Thursday, February 02, 2012

Gujarat, India, Day 1, Part 2: Kensville CC




Booted Eagle


Indian Palm Squirrel


Southern Coucal

Purple-rumped Sunbird (the only one I saw, so please forgive the photo)

Orthopteran sp


White-throated Kingfisher

Indian Flying Fox

The eagle was one of only a few of the species we saw in a couple of weeks. We also saw our first Black Kites, Oriental Honey Buzzard and Pallid Harrier. Easily the most abundant raptor, though, is Black-winged Kite, which are everywhere. The kingfisher pictured here was over some rough ground being raked over and moved and which was already occupied by Common Mynas and Cattle Egrets in some numbers. This is the most terrestrial of the three kingfisher species we saw (the others are Pied and Common).
The little squirrel was easily the commonest wild mammal we saw. They seem to be at every birding site. Their call is very bird like and quite distracting!
There were plenty of other birds which were really common around the golf course which I didn't photograph, including Syke's and Greenish Warblers, lots of different Yellow Wagtails, various Stonechat types and Tawny Pipits.
After nightfall (and after speeches, several dances and a huge buffet), we went out for a bit of owl spotting, but instead stumbled upon furit bats. There were two sizes: flying fox size and something about half that size that didn't hang around. But (as you can see below), I got better fruit bat photos later in the trip... Hoever, this noght one shows a good amount of pollen on his nose!

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