Birding @ Kabini

Team - Lokesh(Colleague), Sunil (Previous NTP batch) and Niranjan

Date - May 17th, 18th and 19th.

After taking 3 days leave for the elephant census, it was time again to ask for two days leave so that I could go to Kabini JLR with Sunil and Lokesh. We thought, going there on weekday would save us from the weekend crowd. But this was not the case to be, Kabini JLR sells like hotcake and it was completely booked even on a Thursday and Friday with nearly 60-70 guests. Anyways let's leave all the JLR logistics and concentrate on birds.

Just after crossing Mysore, we spotted a hornbill with some berries in it's beak perched on a tree. Upon further observation we found out the nest and the young ones in it. Around here there's a small water body and we found plenty of water birds here. We moved into the JLR property and checked into our cottage and went for a short walk around the campus and found woodpeckers, sunbirds and plenty of other birds. The highlight of the trip was a crested hawk eagle eating a giant malabar squirrel which we saw on one of the safari's.

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The checklist is as below. Thanks to Sunil for typing the list :-)

1.Indian Grey Hornbill
2.Purple Swamp hen
3.Cattle Egret
4.Little Egret
5.Ashy wren Warbler
6.Indian Pond Heron
7.Black Ibis
8.Red headed Ibis
9.Little Cormorant
10Greater Cormorant
11.Brahminy kite
12.Pariah / Black Kite
13.River Tern
14.Grey tit
15.Flame Backed Woodpecker (M & F)
16.Brown Capped Pygmy Woodpecker
17.Common Iora
18.Scarlet Minivet (M & F)
19.Red Vented Bulbul
20.Red Whiskered Bulbul
21.Blue Parakeet
22.Rose Ringed Parakeet
23.White Cheeked Barbet
24.Loten’s sunbird (F)
25.Purple rumped Sunbird
26.Purple sunbird.
27.Black Shouldered Kite
28.Jungle Babbler
29.Common Myna
30.Jungle Myna
31.Common House Crow
32.Jungle Crow
33.Crested hawk Eagle
34.Painted Stork
35.Eurasian Spoonbill
36.Brahminy Starling
37.Pied Kingfisher
38.Common Peafowl
39.Jungle Fowl
40.Grey Heron
41.Small Green bee eater
42.Crested Serpent Eagle
43.Indian Roller
44.Spotted Dove
45.Laughing Dove
46.Racket Tailed Drongo
47.Small Blue Kingfisher
48.White breasted Kingfisher
49.Little Ringed Plover
50.Indian Bush Lark
51.Red Wattled Lapwing
52.Spot Billed Ducks
53.White Bellied Water hen
54.Malabar Pied Hornbill
55.Common House Sparrow
56.Common Cuckoo
57.House swift
58.Hoopoe
59.Snake Bird / Darter
60.Red headed Vulture
61.Indian White backed vulture
62.Common Coot
63.Yellow legged Green Pigeon
64.Imperial Pigeon
65.Chestnut headed Bee eater
66.Blue Tailed Bee eater
67.Rufus Wood pecker
68.Black Drongo
69.Rosy Starling
70.Common Hill Myna
71.Common Treepie
72.Rufus Treepie
73.Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher
74.Thick Billed Flowerpecker
75.Common Tailor bird.
76.Pied Bushchat
77.Magpie Robin

78. Open billed stork.