13 Apr 26 - Bearded Tits Upstage The Star Turn

On the 17 March, a Bluethroat was found at Swineham just before dusk by local Birders who were hoping to see a Bittern or two depart Eastwards from the Swineham reedbed. It would have been tight for me to get there in time to see it and as it was just outside of the Isle of Purbeck boundary, there was no burning reason to try to get there before dark. It was looked for the next day with no joy: c'est la vie. We all assumed it was a passing one day migrant as Swineham is fairly well watched, especially in the Bittern season. Therefore, it was a big surprise when it was refound on 11 April.

Male Red-spotted Bluethroat: No mealworms were harmed for these photos

I left it a couple of days before I made the effort to get there for the early morning. I joined a group of about six Birders & toggers at the corner overlooking Swineham Point. It had been seen a few times already and after a fifteen minute wait, it reappeared in a bare tree about thirty metres away. I saw it a couple of times before it stopped showing after 08:30. Other visiting Birders and toggers were going past us to look for it on the path. When I finally decided to try the path, there was a queue just to get to a viewing position to see where it was showing. It turns out that it was being enticed onto the path by togger mealworms and by the end of the month, it must have been addicted to them.

Male Red-spotted Bluethroat

Given I wasn't going to wait in the queue for an hour to get to a viewing position, I decided to check out the rest of the Swineham riverbank path. I hadn't even reached the start of the riverbank path, when I saw a couple of pairs of Bearded Tits. There was clearly a territorial dispute going on with the two males keen to sit up and show their presence. Eventually, the Easterly pair headed towards the Point and the other pair disappeared back into the reeds. It was my best view of Bearded Tits for many years, given they were only about fifteen metres from the footpath.

Bearded Tit: Male. This is the name it had when I got my first Bird book and I can see any reason for adopting its trendy new name, after all "A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Bearded Tit: Male

Bearded Tit: Male

Bearded Tit: Male

Bearded Tit: Female. The Females didn't show for long

28 Jan 14 - The Day Of The Jackal

After yesterday's Big Foot day around Bharatpur I had a leisurely second & final morning. An all too brief visit to this excellent area, but the time for the flight home was getting all too close. This time I opted for the rickshaw approach for the morning as I needed to be back for an afternoon taxi to Delhi. This wasn't purely a lazy approach (although it partially was), but it was designed to get me to maximise the time in the main wetland area as well as hopefully to see some more Owls. The rickshaw drivers have a good idea of some of the stakeouts for the local Owls & Nightjars. In 91, I remember seeing 2 or 3 Nightjars roosting in trees along the main track, but this year there were none staked out. However, there were staked out Owls so some more chance to indulge in Owl photos.

Indian Scops Owl: The pair near the small temple

Dusky Horned Owl: This species is slightly bigger than Rock Eagle Owl. It is something I was hoping to see again & Bharatpur remains the only site where I've seen it

Dusky Horned Owl: The nest isn't close, but that's probably a good thing given the large numbers of Indian photographers who seemed to be milling around Bharatpur with big camera lenses, but little apparent knowledge of the birds they were photographing

There were a number of other species seen today, that had been missed on the Big Foot day as well as many species that were seen again.

White Pelican

Grey Heron

Night Heron: Enjoying a sleep

Black Bittern: Skulking in the water's edge vegetation alongside the track

Painted Stork

Black-necked Stork

Oriental White Ibis: With a Spoonbill for company

Spoonbill: The immatures have black wing tips

Lesser Whistling-duck

Shoveler

Ferruginous Duck: The male has a pale yellow eye & bluer bill, compared to the dark eye & darker bill of the female

Marsh Harrier: Female

Bronze-winged Jacana: Unfortunately, the only one I saw on the trip & it wasn't close

Ring-necked Parakeet

Rufous-tailed Flycatcher

Bluethroat: Female

Bluethroat: Female

Monitor Lizard

Fish: This was about 18 inches long

As hinted at in the blog title, some photos of the Bharatput Jackals.

Jackal: 4 Jackals were chasing each other around so I'm assuming it was a territorial dispute

Jackal

18 Jan 18 - On The Move

The next site we wanted to visit was the Greater Rann of Kutch part of Gujarat. Ideally, we wanted to be based at CEDO, the Centre for Desert & Ocean camp, which is run by Jugal Tiwari. But Bill hadn't been able to contact Jugal yet to see if he had free accommodation at CEDO. Therefore, the plan was to get as far as the town of Bhuj & find a hotel there, with some roadside birding en route. That way we could either stay at CEDO over the next couple of days or commute the hour or so from Bhuj to the CEDO area (if necessary). So after saying goodbye to Dhanraj & his team at Desert Coursers we were finally on our way. We weren't the only people on the move today. At our first roadside stop, we saw a group of camel herders on the move, just walking across the fields.

Camel herders: The party were just walking straight across the fields

But at least we weren't taking our beds

I liked the juxtaposition of the old & the new

Plain Prinia: A dull coloured Prinia which lived up to its name

Plain Prinia

The second roadside stop was a small reedbed which surrounded a wet pool. We spent about 45 minutes there as the sun was starting to go down. As we were fairly close to Bhuj, we decided we might as well get some birding in rather than get to the hotel in daylight. One of the good things about trips to countries like India are seeing birds which are UK rarities as it helps to remind me of their features & jizz. These roadside pools produced another good species to see again: several Paddyfield Warblers.

Paddyfield Warbler: Look at the really short primaries

Paddyfield Warbler: A good view of the wing formula

Chiffchaff: Siberian Chiffchaff (tristis) in the late afternoon sun

Bluethroat: Male, but frustratingly never close

Bluethroat: This looks like the nominate svecica subspecies

Indian Silverbill