Where by birds come to bathe in the Dandeli forest
WITH a faint rustle and swish, she lands on a nearby bent bamboo swaying in the wind. She casts a sidelong look at the h2o bowl. It has been a sunny working day and she could do with a good dunk prior to it gets darkish. Possibly mites are troubling her. What greater way to get rid of them than a hearty splash? But wait around, what are all those shiny black cylinders protruding from a thatch display screen and reflecting light-weight? They also make some suspicious clicking sounds from time to time. There looks to be some movement powering the thatch monitor far too. Is it secure to land on the h2o bowl now? She waits and watches for a when, furtively glancing at the thatch. Shortly, the solar will go down and it will be as well late to bathe. Ultimately, her urge to cleanse herself wins over her trepidation and she can take the plunge, pretty much! Tonight, just one blue-capped rock thrush will delight in a audio snooze unmolested by mites.
This was the minute we birders had been waiting for. Swift-fire clicks lease the air. Gimbals transfer silently like robots, adhering to the movement of the birds in an arc. First, the birds occur in kinds and twos, but before long a veritable procession of would-be-bathers lines up at the chook hammam positioned there strategically for their advantage. The air glistens with droplets of h2o splattered from fanning wings that sparkle like diamonds when the daylight demonstrates off them.
For me, this is my first peek into the universe of avian cleanliness. The a few days I put in in Old Magazine Household in the Dandeli forest, in Ganeshgudi, Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka, in December 2020 had been really a revelation in conditions of fowl habits.
At first, I considered the drinking water bowls experienced been put for birds to consume, but I identified that they seldom dip their beaks into the bowl. Alternatively, they immerse their small toes in the bowl and then sway this aspect and that, dipping their wings and shaking them dry, repetitively. Some linger to survey their environment when many others chirp noisily on nearby branches to preen them selves just after their bath. All this is completed with much dignity and without having hustling or quarrels.
It is still early afternoon. I spy a pair of orange-headed thrushes. They perch on adjacent branches for a extensive time as if asking yourself no matter if to choose the plunge. Just one of them, presumably the female, tentatively flies to the birdbath, flits from rim to rim, but seems to rethink her conclusion and flies again to perch beside her mate. She whispers something to him in bird language, and the two fly off for the time getting though they do return later in the evening to entire their ablutions.
Some birds, like the Oriental white-eye, appear in raucous teams arguing about the occasions of the working day. Other people, like the fulvetta, sit at a discreet length, concealed behind tree go over, looking at and waiting around. Eco-friendly pigeons arrive in dozens, searching like a fashion parade of avian haute couture with their exquisitely patterned iridescent wings gleaming in the setting solar. Rock thrushes choose the little pond on the floor instead than the birdbath. Potentially it provides them much better deal with. The Oriental magpie-robin sings from the bush, announcing its intention to use the bath, when white-bellied blue flycatchers sit silently awaiting their change. Paradise flycatchers, a brown-cheeked fulvetta, an Indian yellow tit, a puff-throated warbler, a black-naped monarch and several spotted doves, all just take their transform one particular by a single. The warbler is skittish even though, frequently seeing out for danger.
At situations, two unique species perch on the much finishes of a h2o bowl and dunk their heads into the drinking water at the exact same time as if on cue. All the birds appear to be mindful not to soiled the h2o. When it is nearly dusk, the wonderful shama in her blue and crimson silken gown alights on the branch over the birdbath. She does not splash in the water but merely regards it contemplatively before flying off.
The Outdated Journal Household is genuinely a birder’s delight. From a one location hidden by thatch, 1 can watch dozens of chook species, rare and typical. We arrived at this jungle lodge by midday following a a few-and-a-fifty percent-hour generate from Goa via Ponda, Mollem and an impossibly potholed Anmod Ghat highway the place freeway work looks to have been abandoned midway, generating it a virtual moonscape. My friend Amita in whose auto we drove from Goa to Dandeli is unfazed nevertheless. She is a veteran bird photographer who lugs all-around bazooka lenses and even a 7 kg bean bag in pursuit of that scarce shot. Three days previously, I drove all the way from Bengaluru to Goa in a single extend. It took all of 15 hrs with two foodstuff stops. The Chorla Ghat road, which we took from Dharwad in Karnataka to Goa on our way again, was only marginally a lot less bumpy than the Anmod Ghat highway.
The memory of the bumpy rides melts absent as we head in the direction of the eating hall for lunch. Three Malabar huge squirrels dangle from branches of trees outside the house the eating hall, hanging different poses as if to entertain us with their virtuoso antics. Their glossy coats bespeak a profusion of squirrel meals. The lusty phone calls of peculiar birds echo by the thick forest, keeping out the guarantee of abundant sightings over the upcoming two days.
