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Anush Shetty — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:56:00 +0000

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Finally, Over :)

Anush Shetty — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:52:00 +0000

Asian Koel (Male)

Asian Koel (Female)

Apparently these orchid flowers bloom up only during the christmas season

Jungle Myna

Red Spurfowl
One of the most shyest birds

the walk is over

Anush Shetty — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:57:00 +0000

The walk is over. It is going to be a new stretch tomo. No more fancy air-conditioned buses, no more of hot Idly/Vada/Coffee on either sides of the place and no more walking along the lovely avenue of trees. I enjoyed the stretch so much for the last 7 months walking there, be it rains or sunshine it didn’t matter. I have seen KR Road being literally brought down by pulling out its trees. The basket weavers all along the road moved from their tree shelters to a new artificial plastic shaft. Today road wears a desert like look without those trees. I have enjoyed watching the playful kindergarten kids from the school there. I hadn’t realised that there could be so many memories attached to this place. I am going to miss them all. I am looking forward for my last walk today.

Rufous Treepie, Thattekadu

Anush Shetty — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:26:00 +0000

Rufous Treepie.
The Rufous Treepie would come and feed on the Papaya fruits.

I still have some photographs left from the Thattekadu trip. Its been almost 3 months and feels like I have just returned from there

Some bird photographs

Anush Shetty — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:04:00 +0000

Little Green Bee-Eater, Turahalli.
Just came and sat on a wire very close.

Brahminy Kite feeding on a fish

Asian Paradise Flycatcher,Turahalli

Female Purple-rumped Sunbird, Turahalli

Tawny Bellied Babbler, Valley School

The Rosy Pastors at Turahalli

Anush Shetty — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:56:00 +0000

We are just driving around when we heard a a lot of activity in a Ficus tree. Ficus trees attract a lot of birds and the tree bore figs all over. It was just off the road. When we went close to the tree, we realised that they were the Rosy Pastor which were feeding on the figs in large numbers. We spent some time observing them until all of them flew at once in huge groups and it was a visual treat to watch them.

The figs

(Article Link) Serving the Goddess : The dangerous life of a sacred sex worker

Anush Shetty — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:14:00 +0000

I hadwritten a small note about William Dalrymple’s story in AID Sutra : Daughters of Yellamma. New York Times carries the same story here , Serving the Goddess

Marine birding at Fort Kochi

Anush Shetty — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:21:00 +0000

We set on a small fisherman boat. We had just landed up at Fort Kochi in the morning just to spend some time watching the marine wildlife. The shore wasn’t as dirty as I thought, atleast where we were loafing around. The sighting of the Dolphins from the sea shore excited us and we decided to go on for a short sail. The few of the sea shore from the sea is simply fantastic. We stopped on a couple of small islands looking for the migrants.

We saw quite a large group of the Common Terns. One of them was sitting very comfortably sunning itself. We approached it slowly but walking on a wet sand is an adventure by itself. You never know when you are going to sink into it [:P], a point where you really feel how lucky you’d have been of born as a bird which can support itself anywhere. We walked obliquely towards the bird and the bird seemed didn’t seem bothered by our presence. It sat down there watching the waves while the rest of its family were happily playing around.

Common Tern

Even though we saw a lot of Dolphins (i.e the Indian Humpback Dolphin), their presence was sensed only by some underwater activity. Once in a while, some part of their body appeared out of the water but within no time they went back into the water. At one point of high currents, we sensed a lot of underwater activity. The Dolphins were in a group and we could just them popping out their intelligent heads. At one point, one of them came out and quickly snapped a fish. It was a lifer moment and I don’t know if I’ll be able to witness it again in my life.

Indian Humpback Dolphin with a fish. I was really really lucky with this one.

As we went farther, we sighted the huge flock of Caspian Gulls. It is very nice to observe these gulls which we fly other in huge flocks. Other than the Caspian Gulls, we also saw the Heuglin’s Gull, Western Reef Egret, the Greater Sandplover and a couple of other migratory species. It is not just the bird, even the butterflies were in good numbers and they were in the process of migration.

Caspian Gull

Caspian Gull in flight

Heuglin’s Gull

Greater Sand Plover

Western Reef Egret with Gulls flying over

Singing with Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher

Anush Shetty — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:12:00 +0000

Valley School is my favourite place in Bangalore now. Not very far from home and I love the trails there. The bird sightings are superb too. The Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher came out calling in groups of 2 trying to see if there was anybody else in response to my playback.I wasn’t expecting it to come so close to us. I was also able to see them drinking water from a small stream of water. They hopped on to on a broken twig and started sipping water. It was for a short while but still i enyoyed every moment watching them do that. I didn’t get a good picture, but the others with me were excited and got some really good shots, but still I enjoyed it

random observations

Anush Shetty — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:25:00 +0000

The shopkeeper is trying to be economical, but indirectly he is eco-friendly

Smart Guy, he has inserted his business card into that while the rest of them take the paint to stick something. Free marketing