The Bird Sightings

Kanha...contd.

2009-04-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

After seeing the tiger for two consecutive days we thought of trying to find sloth bear or wild dogs. So we avoided the path where a tiger show was being held and took a new route. This was the hilly part of the park. While going thru this part of the forest we heard the alarm call of the barking deer but were not able to spot it in dense jungle. After traveling for an hour thru the zigzag mountainous path we entered the grassland portion of the forest, here we noticed a shinny spot sitting on the road side. We slowed our jeep and soon realized that it was a leopard sitting, looking at a male spotted deer grazing on the road side, further down the road. Our presence didn’t disturb the leopard (may be he was too hungry to ignore us or was habitual of the human presence in the park) and as soon as we stopped, the leopard started moving slowly towards the deer. Slowly crawling on the road it reached within few feet of the deer. At this time a langur (in the jungle the langur’s and the spotted deer live side by side thus acting as an alarm system against the predators) was continuously giving the alarm call of the presence of leopard. The deer was alert but was not able to spot the leopard. After a while the leopard started the final dash towards the deer. And in a fraction of second there was a cloud of dust all around with no trace of the deer or leopard. Only the sound of langur was heard. We drove our jeep a little further to see if the kill was successful. Luckily the deer was able to dodge the attack. The leopard after the fruitless attempt started to come towards the road. On seeing our vehicle he ran parallel to the road for a few meters and then crossed the road showing its splendid patterns and its full body length. After crossing the road and going inside the forest little bit, he marked his territory and disappeared into the wilderness.

Kanha

2009-04-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

Kanha National Park is situated in Madhya Pradesh. There are three park gates to enter Kanha. Kisli gate that was used by us was around 170 km from Jabalpur. Urge to see the tiger in the wilderness dragged me here.

On reaching the park in the noon, we had our lunch and got ready for the afternoon safari. Within half an hour of the start of the safari we were lucky enough to see a male tiger resting under the shade of the tree. It was difficult to see the tiger with the naked eyes so had to use binocs and due to the limitation of the camera lens it was impossible to capture it. But seeing a tiger in the wild for the second time was a wonderful experience. First time I saw the tiger in the terai jungles of Dudhwa. The glimpse of the tiger was breath taking. At that time I could hear my heartbeats clearly…no sound was heard except that of my heart with my gaze fixed on the tiger while everything blurred out in the surrounding with sweat trickling down by back. The feeling didn’t repeat again this time because of the distance between the tiger n me was much greater than the last time. We waited for the tiger to rise from its slumber…which didn’t happened as the heat of the day had made him dull. The sun was setting and silhouette of the herd of gaurs could be seen grazing in the horizon. A large number of tourists were eagerly waiting for the tiger to rise but the tiger seemed not to be in a mood to entertain his guests. Soon there was movement of vehicles and on the other side of the road a yellow spot was seen moving in the grass. It was a tigress as a male will not cross the territory of another male without getting into conflict as they are solitary animals. And it was the mating period of the tigers so the female had the free pass to enter their territories. This tigress was collared. Seeing too much movement she sat under a thorny bush for a while and waited for the humans to disperse so that she could cross the road. After seeing that the people had no intention of leaving the road, she entered a narrow water stream and crossed the road. The vehicles were parked on the road which didn’t bother the tigress at all. The increasing number of tourist vehicles entering the park had made them habitual of the human presence which was not so in Dudhwa. It was almost dark when we started for the forest rest house. On our way back two jungle cats jumped in front of the jeep. For few minutes they played in the light of the jeep and then disappeared into the darkness, the way they had come.

Next morning we started early for the safari. While looking at the spotted deer, sambhar, swamp deer and gaur which were a common siting in the park premises… four elephants were also seen. There are no wild elephants in the forest of Madhya Pradesh. These elephants were the officials of the forest department. Soon the elephants had cornered something….on asking the guide what it was all about. We were told that tiger show was being held. In tiger show, the tiger is cornered with the help of elephants and the tourist then ride these elephants to get a closer view of it. This concept has been discontinued in the Corbett as the popularity of it is far beyond the other parks in India. The tiger show was more like a puppet show…the puppets being controlled by the forest department. They knew at what time of the day to surround the tiger. Tiger, being a cat is nocturnal and is lazy during the day time, so, it is the idle time for the show. Thou, it is a good method to earn revenues for the proper functioning of the park but on the part of tiger its privacy is lost for the enjoyment of a few. Since, most of the people coming to park are least bothered about the flora and fauna of the forest. They just want to see the tiger in the wild….and the tiger show is the way to fulfill it.

A very interesting phenomenon was observed while taking snaps of the grazers. To capture the front view of them…our guide used to mimic the mating call of the tiger to get their attention. On hearing the call they would look at the direction from where the call was coming from. But in case of wild boar they would not look in the direction of the call but would just freeze in the position they were in. This was very interesting on the part of boars. May be it was due to the thick short neck of the boar which hinders the movement of head.

