Awesome Ajmer - Trip Report

Lovely readers yet another week and I am ready with something different. Last week could not post the story because I was traveling to find some exceptional stuff for my blog family members. I am very sure that this trip report will help you to understand that our country is so rich with natural beauties but are unexplored because of lack of awareness. So now its time to explore the birding expertise of Ajmer. 

The Trip Report 

Mumbai Travelers keep me updated with various under-explored places that are healthy with natural beauty to help me with some extraordinary stuff. Again, this time Saurabh/Jogi informed me about the qualities of Ajmer, knowing the information I could not stop myself from visiting this place. This time Prathamesh was captain of the trip along with four travelers including me, Chaitanya Sir with his son Eshaan (expert in the making) and Esmail Sir. The high five 😊 nature lovers started from Dadar to experience one of the best places for birding.

The main attraction of the place is Lesser Florican (will explain qualities in the next section) because of it’s an outstanding habit. We all were excited to capture the bird as soon as possible and hence started the session immediately on reaching the place. The sighting started with Large Gray babbler and slowly it reached the target place. The first session was satisfactory as we got a glimpse of Florican along with some unexpected surprise like Red Sand Boa Snake, Red-Necked Falcon. 

Due to previous day surprises, the expectations or you can say greed increased 😜 for the next session. We started a bit early so as we can get sufficient time to enjoy the Florican activities. As we all believe and respect the nature it rewarded us with two hands. The sighting of Florican was unmatched and was 10 times more than our expectations. 

The day also offered, a close encounter with a huge Eagle Owl up close in front of the car, Common Hawk Cuckoo, Eurasian Hoopoe, Green Bee Eater, Blue-cheeked bee-eater, and a lot of other beautiful birds. We all were feeling out of the world and super lucky to get more than 50 varieties and hence celebration was a must. We explored the local market to celebrate our sightings, local food such as Kadhi Kachori, Jalebi, Samosa, Ghee aloo-tiki and PAAN made the trip even more memorable. 

The success of the trip depends on the experience with nature and its beauty hence I would like to share the same in a separate section. Please check out some excellent sighing details in the next section.

The exceptional experience

Flawless Florican

Let me start with the main attraction of the trip, Lesser Florican a unique bird but unfortunately part of the endangered list. it is best known for the leaping breeding displays made by the males during the Monsoon season. Our target was to capture jumps made by this lovely bird to attract the female.

On the first day, we saw hardly a couple of jumps but on next day it jumped for more than 40 times. It is said that with jump it creates sound to attract the female, the jump count may cross 300 to 400 in a day. isn’t it unbelievable! It is completely different pattern compared to other birds; you can actually experience the same from the DSLR section. I will share complete details on Florican with the separate blog.

Red Sand Boa

Biggest surprise of the trip was Red Sand Boa snake, we found it on the open road where it was trying to cross the road. The snake is known for many superstitious beliefs attributed to it because of its double-headed appearance, such as bringing good luck, curing AIDS, etc. Such blind faith has resulted in endangering the species, and in illegal trade 

Eagle Owl

Another rare bird, this deserves the place in exceptional sighting because this was the closest sighting of Eagle Owl till date. On the second day, we came across this lovely bird, shocked with such a close open sighting though it was on alert mode and took a flight immediately, the glimpse of it made us crazy with its beauty, only real eyes can enjoy such beauty. 

Red-necked Falcon

Similar to Eagle-owl this beautiful bird of prey was sitting very close to the road, the moment we realize its presence it took a flight to find a distance from us, the beautiful colors mesmerized us and made us crazy as well. 

Common Hawk Cuckoo

Popularly known as “Brain Fever” because of its screaming call sounds like word brain fever, with its sound you can easily detect its presence but it is very difficult to spot the same hence it is part of our exceptional sighting list

Long List

Apart from the above, the sighting list includes, Red Sand Boa, Rain Quail, Rock Bush Quail, Savana Nightjar, Francolin, Green Bee-eater, Blue-cheeked bee-eater, Indian roller, Eurasian roller, Indian Thick-Knee, Ashy-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Rufous-fronted Prinia, Indian Peafowl, Glossy Ibis and many more. 

I hope you loved the details of these rare birds; we should explore such wonderful places to learn about conservation of our mother nature. 

