24 Jan 14 - The Best Of The Rest

The first day at a new site, usually seems to lead to large numbers of photos & Tal Chappar was no exception. When I checked I had 902 photos (over 5Gb) to wade through so it was one of my heavier days of photography. About 25% of these were of the Blackbuck & Chinkara, where the photos got better as early hazy conditions cleared & the light improved during the day. But there were a good selection of open country & thorn bush birds photographed. Here are the remaining photos for the day.

Black Vulture: Also known as Cinereous Vulture in case birders get confused with American Black Vulture which as the name suggests doesn't occur in the Old World

Black Vulture

Pallid Harrier: Female. I was really glad to find these photos as it's a much better comparison against female Montagu's Harrier (see the An Enigmatic Family Year Tick post) than my first poor photo from the lake at CEDO. This photo shows the strong white crescent in the face & dark ear coverts 

Pallid Harrier: Female.This clearly shows the dark secondaries with the narrower pale band in the middle which narrows considerably closer to the wing as the dark trailing edge broadens

Steppe Eagle: Subadult: The large, bulky size, long head & neck & bulking secondaries all help to separate this from the 2 Spotted Eagles. The 2 white bars on the upperwing indicate its not an adult bird & the lack of a pale bar on the underwing indicates it's a subadult

Laggar Falcon: This Falcon's range is SE Iran to Burma

Laggar Falcon: Adults have a pale belly

Laggar Falcon: Immature birds have a dark belly

Indian Grey Francolin

Indian Peacock: Pity he didn't turn around, but it shows how grim the light was & this was mid morning

Indian Roller: This was a fairly common bird at Tal Chappar

Indian Roller: Separated from Roller which is an Autumnal migrant to NW India by the streaked, pinky face, throat & breast (which are bright blue in Roller)

Zitting Cisticola: Cisticola identification is easy in NW India, as the only other contender, Golden-headed Cisticola, is not found in this part of India. A nice looking Cisticola when seen well

Zitting Cisticola: Showing the barring on the undertail

Siberian Stonechat: Male 

Desert Wheatear

Isabelline Wheatear: Note the upright stance, heavy bill, pale coloration & the hint of a black alula which all separate it from a vagrant Wheatear

Great Grey Shrike: This is the lahtora subspecies which has the black extending onto the forehead, which it doesn't do on pallidostris (which also has paler lores). Formally, this was Southern Grey Shrike, but has now been lumped into Great Grey Shrike

Great Grey Shrike

Black Drongo: There was one open area at Tal Chappar which had over 10 Black Drongos feeding from the ground

19 Jan 14: White-naped Tit (Wow)

The good news was Bill had managed to contact Jugal & he had space for us to stay at CEDO for the next couple of nights. Therefore, it was off to CEDO soon after dawn. While we were waiting for Shiva to bring the car, we spotted a couple of Common Koels in the sole tree in our busy side street. A closer scan of the tree revealed 7 birds sitting there.

Common Koel: Male

Common Koel: Female

Cow pen: Cows are sacred in India & clean up a lot of the vegetable waste on the Indian streets. These ones were lucky? as they had a pen to stay in overnight next to a small temple by our hotel

Vegetable seller: There always seems to be a good selection of vegetables on sale in Indian towns

The good news is Jugal has expanded his accommodation area & now has 8 rooms. I had tried to contact him by email from the Western Ghats, but the email addresses I had were out of date & had no responses. Jugal's current contact details are cedobirding.com or cedoindia@yahoo.com.

Jugal: In front of the CEDO entrance

Another view of CEDO

After unloading the car of the bags into our rooms, we were soon heading out again. The Great Rann of Kutch area has a good selection of species within an hour or two of driving, but the main target for both of us was the tricky to see, dry country White-naped Tit. I had looked for this on my first Indian trip, but didn't have a good site & it was one of the main birds to hopefully see in Gujarat. Jugal was free to come along as our guide for the morning, which was great as this was a bird he has extensively studied in the past. But our first stop was when a dog sized mammal appeared on the road & stopped to look at us. As we got closer, we realised it was a Caracal (like a small Lynx) & all shouted at Shiva to stop. He did annoyingly, using only friction to break the car, so we ended up stopping close to where it had run into the impenetrable bushes (obviously never to be seen again). This was only the third Caracal that Jugal had seen locally in 20 years of living there. The chances are it would have disappeared had we stopped sooner. We were all elated, but a bit disappointed at the brief views. Soon after was the first birding stop: an arid rocky slope to look for Sykes's Lark.

We had some help to flush the Sykes's Larks

Indian Red-winged Bushlark: Also know as Indian Bushlark. The streaked crown, streaky breast & white surrounding the cheek patch separate it from Singing Bushlark. In flight, the rufous in the wing was obvious

Ashy-crowned Finchlark: Female

Sykes's Lark: They like bare, stoney ground & this area looked perfect 

Sykes's Lark

Sykes's Lark: The breast had a strong chestnut wash to it

Tawny Pipit

Rufous-fronted Prinia: Showing a good rufous forehead, as well as the whitish lores, supercilium & underparts 

Rufous-fronted Prinia: The pale tail tips show well in this photo

Moving further down the road, we reached the White-naped Tit area. This was an area of decent bushes on an arid, rocky hillside with a small temple nearby. Jugal quickly located a pair which hung around for long enough for reasonable photos to be be taken. Soon after he picked up a Marshall's Iora, which was very approachable & carried on feeding despite me getting fairly close.

The small temple: Indian temples are often the best kept of buildings in India

Jugal & Bill looking for the White-naped Tit

A typical view of the arid bush country

Indian Grey Francolin

Small Minivet: Male

Marshall's Iora

Marshall's Iora: Couldn't resist another photo

Black Redstart: Female

White-naped Tit: A pair quickly appeared to Jugal's tape

White-naped Tit: It looked even better when it turned around

White-naped Tit: A photo of the white nape

Bay-backed Shrike

Grey-necked Bunting

Butterfly

Finally, it was time to head back to CEDO for lunch. After the excellent food at Desert Coursers, the food whilst good vegetarian food, was a bit disappointing.

Booted Eagle: Pale phase over CEDO