Sunday, March 6, 2011

Bird walking in Rajkot.

I arrived at the Navjeevana Convention center a tad early, fresh from Gir. The campus is quite large with a banana grove and many trees over a few acres. This should be rich birding I said to myself and sure enough from my window I could hear birdsong. So many different calls and so close by that I decided to go down and outside and check it out.


A host of babblers were there making their presence felt as they always do but when they were joined by no less than 4 male purple sunbirds and when a shikra flew by going after a spotted dove, I decided there was more to this place than met the eye. The place was swarming with birds. I had left the camera in the room and on going up I realized that I could just use the bean bag and the window sill and get a lot of good shots at tree top height.


That proved to be a good idea and sure enough after I set up a golden oriole parked himself right outside. I mean wow! In the first hour sitting at my window I had already spotted babbler, golden oriole, common myna, sunbird, blue rock pigeon, collared dove, spotted dove, shikra, lapwing, greater coucal, rosy ringed parakeet, red vented bulbul, drongo, koel, oriental magpie robin. I got a few shots of the oriole and babbler and the sun bird that I had not been able to get in Gir.
The shikra was across the entire property and even though I could see it, the picture did not really make the grade at all. He was a really sneaky fellow. He would sit up in the branches deliberately unnoticeable and then swoop out suddenly after the doves. I did not see him score though but he was at it.
My favourite bird is the purple sunbird and finding it in strength here was a bonus. Getting a picture was wonderful as well.
A very fun part of being in Rajkot is driving on a “chakkada”. This last is a motorbike with a pick-up truck back. We all piled in for a great fun ride adown the main highway. Apparently its only outside the city that it can be used for passengers, inside the city its only for goods. Still I thought the picture looks pretty good! Ha!

4 comments:

  1. The yellow bird that you are referring to as GOlden oriole is actually a black naped oriole. I was lucky to see this in Mumbai from my balcony.

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  2. thanks some1unowell.

    Really appreciate that.

    cheers

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