank female’s cubs after seeing this individual :-). A medium sized raptor that is seen in the southern and southeast Asian forests. This prefers well wooded areas sitting in the open branches under the forest canopy scanning for prey. The reason for the name changeable is because the occurrence of more than one form / morph of the bird. This eagle feeds on a variety of prey that includes birds, mammals, snakes and lizards. One of the most widespread and common Asiatic hawk-eagle species, their status is classified as least concern by IUCN.