GOA..A paradise for bird lovers

Hello!

A very good morning to all the birders out there.

How are you all today?

What interesting things have you planned for today?

As usual as soon as I got up. I went to my window to let in the cool breeze, and I suddenly see the world outside beaming with activity, I rush in to grab my camera and started clicking. And then suddenly it stuck to me that I should tell you all about the various birds I  get to see here from the very comfort of my home. 

You cant believe me isn't it?

Yeah it was hard for me to believe that I can watch all the wonderful creatures created by the creator staying at home, and I can't praise Him enough for His wonderful and varied creation.

So, coming to the point I wanted to throw a light upon the varied fauna of the STATE OF GOA.

Goa boasts of about 425 different species of birds, this large number for such a small state is the rich vegetation and green belt found in and around Goa, and the fact that Goa is surrounded by the western ghats makes it much more interesting place to watch out for many endemic species.

Today I'm gonna list out the various birds I managed to capture from my window.
1. Ashy Drongo (Dicrurus leucophaeus)
2. Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus)
3. Common Tailor bird (Orthotomus sutorius)
4. Greater Coucal (Centropus sinensis)
5. Greater flame backed wood pecker (Chrysocolaptes guttacristatus)
6. Indian Golden Oriole (Oriolus kundoo)
7. Indian Koel (Eudinymus scolopacious)
8. Jungle Myna (Acridotheres fuscus)
9. Oriental Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis)
10. Purple rumped sun bird (Leptocoma zeylonica)
11. Red whiskered bul-bul (Pycnonotus jacosus)
12. Red vented bul bul (Pycnonotus cafer)
13. Rock pigeon (Columba livia)
14. Vigor's sunbird (Aethopyga vigorsii)
15. White cheeked Barbet (Megalaima viridis)
16. White throated king fisher (Halcyon smyrnensis)
17. Yellow footed green Pigeon (Treron phoenicoptera).

I have already posted about a few birds and will very soon start posting about the birds mentioned in this post along with the other birds my husband and me captured in our birding trips.

My husband admitted that though he has been in Goa since two decades he barely noticed anything other than the crows, pigeons and sparrows. But now he is so interested in photographing birds that he never misses any chance to shoot (pun intended) any bird in his sight no matter what. lol

So, dear birders!
Why the delay, pack your bags and come visit this beautiful state, and now that the rains have stopped and it is all sunny and dry, you can also hit the beautiful beaches, have fun, and frolic around. Why delay any more? Check out this link of Goa tourism and book your birding packages today.

Happy Birding people...:)

Cheers,
Deepthi Nannam

Red whiskered Bul-bul (Pycnonotus jocosus)

Hello people!
How are you all?
Today I'm going to post about the most commonly found bird in our locality after the house crows and the Rock pigeons.

These birds perch in the shrubbery below our apartment and are frequent visitors to us. they have the characteristic call which is very pleasant to the ear I love waking up to their calls in the morning, their call is translated as Kick-pettigrew and it is also translated as Pleased to meet you. Isn't it intersting folks?

These birds as the name suggests belongs to the bul-bul family, they are small passerine birds, and are predominantly furgivorous which means they primarily feed on fruits. But they do eat insects also.

TIP FOR IDENTIFICATION:
1. The thick tuft of fine red feathers near the mouth refereed to as whiskers. (Picture 1)
2. The elevated or heightened crest.(Picture 2)
3. The red vent.(Picture 3)

These birds have their characteristic red whiskers on their cheek it is rather a tuft of soft feathers.

The characteristic tuft of red feathers.
This image was captured by my husband.

The distinctive crest on it's head is used as an easy identification mark.

Like its cousin The Red vented bul-bul even this has a red vent
 very soon I will post about the red-vented Bul-bul

An interesting point of note for biology geeks like me out there, This species of bul bul was first described by Sir Carl Linnaeus in his Systema nature.

For people who heard about them for the first time can check out the attached wiki links.

PS: Please click on the images for a larger view.

Keep smiling and keep Clicking.

Cheers,
Deepthi Nannam

Indian Golden Oriole (Oriolus kundoo)

These yellow beauties are a feast to the eyes.

What do you think?

Female Indian Golden  Oriole

Another profile

This bird was perched very far so could not capture the stunning details of it, but happy enough to have captured it as soon as I saw it for the very first time.

