K B Srinivas: Muthanallur Lake on Sarjapur Road

Another weekend and another birding session. This time it was just 2 of us, me and Ajit. We had already visited this lake once during the winter. Since there were lot of rains in last couple of months we thought we would visit the lake again and see if there is any water and bird life around.

I met Ajit near wipro corporate office at 6AM. We headed towards Muthanallur lake. On our way I spotted couple of White Naped Woodpeckers. I tried to take photos but the honking of a trucker scared them away. Amazing way to start the day.

We parked our bikes near the lake and started walking towards the lake. We have to walk through the tomato field. Our first good sighting was a female Koel with a tomato in its mouth, enjoying her morning breakfast. Once we reached lake we were dumbstruck to see very less water. And that too was in small pools spread across few places. We were hoping for more water.

In one of the pools Ajit pointed out to a very strange bird at this time of the year. At first it looked like a Sandpiper but on closer look it appeared to have a longer beak and also the size of the bird seemed to be big when compared to a sandpiper. That is when we thought it should be a Shank. It looked a Greenshank. But I should get it confirmed once. I'm not sure what a lone bird was doing at this time of the year. Probably it did not do the migration this summer or it returned early? I'm not sure. Hopefully we will get more information on this soon.

We walked along the river and spotted couple of other big ponds. We saw 3 Ashy Wood Swallows there along with 3 Pied Kingfishers. We also saw few larks and pipits. We also saw a strange behavior where a Lark was chasing one of the wood swallows :-) It was beautiful to see them. We also saw a Lone Grey heron near the pond.

These ponds are created because of the sand mining that is happening on the lake. Lot of illegal sand mining is happening there also some trees are being felled.

We entered a small thickly wooded area to see if there are anymore birds there. Immediately Ajit spotted a green looking bird. Immediately we realized it is a Leaf bird. Since the male did not have a Gold front on its head we thought it should be Jerdons leafbird. We confirmed it after coming back to Ajit;s house.

We also saw lot of butterflies around which had a mix of Dark Blue tigers and double banded crows. It also had few plain tigers and Striped tigers. While walking through the field there we came across a dry well. We hoped we would come across an owl in that well. And we were right, a spotted owl just flew out of the well. We took few photos and left hoping it would return to the well and rest :-)

Before we left we visited the large pond again hoping to come across other bird species. This time the only other bird that we saw was an Indian Silver bill. We also saw a Shikra flying. That was the last sighting for the day.

The birding ended with breakfast at Ajit's house. Ajit's wife had prepared a very tasty Onion chutney with Dosa. Returned home after a very productive morning.

Birds seen during the day :

1. White Naped Woodpecker
2. Asian Koel.
3. Myna
4. Greenshank?
5. Pied Kingfisher
6. White Throated Kingfisher
7. Scaly Breasted Munia
8. Indian Silverbill
9. Ashy Wood Swallow
10. Indian Bushlark
11. Paddyfield Pipit
12. Grey Heron
13. Jerdons leafbird
14. Indian Spotted Owl
15. Spotted Dove
16. Laughing Dove
17. Pied Bushchat
18. Green Bea Eater
19. Shikra
20. Indian Pond Heron
21. Ashy Prinia
22. Purple Rumped Sunbird
23. Black Kite
24. Brahminy Kite
25. Yellow Billed Babbler
26. Red Vented Bulbul
27. Greater Coucal