IIT Kanpur Resident Aves

2009-03-19T13:12:00.001-07:00

IIT Kanpur (Campus ONLY; Bithoor etc. excluded)-

(IITK campus complete check list is available here. But it was compiled long back, so many of birds mentioned there are not seen in campus. This is the list of birds we(Sainath and I) spotted recently.)

Indian Peafowl
Lesser Whistling Duck
Comb Duck
Spot Billed Duck
Cotton Pygmy Goose(Cotton Teal)
Northern Pintail
Black-Rumped Flameback(Golden Flamebck)
Brown Headed Barbet
Coppersmith
Indian Gray Hornbill
Common Hoopoe
Indian Roller
White Throated Kingfisher
Pied Kingfisher
Common Kingfisher
Green Bee-eater
Blue Tailed Bee-eater
Common Hawk Cuckoo(Brainfever)
Asian Koel
Greater Coucal
Rose Ringed Parakeet
Plum Headed Parakeet
Eurasian Eagle Owl
Mottled Wood Owl
Spotted Owlet
Rock Pigeon
Laughing Dove
Spotted Dove
Eurasian Collared Dove
Yellow Footed Green Pigeon
Sarus Crane
White Breasted Waterhen
Common Moorehen
Marsh Sandpiper
Green Sandpiper
Wood Sandpiper
Eurasian Thick-knee
Black Winged Stilt
Pheasant tailed Jacna
Yellow Wattled Lapwing
Red Wattled Lapwing
Black Shouldered Kite
Black Kite
Brahminy Kite(not confirmed)
Egyptian Vulture
Marsh Harrier
Shikra
Oriental Honey Buzzard
Little Grebe
Great Cormorant
Little Cormorant
Intermediate Egret
Cattle Egret
Indian Pond Heron
Great Egret
Grey Heron
Purple Heron
Black Crowned Night Heron
Black Ibis
Painted Stork
Asian Openbill
Woolly-Necked Stork
Long Tailed Shrike(plz. confirm)
Rufous Treepie or Indian Treepie
House Crow
Eurasian Golden Oriole
Large Cuckoosrke
Black Drongo
BlueThroat
Oriental Magpie Robin
Indian Robin
Black Redstart
Brown Rock Chat
Pied Bushchat
Brahminy Starling
Asian Pied Starling
Common Myna
Bank Myna
Brown Winged Starling(Aplonis grandis)
Wire Tailed Swallow
Plain Martin(plz. confirm)
Red Rumped Swallow
Red Whiskered Bulbul
Red Vented Bulbul
Plain Prinia
Ashy Prinia
Zitting Cisticola
Jungle Babbler
Sand Lark
Crested Lark
Purple Sunbird
House Sparrow
Chestnut-Shouldered Petronia
Citrine Wagtail
Yellow Wagtail
Grey Wagtail
White Browed Wagtail
White Wagtail
Black Headed Weaver
Indian Silverbill
Scaly Breasted Munia
Black Headed Munia
Common Rosefinch

Please add the missed ones and correct the wrong ids.

Kanha National Park, March 2009

2009-03-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Bird Sightings

1. Indian Treepie

2. Black Drongo

3. Coppersmith Barbet

4. Black Shouldered Kite

5. Common Crow

6. Jungle Crow

7. Little Egret

8. Black Rumped Flameback

9. Black Hooded Oriole

10. Greater Racket-tailed Drongo

11. Inidan Roller

12. Spotted Dove

13. Oriental Magpie Robin

14. House Sparrow

15. Greater Coucal

16. Lesser Coucal

17. Rose ringed Parakeet

18. Plum headed Parakeet

19. Large Cuckooshrike

20. White Rumped Shama

21. Jungle Owlet

22. Oriental Honey Buzzard

23. Blue winged Leafbird

24. Black Ibis

25. White Eyed Buzzard

26. Turtle Dove

27. Long Tailed Shrike

28. Scarlet Minivet

29. Grey Indian Hornbill

30. Shikra

31. White Bellied Drongo

32. Grandala

33. Common Stonechat

34. Blue-capped Rock Thrush

35. Changeable Hawk Eagle

36. Sirkeer Malkoha

37. Indian Peafowl

38. Common Myna

39. Red Wattled Lapwing

40. Yellow Wattled Lapwing

41. Brown Headed Barbet

42. Red Jungle Fowl

43. White Rumped Flameback

Animal Sightings

1. Tiger

2. Leopard

3. Wild Boar

4. Sambhar

5. Spotted Deer

6. Jungle Cat

7. Barasingha

8. Gaur

9. Langur

10. Rheus Macau

11. Indian Hare

12. Jackal

13. Mongoose

Samanvaya and Abhinav visited. Hired a guide named A K Singh.

The place is damn costly, roughly 4000 rs for the safari only per day. But it's very large as compared to Dudhwa.

Worth a visit at least once :)