Greater Flameback (Chrysocolaptes guttacristatus )

Hello!
These days I'm so engrossed in Bird photography, that when ever I get some free time i.e. when my 6 month old son sleeps or when my husband has a holiday or during weekends I go out hunting to shoot new birds and to keep them caged in my computer :)

I now present to you all a new debutante in my collection of bird photographs. THE GREATER FLAME BACKED WOODPECKER( Chrysocolaptes guttacristatus)

I saw this bird perched high on a rain tree outside my window a very long time ago and tried capturing it but couldnt capture it clearly due to the thick foilage of the rain tree and very recently the neighboring apartment people had half of the tree overlooking my window chopped down which brought tears in my eyes and the thought of not having any more birds come made me very sad, but neverthless I never lost heart as that is a way in which I tend to spend my little free time, and have been eagerly waiting for it to show up again and I'm pleased to tell you all that it was back and though it was very high like the last time the lack of obstructing branches made my job easy. Though the bird seemed to be in a hurry, I managed to grab some beautiful shots of the magnificent creature.
Hope you like them.

TIPS FOR IDENTIFICATION:
1. Un marked golden yellow to dark brown back and wings
2. The red hood is characteristic of males

Adult male greater flame backed woodpecker

characteristic red crown of an adult male

Common Tailor Bird (Orthotomus sutorius)

I always heard a very prominent Cheep-cheep-cheep everyday whenever I went into our balcony but could never notice a bird in the vicinity, but after waiting patiently and after very careful observation for many days I found a very small bird in the near by shrubbery, and was sure those loud cheeps belonged to it, but my attempts at capturing the bird failed every time I tried because of the very fast nature of the bird and it being very small to zoom in properly, Took numerous shots but all were hazy or the eye of the bird was out of focus.

But I never gave up and then finally caught it having a stroll on my neighbors balcony grills.

So, here is the naughty little bird who gave me so much trouble...:)

Common tailor bird

But for it's mate the bird would never be strolling so carelessly I guess.;)

Oriental Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis)

Capturing a new bird can be very encouraging to Bird photography newbies like me and if both the male and female are clicked then the joy of the photographer knows no bounds...what do you say people?

You might be wondering as to why all the drama in this post?

Well, hear is the answer..I captured both the male and female Oriental Magpie Robin, both on a different day though after numerous hours of waiting and n number of clicks I could finally get both of them framed.

Here are the beauties.

Female Oriental Magpie Robin

Male Oriental Magpie Robin

Pardon the angle of the male bird but that's the closest I could get to the male bird. But the female bird was friendly enough to let me take a good click may be just for a minute.

An important point to remember in capturing small birds like Robin or much smaller birds like Fly catchers and sparrows is to not use the digital zoom cause they can haze the clarity and any post processing will not give the desired sharp image. 

Another point of note in Bird photography is to point our focus on the eye of the bird, especially when capturing birds of a monotonous shade, otherwise the picture lacks to capture the interest of the observers.

White spotted Fantail (Rhipidura albogularis)

This is also called Spot-breasted-Fantail, this is the only fantail found in Goa out of the 4 fantails found in India.

Captured this at Vasco-Da-Gama municipal park. This bird is always there and as soon as we enter the park it kind of welcomes you with a tail display. 

Captured this with my Nikon L820 as well.

look at the tail..hence the name

White throated kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis)

I'm on a look out for birds these days and one day in the evening I went into my balcony to close the windows, just then I saw a brilliant display of blue fly across me and I ran to capture the beauty.

White throated kingfisher on a rain tree branch

White throated kingfisher

Please click on the images for a larger view.

An important point to remember in bird photography is to use shallow depth-of-field well so as to create an un- cluttered background which makes the subject stand out.

Bird Photography. Warning: It is quite addictive

Photographing inanimate objects is a very wonderful thing but the real challenge comes in while photographing animate subjects especially birds cause they are quite unpredictable and are very easily scared and fly away, I very clearly remember photographing a Purple rumped sunbird when I was on a vacation and I loved it so much That I got hooked to it instantly and have been on a quest since then to capture as many birds as possible. Hope I get to fulfill my desire to capture those lovely winged creatures and showcase them to people around so that we could all praise the Creator for His Awesome creation.

Check out this space for Bird Photography.

Cheers,

Deepthi Nannam