Pittas and Snakes

Decided to do a quick birding session in Valley school this morning. The plans were made friday but confirmed yesterday night. Since I stay in Talaghattapura I need not travel long distances to find a very good birding location, Valley school is about 4KM from my house. So I can decide in the morning and go for a quick birding session.

Especially after seeing Pitta last week and after reading Dr. Krishna's mail in bngbirds regarding Pitta's getting ready for their return migration I decided to try my luck today and see if there were more than 1 Pitta there.

I started at around 5:45 from my house. First sighting was a Juvenile Shikra right next to the road. Before I arrived at the valley school I saw family of Grey Francolins crossing the road. There were 2 adults and 1 juvenile in the family. Got down at valley school entered the details in entry registry and started birding. Very close to the entrance I saw 4 Green Bee Eaters sitting on a wire and doing some slick acrobatics in air catching their early morning breakfast. It was amazing to see their moves in mid air.

I headed towards the fig tree hoping to see some birds around. There I saw a little commotion where lot of birds were crying away. On close inspection I saw a Spotted Owlet. Probably all the birds there did not like the Owls presence there. I waited for some more time there to check if any other birds fly in. I saw one big bird fly and sit on one of the trees close by. Again as luck would have it was Blue-Beared Bee Eater again. So 2 weeks in a row I was seeing this bird. But this time around he sat on a far away tree and all I could manage was a very bad photograph as you can see below. It had Bumble Bee in its mouth. Again very lucky to see this bird atleast.

Blue-Beared Bee Eater

Went ahead to check if there was any activity near the abandoned house, found few swifts flying around. Couple of weeks back had not seen any activity. This time they seem to be coming back to their nests. After that followed the trail inside.

All of a sudden I saw a green colored bird coming out and sitting on a far off branch. Soon realized it to be a Pitta. There he was sitting and enjoying the early morning sun. He spent some time there on the open branch and flew inside the bushes. After that wanted to visit the Orange headed thrush area and on my way I saw one bird flying from my left side and sitting on a tree. It waited there for a while and flew into the bushes.

Indian Pitta

After that saw couple of fantails and Magpie robin in their courting ritual. Then all of sudden heard Pitta calls all around. I could hear from at least 3 different sides. After sometime saw couple of Pittas chasing each other. It was a different feeling to see so many Pitta's on a single day.

And then I heard a commotion somewhere close by. At first I thought It should be deer's around. But when I went close and saw it was couple of snakes in territorial fight or trying to woo the female. We have been wanting to see snakes in the wild for a long time. We rarely had any luck.  But this time it was two snakes and in a fight:-) It was amazing to see them keep raising together, twisting, crawling and hissing.

Rat Snake?

I also saw White Rumped Shama, Tawny Bellied Babblers, Puff-Throated Babblers too. Also crows chasing what looked like a mottle owl.

Puff Throated Babbler

It was almost 8:45 and my time was up. I decided to head back. On the way back saw warbler very close the bike I had parked and while driving back I saw Brown shrike too.

Blyth's Reed Warbler

Brown Shrike

Greater Coucal

List of birds seen during the day. The same has been uploaded in e-bird too. And the link for the same is mentioned below.

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S18097294

1	Gray Francolin
2	Indian Peafowl
3	Oriental Honey-buzzard
4	Shikra
5	Black Kite
6	Red-wattled Lapwing
7	Laughing Dove
8	Asian Koel
9	Spotted Owlet
10	Blue-bearded Bee-eater
11	Green Bee-eater
12	White-cheeked Barbet
13	Coppersmith Barbet
14	White-naped Woodpecker
15	Rose-ringed Parakeet
16	Indian Pitta
17	Brown Shrike
18	Black Drongo
19	White-browed Fantail
20	House Crow
21	Cinereous Tit
22	Red-vented Bulbul
23	Red-whiskered Bulbul
24	White-browed Bulbul
25	Common Tailorbird
26	Ashy Prinia
27	Tawny-bellied Babbler
28	Puff-throated Babbler
29	Indian Robin
30	Oriental Magpie-Robin
31	White-rumped Shama
32	Tickell's Blue-Flycatcher
33	Pied Bushchat
34	Jungle Myna
35	Common Myna
36	Brahminy Starling
37	Pale-billed Flowerpecker
38	Purple-rumped Sunbird
39	Purple Sunbird