Sunday morning bird watching

After 3 months of summer heat, the monsoon has arrived. This brings many of the small birds which has started venturing more into the nearby trees. Though we had decent summer rains this year, I could not see much birds moving around in our layout where I stay. Now since with the monsoon has arrived the situation is different.

Most of the days I wake up with the sound of the koel and chirping sunbirds and flowerpeckers. I have been thinking of picking my camera to shoot these and finally i tried my luck for about an hour today morning.

I started by shooting the Jasmin flower. These are the creeper Jasmin which has grown well at home. The monsoon brings the flowering season for these Jasmin.

Last week while walking near my home, I had noticed the small red birds moving around outside my layout. It was bit far to find out which one, so today the first target was to find out these. I was able to find in the same place again and shoot a few nice shots. It's a group of "scaly-breasted munia".

There is one colony in this area which seems to be playful. I have selected few shots for this blog.

 

 

The Meeting!

In Flight....

Playing.....3rd one watching from behind :)

Along with these munias' there is also the green Bee eaters.

Green Bee Eater, Waiting for the prey.

There were about 4 bee eaters there and one of them was happily preening its feathers. I waited a long time to shoot the bird take-off, but i lost my patience as it did not want to move at all.In this process i shot one which looked like it was about to take-off but it folded the feathers back again ..

Bluffing me, not taking off :)

Two different types of sunbirds were there which i was able to capture.

Sunbird???

 I still need to figure if this is a sunbird. The beak looks to be exactly like a sunbird, though this has few black stripes which is unlike a regular sunbird.Its more like a wabler's body and sunbirds beaks.

 

purple rumped sunbird

Along with these i was able to shoot a bulbul, spotted dove and a koel.

Bulbul

Spotted Dove

Koel

Overall i think the number of verities of species which i was able to shoot was pretty good in the short area. All these were in a small road adjacent to the place where i live. Thanks to the starting of the monsoon which brings there birds!!!

Trek to Chennagiri

This is the first time Nisha and I  participated in conducted trek - and i can tell for sure this is just the first of the many to come.
We have been thinking on how to prepare for the big one in August and we started walking everyday as a prep. That was when we decided that we need a short prep trek. The time is precise when the trekking season is just started after the summer heat.

We started from Bangalore at 6:30 AM and having breakfast at Devanahalli on the way before we reach the base by ~9AM.

Channagiri is an rocky hill just adjacent to Nandi Hills.We passed the final turn where the nandi hill climb starts and we reach the "Sree Kanive Basaveshwara Swamy Temple". We got down there and the climb start near the temple.

The trek is quite tough for beginners as it has a mix of rocky slopes, uneven surface, high bushes where the sun don't penetrate and walk along with a bit of thorny shrubs.

A selfie along the trail - Nisha walking in the background

The trek trail  has really scenic view around except in some places where we are inside the bushes.

Nice view on the way

The climb took about 2 hours with couple of breaks.
The weather was perfect with nice clouds and mild sun peeping in-between.

A nice panoramic view from the peak as we reached gives a glimpse.

The View

The trees were singing in the strong wind at the peak.

Nisha enjoying the wind :)

There is a temple at the peak and 2 water bodies. One of them is the temple pond and the other one is just rain water,both adds good feel of the place.

There were lots of butterflies throughout the trek though i did not spot much birds. I am sure this place has lots of birds if we come early enough!!!

The perfect shot

We has the packed lunch at the peak. We start the decent and reached the base by about 2pm..

The trail start on the left side of this picture where i stood to shoot

 Finally we reached back home by 4PM. Thanks to BMC for organizing this trek and for the very good experience.