The subsequent early morning, after the regulation view at the birdbath for an hour from dawn, we get off on a trek about the house, craning our necks at the tall branches to spot an occasional noisy woodpecker or a superb noticed eagle spreading its wings. The sunlight emerges from the clouds, dispersing the mist and glinting off the dazzling patterns on the backs of a flock of environmentally friendly pigeons. A couple of hundred yards from our lodge, we are startled by raucous avian chatter overhead, accompanied by the loud helicopter-like drone of flapping wings. We glimpse up and place an military of Malabar pied hornbills perched atop a handful of tall eucalyptus trees. Their ungainly and outsized beaks appear to be to contact for some deft balancing on the slender branches of the tree, resulting in them to commonly flap their wings and modify placement. This tree is without a doubt crowded. Dozens of hornbills perch cheek by jowl with jungle mynas and rock pigeons, all chattering absent noisily.
Just after an hour or so of squinting at these birds by way of my grossly insufficient 400 mm lens, I give up. Our guidebook guarantees much better sightings of an even even bigger military of hornbills at another place. So, we repair service to a close by pond, which is included in eco-friendly slime and surrounded by a thick cover, to seem for some unusual species of kingfishers that are known to inhabit this extend. Prolonged-stalked red bouquets populate the banking companies. The information details to a dark bush the place he thinks the kingfisher is hiding. A great deal as I squint and stare, I see nothing. But then, reward will come from an not likely supply. Perched on the tall flaming crimson stalk is a minor spiderhunter with its curved beak. He is oblivious to our existence as he pokes his curved beak into the flower, searching for spiders, I presume.
We transfer on. The trek potential customers us into thorny bushes and pokey shrubs that go away our clothes sequinned with burrs and nettles. But recognizing a velvet-fronted nuthatch hanging upside down to get at bugs hiding powering the bark is reward adequate to overlook the sting of the nettles. We are again at the drinking water bowl for our night fill of frolicking avians. They do not disappoint. A yellow-browed bulbul and a white bellied blue flycatcher flit previous. A popular iora also puts in a visitor overall look. We spend a convivial evening in the company of gorgeous plumes.
Later in the night, as we sit all over a campfire, a couple birders go on the lookout for owls with strong searchlights that they glow on the cover, sweeping a big arc via the foliage. They find a scops owl, but with all the commotion and the severe light-weight, it flies away, with a couple of diehard birders chasing immediately after it into the dim deep jungle in the hope of catching a shot. I return to my cottage.
Close to 8 p.m., as we are talking about the day’s sightings and ticking off our lists, the manager of the property, shushes us into silence, intently listening, his ears cocked to the wilderness. He has heard a grunt and wishes to figure out whether or not it is a wild boar or a bear. He suggests the campfire website adjoins a wildlife crossing route. He has spotted both bears and boars listed here. He asks us to restore to our cottages just in circumstance. Wild boars are regarded to charge unprovoked. If the bear has a cub, she could be skittish when passing so near to persons. We hold out with bated breath for the animal to transfer away as the manager regales us, sotto voce, with tales of his encounters with all sorts of wildlife at this incredibly spot, such as a black panther, which crossed as a result of the house in the course of the lockdown. Dandeli is a single of the couple of forests in India that shelters this elusive cat. There are also tigers about, but they continue to be deep in the jungle.
The up coming working day yields worthwhile sightings of scarlet minivets, of which there seem to be an inordinate variety on a certain tree. The males flaunt their flaming scarlet plumes even though the females appraise them with nonchalance. The males flit from one tree to another hoping to catch the sun’s rays on their beautiful wings, but the women faux not to detect.
Emerald doves and noticed doves coo soothingly as they line up on an electric wire, coppersmith barbets set up their “kukkukkuk” in a substantial pitch whilst eco-friendly bee-eaters deftly get, what else but, bees in mid-flight, to savour them at leisure on a department. We also location Indian gray hornbills and a wonderful Indian hornbill but they are too swift for my lens to focus on them.
Remaining a rookie birder, I fumble with the identities of most of the birds I see. But Syamala Kumar, an avid birder from Hyderabad and a regular visitor to Dandeli, is at any time all set to share her huge know-how of the avian universe with me. She can even discover the gender of the birds and, apart from reeling out their names and their peculiarities, tells me which birds are in their breeding plumage and which are juveniles. Possessing Syamala Kumar all around enriched my Dandeli knowledge.
In the night, we make our way to the Supa dam on the Kali river. On a freshly harvested subject are a clutch of hornbills mudbathing. As our team developments alternatively menacingly, I presume, for a superior shot, they acquire off in unison. We observe their flight route with our lenses and come across a tree comprehensive of hornbills noisily chattering overhead. Studded with ripe golden figs, this tree is a magnet for hornbills, which feast on them. But they under no circumstances sit continue to and are often flitting from branch to department. Soon after some time, I give up attempting to photograph them and allow the magic of the moment clean around me.
