Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Uttarakhand Himalayas - Birds of Kumaon - Part 1

The incredibly beautiful Asian Paradise Flycatcher - with its long white forked tail, black head and blue eyes returned again and again to its nest on the mango tree outside our cottage on the fringes of Jim Corbett National Park.

I had seen this beautiful bird once before while camping at Jungle Lodge's Bheemeshwari Camp on the banks of the Cauvery. At that time I missed a photographic shoot of this elusive bird. However, Corbett National Park not only gave me an opportunity to capture this bird in photographs and videos but also allowed me to observe how it constructed its nest, how an Oriental White Eye pair stole nest building material from the Fly-catcher's nest and how different the female Fly-catcher looked as compared to the male.

I will talk about our resort later. Let's get down to the birds first!

Asian Paradise Flycatcher

I managed real-close up shots of this bird as I had discovered its nest right outside our cottage. On occasions, I did not even have to use the full 20x optical zoom of my camera - Canon Powershot SX10is.

Here are 3 shots of this bird:


 You can see it seated on its nest-under-construction in this shot:


What a beautiful bird:




This is the female Asian Paradise Fly-catcher:


Here is a video of the fly-catcher building its nest. Unfortunately, blogger does not support a higher resolution of this video:


Streak-throated Woodpecker

We spotted this beautiful bird while on jeep safari in the Lohachaur area within Corbett National Park.


It seemed unperturbed by our presence as it went looking for insects under the leaves:


Kalij Pheasant

The Kalij Pheasant, Lophura leucomelanos, is a pheasant found in forests and thickets, especially in the Himalayan foothills.



The female Kalij Pheasant looks quite different from the male:



I managed to capture a brief video of this bird using my Canon Powershot SX10is, the same camera I used for the pictures:


Oriental Magpie Robin:

This bird, when found on the ground, holds its tail upright. The Magpie Robin is famous for its songs. The bird was about 10 yards away from our jeep, I had to use all of the 20x zoom my camera had to capture this shot:





Oriental Turtle Dove:

This bird with colorful feathers appeared in between 2 trees. I stopped the safari jeep and got a good capture:

2 comments:

Dr.V.V.Rao said...

The Asian Paradise Fly Catcher is majestic and beautiful. Well captured in the camera. One can visualise the comparitively rare birds in action. Marvellous work..Dr.V.V.Rao., Mahe (Pondicherry)

Unknown said...

We are bird lovers and enjoy watching several birds that visit our garden everyday.

Every now and then we are treated to some rare and beautiful species such as a Himalayan Fly Catcher, yellow billed hornbills, etc.

Check out our photo folder labelled "Nature" at
http://www.cancios.spaces.live.com