Flowering Dilli….

It is a pleasure to walk in the parks and ‘gol chakkars’ of Delhi seeing the lovely flowering plants. Some lovely pink poppies that were seen at Lodhi Garden.

 

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Deer Park – 10.03.12

A photowalk by DPEG at Deer Park gave some unexpected dividends. Instead of practicing on hyper-focal distance captures and circles of confusion, I took off from the crowd, and went to photograph birds…. today was a veritable feast. With some wild flowers and rainbows added in. Here are some of the pics of the shoot….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience rewarded me with some lovely reflections of spot billed ducks (Anas poecilorhyncha) ….

A Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus), also known as the King Crow, is a small Asian passerine bird of the drongo family Dicruridae

Several Rufous Treepie’s (Dendrocitta vagabunda)

Some geese (Anatidae ??)

 

and a pair of Indian Grey Hornbill (Ocyceros birostris)

 

 

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Flight of the Pelican–Kokrebellur - 1

It was during a visit to Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary that we decided to stop over en-route at the Kokkarebellur or the  more colloquial Kokrebellur village which is near Maddur in Karnataka.

Even before reaching the village proper, we sighted Spot-billed Pelicans (Pelecanus phillipensis) flying.

Although these birds look ungainly while sitting, they are very elegant flyers.

With a very large wingspan. Most Pelicans seen were flying solo, and very rarely were seen as groups.

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Nesting Pelicans - Kokrebellur - 2

Kokre can be loosely translated as 'Storks' in Kannada and thus Kokrebellu is a small village in Karnataka that is a haven for breeding storks and pelicans. According to a paper written by Harish Bhat & Pramod Subbarao, Kokrebellur is one of the five last breeding sites for the globally threatened bird species, the Spot-billed Pelican (Pelecanus phillipensis) in India.

Although the visit of Pelicans to this village was recorded as early as 1853, it was not until the pioneering efforts of a senior forest official S G Neginhal of the Indian Forest Service.

 

Black Ibis (Pseudibis papillosa)

The Red-naped Ibis (Pseudibis papillosa) also known as the Indian Black Ibis or just the Black Ibis, is a species of Ibis found in parts of the Indian Subcontinent. The photographs below were taken en-route to Kokrebellur Bird Sanctuary, which is near Maddur in Karnataka.

The sexes are alike. It has a curlew-like long down-curved bill, a black head with a patch of crimson, and a white patch near the shoulder.

This largish black bird is found at lakes, in marshes, in riverbeds and on irrigated farmland—it is not as aquatic as many other species of ibis. It is gregarious and generally forages on margins of wetlands in small numbers.

Mirrored Windows….

It was during a recent trip to the villages of Karnataka, near Mysore, where I encountered this interesting phenomenon, of mirrored windows.

They looked really incongruous when it was seen in the context of a traditionally tiled house. This is how the modern world is catching up with the traditional……