Request you to share your feedback on btwildart@gmail.com, it will help me to improve the deliverables

Vote of Thanks: The blog cannot end without a vote of thanks, the contribution of each one is crucial, without which the journey is incomplete

Trip Captain – Prathamesh Desai your birding expertise and experience of rescue center is just amazing, thanks for all the arrangements and memorable trip

As always, Lovely Co-Travelers

Ajmer specialist - Rathorji, Kalyan (his son) and driver

Stay & food - Neelkamal and Sheesh Mahal

Ajmer local food & Panwala – local food was out of the world

A Message of the Day –

God loved the birds and created trees, humans loved the birds and created cages. Don’t Cage birds, let them enjoy sky

BT Wild Art

 Deadly DSLR 

Lesser Florican

Jumping display

Red Sand Boa

Red-necked Falcon

Spotted Owlet

Eagle Owl

Double-headed appearance - Red Sand Boa

Green Bee Eater

Blue-cheeked Bee Eater

Rain Quail

Indian Thick-Knee

Indian Bush Lark

Crested Lark

Large Gray Babbler

Indian Peafowl

Eurasian Hoopoe

Common Hawk Cuckoo

Local Delicacy Kadhi Kachori

Ghee Aloo-Tiki

Uncommon – common kingfisher

Hello friends, hope you all are doing fine, do you know during the monsoon season forest remains closed for visitors? The new season will start from 1^st week of October hope the season will offer some exciting moments till the time I will keep you updated with birding trips, keeping finger cross for an upcoming trip.

Since we are in birding season let us continue with excellent bird story today as well. After Chiplun trip Kingfisher has made special space in my mind so I was reading more about the bird and realize that one more type of KF, which is also unique and colorful, but hardly people know about it hence I decided to bring another type of KF that is “Common Kingfisher”. Just don’t go by the name “Common” it is uncommon with habits and sighting so let’s meet not so common KF in the next section

The encounter

Before we get into the topic let me narrate my experience with this lovely bird. I had seen Common KF many times in different places but most of the time with little distance but still the colors mesmerized me so I wanted to capture it with kill this is was my dream. With this dream, I always visit wetland near Seawoods and wait for some action. Once I went to this place with Poorva and Deepti to show them Flamingos but never thought I will get KF as a bonus. Both of them were done with Flamingos and were waiting for me to close the day. I was just about to call a day but I got occupied in action of cormorants due to which I asked them to wait and started focusing on cormorants, while I was busy with it, suddenly both of them indicated me to stop and look towards my right side. The moment I turned, it was a big surprise waiting for me; it was a dream come true, I had never imagined that this beautiful color KF will come so close for a photoshoot and that is to with fish in its beak, I was like over-excited and jumped into taking photo luckily it gave me reasonable opportunity to take few shots before taking flight. Such sighting is extremely rare and hence it is part of the blog post, you will understand when you will visit DSLR section. 

The uncommon

The Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), is one of Britain’s most brightly colored and interesting birds. It is also known as Eurasian kingfisher and river kingfisher

It is a small kingfisher with seven subspecies recognized within its wide distribution across Eurasia and North Africa. It is resident in much of its range but migrates from areas where rivers freeze in winter

This sparrow-sized bird has a typical short-tailed, large-headed kingfisher profile; it has blue upperparts, orange under parts and a long bill

The specialty of this bird is diving for catching a fish, one expert photographer waited for 17 years to capture a diving reflection of this lovely bird. It feeds mainly on fish, caught by diving, and has special visual adaptations to enable it to see prey underwater

The wings are opened underwater and the open eyes are protected by the transparent third eyelid. The bird raises beak-first from the surface and flies back to its perch. At the perch, the fish is adjusted until it is held near its tail and beaten against the perch several times. Once dead, the fish is swallowed head-first

The female is identical in appearance to the male except that her lower mandible is orange-red with a black tip. The juvenile is similar to the adult, but with duller and greener upperparts and paler underparts. Its bill is black, and the legs are initially black

The common kingfisher has no song. The flight call is a short sharp whistle, “CHEE” repeated two or three times. Anxious birds emit a harsh, shrit-it-it and nestlings call for food with a churning noise

Common kingfishers are important members of ecosystems and good indicators of freshwater community health

The highest densities of breeding birds are found in habitats with clear water, which permits optimal prey visibility, and trees or shrubs on the banks. These habitats have also the highest quality of water, so the presence of this bird confirms the standard of the water

The color of common KF includes orange colored legs, blue/green color wings, bright blue color rump, and tail, bright orange underparts and white bib underneath their beaks, on their throats

Common KF has very keen eyesight. The kingfisher has a monocular vision (in which each eye is used separately) in the air and binocular vision (in which both eyes are used together) in water. The underwater vision is not as a sharp as in the air, however, the ability to judge the distance of moving prey is more important than the sharpness of the image

