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 I had tried to contact him by email from the Western Ghats, but the email addresses I had were out of date & had no responses.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

16 Jan 14 - The Grey & Brown Of Gujarat

This is my homage to the classic Sawdoctors song 'The Green and Red of Mayo'. We headed out with our Indian jeep mates again this morning, but Bill & myself were dropped off for a few hours to look for Stoliczka's Bushchat. This scarce regional endemic species is only found in a small area in Afghanistan, Pakistan & the arid NW of India. To make life harder, there is nowhere in India where it's common & it could easily be overlooked as one of the much commoner Siberian Stonechats if not looked at carefully. The area we visited was a local lake with arable edges as Stoliczka's Bushchats like weedy edges to arable land as well as grasslands in arid areas. Bill had seen this species here in at least once during previous visits. Unfortunately, no joy after a couple of hours of searching. Initally, we were birding along the edge of these arable fields & grasslands.

We were held up by the local rush hour before we got to the lake

Indian Grey Francolin: A fairly common bird in arid scrubland

Ashy-crowned Finchlark: Male. This is the common Finchlark in Gujarat & good numbers were seen each day

Ashy-crowned Finchlark: Female

Pied Wagtail: Trying to sort out the subspecies on wintering grounds is probably not possible, but dukhunensis or personata are the expected subspecies in this part of India

White-eared Bulbul

Pied Bushchat: Male

Eastern Pied Wheatear: Female (or immature male)

Desert Wheatear: The commonest Wheatear in the Little Rann of Kutch

Daurian Shrike

Bill: Checking the finer separation features of Grey Bird from Brown Bird in the Inskipp guide

One of the local cattle: They are pretty impressive animals when seen close up. Fortunately, they were also fairly docile

There was a good opportunity to have a good look at & get some photos of a couple of confusing Pipit species, Tawny Pipit & Paddyfield Pipit, which were in the same field.

Tawny Pipit: This photo shows the long legged, long appearance & upright stance as well as the overall pale, relatively unstreaked appearance of Tawny Pipit

Tawny Pipit: Showing the fine dark lores, malar & moustachial stripes

Tawny Pipit: Another view of the pale bill, facial pattern & general appearance 

Tawny Pipit: Showing the well marked median coverts

Tawny Pipit: This is a winter visitor to India & is the nominate campestris subspecies (the same as the European subspecies) 

Tawny Pipit: A different individual to the above Tawny Pipit photos

Paddyfield Pipit: Although the same size as Tawny Pipit, it looks smaller, more compact, shorter tailed & shorter-legged than Tawny Pipit

Paddyfield Pipit: This is the waitei subspecies which is paler than the rufulus & malayensis races in the rest of the Subcontinent

Paddyfield Pipit: Showing the more uniformly patterned converts, streaky crown, weaker bill compared to Tawny Pipit

Paddyfield Pipit: The whitish throat & belly help separate this species from the buffier Blyth's Pipit. This photo also shows the weak eyestripe, malar & Moustachial stripes

Eventually, we moved across to look at the lake edge & nearby scattered bushes. There were a good selection of species on the lake and around the lake edge. Unfortunately, there was a lot of glare as we were looking into the light.

White Pelican: As far as I can see they are all White Pelicans in this flock

White Pelican: This party flew over as it warmed up

Glossy Ibis

Crane: Adult

Crane: Immature

Red-wattled Plover

Black-tailed Godwit

Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse: Two females enjoying a drink

Sykes's Warbler: The main features of this species to my eyes is it is a cross between a small Acrocephalus and Phylloscopus Warbler. The pale colouration, pale supercilium mainly up to the eye, but fading out behind the eye, lack of a dark eye line & pale lower mandible

After a long day in the field yesterday, it was an early return for lunch today. On the way back, there was a Black-winged Kite on the wires. Checking it, it turned out to be a sub-adult bird which was even better looking than the adults.

Black-winged Kite: Sub-adult

A local farmer's field on the way back to Desert Coursers

It's a pretty basic way of live