Mangalajodi in Odisha is not just a winter birding hotspot. To the passionate birder, this is a place of pilgrimage. Besides the opportunity to watch a number of species at extremely close quarters with minimum intrusion, it offers something else — serenity Continue reading Mangalajodi – birds and serenity in a winter wetland
In Rishi Valley, where trees and rocks are teachers, watching butterflies is a highly enjoyable part of the education. Here are field notes from wandering around the school grounds spotting butterflies on the last morning of 2017. Continue reading Watching Butterflies – Field Lessons from Rishi Valley
From an apparition to a presence, the endangered Yellow-throated Bulbul regaled us with an appearance on a short birding walk at Rishi Valley. Continue reading Encounter – Yellow-throated Bulbul at Rishi Valley
Visiting the same location time and again has been the secret of this year’s winter birding escapades. It’s March but the migrants are still here. Among this week’s surprises was a flock of Garganey, wintering ducks from Europe that I have observed at Kaikondrahalli for the first time Continue reading Winter birding – it isn’t over until it’s over
Why go on an expensive safari to watch birds when your backyard is just as well endowed as any forest? Continue reading Balcony Safari – The idle joy of birding
The Aristotelian phrase ‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer’ doesn’t quite apply in the case of the Welcome Swallow, which was named by Australian farmers eager for its arrival in the spring Continue reading Encounter – The Welcome Swallow
Day 1 was an ‘acclimatizer’. Ha. Acclimating is an oxymoron. Ask those who laboured up the slopes from Neuli to Shakti and ended up painfully breathless by the end of the day. Part 2 of Sandeep Somasekharan’s report of The Green Ogre trek to the Great Himalayan National Park in 2012 Continue reading GHNP Trek – Day 1: An oxymoron called acclimating
Even birders rarely felicitate bulbuls with a second glance, worse if they are Red-whiskered or Red-vented Bulbuls. But when we head up to the hills, the sight of the Himalayan Bulbul is a joy to us. For it means we are in the hills, and there’s a bounty of birdlife waiting to be discovered. Continue reading Encounter – Himalayan Bulbul
Warming up for our trek to the Great Himalayan National Park, the Ogres spend time in Delhi, waiting impatiently to get there. Part 1 of a new series by Sandeep Somasekharan Continue reading Great Himalayan National Park Trek – Day Zero – Warming up
What would birds say if they could talk as humans do? Enjoy these candid moments from the avian world – words of a feather. And don’t forget to share the buzz! Continue reading Words of a feather – what birds would say if they could talk
In the Polachira wetlands of Kollam, southern Kerala, the sight of a White Stork, a winter visitor increasingly hard to come by in the subcontinent, fills the mind with memories seen and imagined Continue reading Encounter: White Storks wintering in Polachira
A birding lesson from the field: Don’t pass up a drongo — or any black bird with a forked tail Towards the end of our Parambikulam tramway trek, as I dragged my weary feet past a tree on which was … Continue reading The next time you ignore a drongo…
The White-cheeked Barbet, earlier known as the Small Green Barbet, just melts into the canopy. But peer into the roof of leaves and you’ll see it devouring fruits and figs I saw this green bird for the first time at Polachira, a wetland near Thiruvananthapuram. My friend Rahul pointed to a bush and said, “White cheeked Barbet”. Where? All I could see were green leaves. Careful scrutiny helped me discern its form. And that was my introduction to Megalaima viridis. In the green canopy, the barbet is tough to spot Look carefully atop fruiting trees, and you can see through its … Continue reading Encounter: White-cheeked Barbet, the Invisible Chatterbox