Like all kingfishers, the Common Kingfisher is highly territorial. Since it must eat around 60% of its body weight each day, it is essential to have control over a suitable stretch of river. If another kingfisher enters its territory, both birds ‘display’ from perches and fights may occur. One bird will grab the other's beak and try to hold it underwater

The qualities are just unlimited hence need to close the blog here, please visit DSLR section and share your feedback so as I can serve you better

A Message of the Day – 

God loved the birds and created trees, humans loved the birds and created cages. Don’t Cage birds, let them enjoy the sky

BT Wild Art

Deadly DSLR 

Mimic King Drongo

Thank you so much for taking out time to read and appreciate “ODKF” trip report. Your appreciation always motivates me to find something unique every time.  

So it’s much needed weekend to relax and re-gain the energy from work, traffic, and so many other issues. Be relax and take your car to venture out toward some nature connected place such as SGNP, Karnala, Chiplun, this will help you to get freshen up from daily stress. This is what I follow once a couple of months which always helps me to explore new avenues, out of such trips I get some incidence which I present to you every time, so for today I am presenting you unique experience I had with Drongo, a bird which looks similar to Crow but has no correlation with crow and possesses some unique characteristics. So let's get into the Dronog's world to explore the uniqueness of the bird.

The interesting incidence

Before we get into the detailing of the topic let me share one superb experience we had with this lovely bird. This is the outcome of our Nandur trip which was planned for Madhmeshwar bird sanctuary but on the way we to the sanctuary we got an opportunity to add to our memory book. Let me explain the same in the next section.  

Once I was on a trip to Nandur for birding near Nasik with Saurabh and Vishnu, you all are familiar with two names; both are equally crazy rather I would say I learned craziness from them. While we were near our destination, we noticed an awesome combination of evening lights and green grass on farmland, we decided to take a break and try our to capture this combo on camera. 

We started evaluating farmland which was truly mesmerizing because of low light like golden color spread on the grass, meanwhile, we were trying a photoshoot Saurabh pointed out an unusual activity. The activity was Drongo catching insects from fire. Let me explain why fire, it is a routine practice of farmers to burn out dry grass, due to fire insects flies down from once place to another which becomes an opportunity for Drongos to catch insects. The unusual or unique because it goes very near to fire without any fear catch insects in the air. The daring of the bird was a treat to watch because it is rare that you get such an excellent opportunity to capture such a unique scenario that is too in such a beautiful atmosphere. Check out DSLR section to connect the Drongo's daring for catching insects. This is not the only one but there are many more hence I have explained the same in the next section so let set go to the next section. 

Dashing Drongo 

The drongos are a family, Dicruridae, of passerine birds of the Old World tropics. The 29 species in the family are placed in a single genus Dicrurus

The drongo fantail formerly named the pygmy drongo is not closely related and is now placed in the family Rhipiduridae

Drongos are typically colored black with a beautiful, greenish, or purplish iridescence. The wings of these elegant, jay-sized birds are relatively long and pointed, and the tail is deeply forked

The USP of the bird is that the bird is a best mimic artist hence I kept the title "Mimic King". Some species especially racket-tailed drongo are accomplished mimics and have a variety of alarm calls, to which other birds and animals often respond

There is evidence that they utter hoax alarm calls that typically scare other animals off food, which the drongo then eats, a matter of interest to researchers

Drongos sing melodiously to proclaim their territory, often imitating the songs of other species

Despite their small size they are fearless and will attack much larger species if their nest or young are threatened. They are aggressive in the defense of their territory against other drongos as well as potential predators

Some other small birds deliberately nest close to drongos because of the relative protection that is afforded against crows, hawks, and other predators

Drongos are excellent and maneuverable fliers, though not over long distances. They commonly feed by catching insects in flight, having discovered their prey from an exposed, aerial perch

Little bird with so many qualities, I hope you liked the content request you to help me with your feedback so as I can serve you better, don’t forget to checkout DSLR section 

A Message of the Day – 

God loved the birds and created trees, humans loved the birds and created cages. Don’t Cage birds, let them enjoy the sky

BT Wild Art

                      

Deadly DSLR 

ODKF Special Trip Report

Hello friends hope you are doing great, as you know if I don’t post a topic on the weekend that means some trip report is on the way. I know you were waiting for the new topic but due to travel could not manage last week but never the less today’s topic will surely rock everyone, so now let set go directly to Chiplun.

