Birding in Masinagudi

I was in Masinagudi a few days ago and went on a birding trip with Atul, the manager of Club Mahindra Zest property - Casa Deep Woods. My first visit to Casa was almost a decade ago, when it was not a Club Mahindra property .Incidentally it was my first ever trip to Masinagudi. It was sheer serendipity as we drove towards Mudhumalai forest after being told that we had no accommodation in Bandipur. The property was very new and Masinagudi was still very much not a tourist destination. I have visited Masinagudi several times, but this trip was sheer nostalgia.

And what a birding haven it turned out to be -the iora, the sunbird, the white eye, the warbler, the flycatchers, the thrushes - we sighted almost 50 species of birds in just one session and the best sightings were that of the pitta and the paradise flycatcher .While the pitta was hanging around for more than half an hour, walking around the dry stream , barely a few feet from me and at eye level, the paradise fly catchers were rather elusive. An entire family was high up in the leaves , right above us and we watched them fly with our binoculars.

The pitta chased the orange headed ground thrush that landed finally up in the branches of the trees.

My favourite of course was the poser tickell's blue flycatcher. For more birds and photographs, do see my album on my travel page on Facebook. For the entire story, please read here

Birding in Coorg

I was in Coorg last week on an assignment for Club Mahindra and we spotted more than 30 species of birds. We would have probably seen more but for the rains that came tumbling down. However, my bird for the day is the malabar whistling thrush. The school boy was the first to wake up me with his song but he vanished into the dark shadows of a sunless dusk when I went to greet him. However I spotted him later and we spent a good 20 minutes together as he went foraging in the grass for his breakfast.

Some of the other birds that posed for me was the blue capped rock thrush and a pied wagtail among others. To see more photographs , visit my Travel Page on Facebook. To read the entire story, visit CLAY, the travel blog from Club Mahindra

The spotted owlet that wishes me good morning

I have been lazy most of last year, but this year,  I have been pushing myself to wake up and head out for walks in the morning. And the motivation is a spotted owlet that greets me with a scowl whenever I chance upon it on my early walks. The owlet and I are half asleep but we spend a few moments gazing at each other, it looks down at me and makes a face and I grin at it.

On my birthday however, I took a few photographs of the bird and I found out there were two of them , probably nesting in that little hollow of theirs. Only one posed for me, that too rather reluctantly, while the other flew away.

I decided not to disturb them again by taking pictures, but we still greet each other every morning .

I saw it today as well on my morning walk and it did come out and sun itself on the branch for a while before disappearing into its home