WITH a faint rustle and swish, she lands on a nearby bent bamboo swaying in the wind. She casts a sidelong look at the h2o bowl. It has been a sunny working day and she could do with a good dunk prior to it gets darkish. Possibly mites are troubling her. What greater way to get rid of them than a hearty splash? But wait around, what are all those shiny black cylinders protruding from a thatch display screen and reflecting light-weight? They also make some suspicious clicking sounds from time to time. There looks to be some movement powering the thatch monitor far too. Is it secure to land on the h2o bowl now? She waits and watches for a when, furtively glancing at the thatch. Shortly, the solar will go down and it will be as well late to bathe. Ultimately, her urge to cleanse herself wins over her trepidation and she can take the plunge, pretty much! Tonight, just one blue-capped rock thrush will delight in a audio snooze unmolested by mites.
This was the minute we birders had been waiting for. Swift-fire clicks lease the air. Gimbals transfer silently like robots, adhering to the movement of the birds in an arc. First, the birds occur in kinds and twos, but before long a veritable procession of would-be-bathers lines up at the chook hammam positioned there strategically for their advantage. The air glistens with droplets of h2o splattered from fanning wings that sparkle like diamonds when the daylight demonstrates off them.
For me, this is my first peek into the universe of avian cleanliness. The a few days I put in in Old Magazine Household in the Dandeli forest, in Ganeshgudi, Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka, in December 2020 had been really a revelation in conditions of fowl habits.
At first, I considered the drinking water bowls experienced been put for birds to consume, but I identified that they seldom dip their beaks into the bowl. Alternatively, they immerse their small toes in the bowl and then sway this aspect and that, dipping their wings and shaking them dry, repetitively. Some linger to survey their environment when many others chirp noisily on nearby branches to preen them selves just after their bath. All this is completed with much dignity and without having hustling or quarrels.
It is still early afternoon. I spy a pair of orange-headed thrushes. They perch on adjacent branches for a extensive time as if asking yourself no matter if to choose the plunge. Just one of them, presumably the female, tentatively flies to the birdbath, flits from rim to rim, but seems to rethink her conclusion and flies again to perch beside her mate. She whispers something to him in bird language, and the two fly off for the time getting though they do return later in the evening to entire their ablutions.
Some birds, like the Oriental white-eye, appear in raucous teams arguing about the occasions of the working day. Other people, like the fulvetta, sit at a discreet length, concealed behind tree go over, looking at and waiting around. Eco-friendly pigeons arrive in dozens, searching like a fashion parade of avian haute couture with their exquisitely patterned iridescent wings gleaming in the setting solar. Rock thrushes choose the little pond on the floor instead than the birdbath. Potentially it provides them much better deal with. The Oriental magpie-robin sings from the bush, announcing its intention to use the bath, when white-bellied blue flycatchers sit silently awaiting their change. Paradise flycatchers, a brown-cheeked fulvetta, an Indian yellow tit, a puff-throated warbler, a black-naped monarch and several spotted doves, all just take their transform one particular by a single. The warbler is skittish even though, frequently seeing out for danger.
At situations, two unique species perch on the much finishes of a h2o bowl and dunk their heads into the drinking water at the exact same time as if on cue. All the birds appear to be mindful not to soiled the h2o. When it is nearly dusk, the wonderful shama in her blue and crimson silken gown alights on the branch over the birdbath. She does not splash in the water but merely regards it contemplatively before flying off.
The Outdated Journal Household is genuinely a birder’s delight. From a one location hidden by thatch, 1 can watch dozens of chook species, rare and typical. We arrived at this jungle lodge by midday following a a few-and-a-fifty percent-hour generate from Goa via Ponda, Mollem and an impossibly potholed Anmod Ghat highway the place freeway work looks to have been abandoned midway, generating it a virtual moonscape. My friend Amita in whose auto we drove from Goa to Dandeli is unfazed nevertheless. She is a veteran bird photographer who lugs all-around bazooka lenses and even a 7 kg bean bag in pursuit of that scarce shot. Three days previously, I drove all the way from Bengaluru to Goa in a single extend. It took all of 15 hrs with two foodstuff stops. The Chorla Ghat road, which we took from Dharwad in Karnataka to Goa on our way again, was only marginally a lot less bumpy than the Anmod Ghat highway.
The memory of the bumpy rides melts absent as we head in the direction of the eating hall for lunch. Three Malabar huge squirrels dangle from branches of trees outside the house the eating hall, hanging different poses as if to entertain us with their virtuoso antics. Their glossy coats bespeak a profusion of squirrel meals. The lusty phone calls of peculiar birds echo by the thick forest, keeping out the guarantee of abundant sightings over the upcoming two days.