The Report Card

The report card I am presenting is of Chiplun, last week we planned this visit to capture a very special bird called ODKF that means “Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher” I know you all are aware of Kingfisher but ODKF is unknown so let me make sure that with this report you get familiar to ODKF as well.

The journey started with a fear of cancellation due to heavy rain across Maharashtra but love towards nature of 13 enthusiast won against the fear factor. 

From the starting point, it was heavily raining which affected our time schedule a little bit but not our mission. After a long travel of around 8 hours, we reached the place with a big relief that now no one can stop us from meeting one of the most beautiful species of this world. Mr. Nandu and his team were ready to welcome us and to treat us with well-planned arrangements. After a quick lunch, we were set to enter the zone to sight ODKF, here the bird is king and no one else, you can sight only at the wish of this lovely bird where it kept us waiting for some time to test our patience; we had patience of traveling 8 hours in bus so another little more waiting time did not matter to us, the waiting game turned rewarding when finally ODKF arrived in style with kill in its beak. The action continued for a couple of time and it came with a variety of kills each time, this variety offered us a golden opportunity to create a frame, the drama continued on Sunday as well making the trip most memorable and successful ever. 

Along with ODKF some of us were lucky to get birds like Woodpeckers, Changeable hawk-eagle, flycatchers and many more but the hero of the trip was multi-color, multi-tenanted little but very beautiful ODKF no doubt about it. 

This is how we enjoyed the trip with hospitality and expertise of Nanduji & team and very nicely arranged trip by Prathamesh (Mumbai Traveler) the effort of all of them is commendable. Apart from the arrangements, lovely co-travelers deserves to applaud, lovely people around is key to a memorable trip, many thanks to each one of you, hope to see you again.

I know you are eager to know details of ODKF so without taking more time we need to jump to the next section to meet and greet the gift of nature.  

King of colors

The style of feeding the chick is USP of this bird. It catches insects, lizards, frogs, shrimps, skinks, fish for the chicks, but before feeding, it uses the perch or similar place to keep the kill in the right position to ensure that it is comfortable for them to feed the young ones, once they are comfortable it reaches the nest to feed the chicks. Pictures will help you to understand this behavior batter

The Oriental dwarf kingfisher is known as the black-backed kingfisher or three-toed kingfisher, it is a species of bird in the family Alcedinidae

The amazing color combination makes this bird so attractive; the crown of the Oriental dwarf kingfisher is colored lilac-rufous. The tail is short and the tip is orange. The bill is long & broad and colored reddish-orange. The irises are black and the bare skin around the eye is dark gray. The legs and feet are reddish-orange and underparts are yellow with glowing bluish-black upperparts. Apart from the above the colorful patches such as blue and white patches on the side of the neck and lilac pink rump is like finishing touch on the body part

The Oriental dwarf kingfisher species excavate one-meter long horizontal tunnel on the riverbank for nesting. The nest is not lined. The clutch may comprise four or five eggs. Both the parents take turns to incubate and the eggs hatch out in 17 days. The young birds fledge after 20 days. The hatchlings are fed with a variety of insects and small vertebrates

The nominate Oriental dwarf kingfisher subspecies Ceyx erithaca erithaca is partially migrant. The north most populations migrate from their breeding grounds in Indian subcontinent, southern China, Indochina, and the Malay Peninsula and reach Indonesia (Sumatra and Borneo and their associated islands) for wintering

I am sure now you are familiar with this attractive bird, try to visit a place like Chiplun to enjoy the offering of our mother nature

NAndu nature’s man

As I mentioned Nanduji the owner of the camp helped us with sighting, the effort and love of Nandu towards nature needs a huge round of applaud. We need such a knowledgeable person who knows the ground reality and works day and day out to maintain the beauty of our nature. I am quoting his words which are of great learning for all of us

“We cannot create nature, we can only damage the nature. If we really respect and understand the importance we can only payback it by maintaining its beauty which will help our next generation”

Such a meaningful and eye-opener words, high time we realize the importance now else next generation will see only on blogs and not in reality. 

Now let me end the blog by thanking everyone to start with Mumbai Travelers, Prathamesh, Nandu & Team, and lovely travel family members, last and not the least our bus driver who ensured that our journey is not hampered due to rain and managed safe driving. Many thanks once again

A Message of the Day – 

God loved the birds and created trees, humans loved the birds and created cages. Don’t Cage birds, let them enjoy the sky

BT Wild Art

     Deadly DSLR