The subsequent early morning, after the regulation view at the birdbath for an hour from dawn, we get off on a trek about the house, craning our necks at the tall branches to spot an occasional noisy woodpecker or a superb noticed eagle spreading its wings. The sunlight emerges from the clouds, dispersing the mist and glinting off the dazzling patterns on the backs of a flock of environmentally friendly pigeons. A couple of hundred yards from our lodge, we are startled by raucous avian chatter overhead, accompanied by the loud helicopter-like drone of flapping wings. We glimpse up and place an military of Malabar pied hornbills perched atop a handful of tall eucalyptus trees. Their ungainly and outsized beaks appear to be to contact for some deft balancing on the slender branches of the tree, resulting in them to commonly flap their wings and modify placement. This tree is without a doubt crowded. Dozens of hornbills perch cheek by jowl with jungle mynas and rock pigeons, all chattering absent noisily.
Just after an hour or so of squinting at these birds by way of my grossly insufficient 400 mm lens, I give up. Our guidebook guarantees much better sightings of an even even bigger military of hornbills at another place. So, we repair service to a close by pond, which is included in eco-friendly slime and surrounded by a thick cover, to seem for some unusual species of kingfishers that are known to inhabit this extend. Prolonged-stalked red bouquets populate the banking companies. The information details to a dark bush the place he thinks the kingfisher is hiding. A great deal as I squint and stare, I see nothing. But then, reward will come from an not likely supply. Perched on the tall flaming crimson stalk is a minor spiderhunter with its curved beak. He is oblivious to our existence as he pokes his curved beak into the flower, searching for spiders, I presume.
We transfer on. The trek potential customers us into thorny bushes and pokey shrubs that go away our clothes sequinned with burrs and nettles. But recognizing a velvet-fronted nuthatch hanging upside down to get at bugs hiding powering the bark is reward adequate to overlook the sting of the nettles. We are again at the drinking water bowl for our night fill of frolicking avians. They do not disappoint. A yellow-browed bulbul and a white bellied blue flycatcher flit previous. A popular iora also puts in a visitor overall look. We spend a convivial evening in the company of gorgeous plumes.
Later in the night, as we sit all over a campfire, a couple birders go on the lookout for owls with strong searchlights that they glow on the cover, sweeping a big arc via the foliage. They find a scops owl, but with all the commotion and the severe light-weight, it flies away, with a couple of diehard birders chasing immediately after it into the dim deep jungle in the hope of catching a shot. I return to my cottage.
Close to 8 p.m., as we are talking about the day’s sightings and ticking off our lists, the manager of the property, shushes us into silence, intently listening, his ears cocked to the wilderness. He has heard a grunt and wishes to figure out whether or not it is a wild boar or a bear. He suggests the campfire website adjoins a wildlife crossing route. He has spotted both bears and boars listed here. He asks us to restore to our cottages just in circumstance. Wild boars are regarded to charge unprovoked. If the bear has a cub, she could be skittish when passing so near to persons. We hold out with bated breath for the animal to transfer away as the manager regales us, sotto voce, with tales of his encounters with all sorts of wildlife at this incredibly spot, such as a black panther, which crossed as a result of the house in the course of the lockdown. Dandeli is a single of the couple of forests in India that shelters this elusive cat. There are also tigers about, but they continue to be deep in the jungle.
The up coming working day yields worthwhile sightings of scarlet minivets, of which there seem to be an inordinate variety on a certain tree. The males flaunt their flaming scarlet plumes even though the females appraise them with nonchalance. The males flit from one tree to another hoping to catch the sun’s rays on their beautiful wings, but the women faux not to detect.
Emerald doves and noticed doves coo soothingly as they line up on an electric wire, coppersmith barbets set up their “kukkukkuk” in a substantial pitch whilst eco-friendly bee-eaters deftly get, what else but, bees in mid-flight, to savour them at leisure on a department. We also location Indian gray hornbills and a wonderful Indian hornbill but they are too swift for my lens to focus on them.
Remaining a rookie birder, I fumble with the identities of most of the birds I see. But Syamala Kumar, an avid birder from Hyderabad and a regular visitor to Dandeli, is at any time all set to share her huge know-how of the avian universe with me. She can even discover the gender of the birds and, apart from reeling out their names and their peculiarities, tells me which birds are in their breeding plumage and which are juveniles. Possessing Syamala Kumar all around enriched my Dandeli knowledge.
In the night, we make our way to the Supa dam on the Kali river. On a freshly harvested subject are a clutch of hornbills mudbathing. As our team developments alternatively menacingly, I presume, for a superior shot, they acquire off in unison. We observe their flight route with our lenses and come across a tree comprehensive of hornbills noisily chattering overhead. Studded with ripe golden figs, this tree is a magnet for hornbills, which feast on them. But they under no circumstances sit continue to and are often flitting from branch to department. Soon after some time, I give up attempting to photograph them and allow the magic of the moment clean around me.