Tuesday 21 February 2012

Storks, snipe and sunbirds


13th February

I am discovering, as if I didn’t know it already from fourteen years in the job, that leading tours and writing blogs are mutually incompatible. There is simply too much to do and, after hours and hours of explaining plans, fixing problems, finding birds and helping clients to see them, there is neither time nor energy for stringing words together coherently, even if the coherent stringing of words had ever been a forte of mine. I feared as much.

Nonetheless, today has been a beautiful day, with many highlights. In the morning we visited Majuli Island, stopping at two celebrated vaishnavite monasteries, Auniati Satra (excellent birding and several grey pansy butterflies) and Uttar Kamalabari (spectacular drumming and dancing plus our first peacock pansy butterfly). This afternoon we set sail downriver and delighted in the thousands of ducks and geese which line the silty banks of this magnificent river and in the death-eyed eagles and falcons which gather here to hunt them. A terrific spectacle, unless you were the duck in question, was a white-tailed eagle bearing down on a panicked spotbill. The duck escaped and the eagle went hungry. Life is cruel.


New today

Mammals

19
small Indian mongoose
Herpestes javanicus

Birds

208
dusky warbler
Phylloscopus fuscatus
209
common tailorbird
Orthotomus sutorius
210
black-rumped flameback
Dinopium benghalense
211
red-throated flycatcher
Ficedula albicilla
212
Tickell’s leaf-warbler
Phylloscopus affinis
213
shikra
Accipiter badius
214
chestnut-tailed starling
Sturnus malabaricus
215
oriental skylark
Alauda gulgula
216
scaly-breasted munia
Lonchura punctulata
217
streaked weaver
Ploceus manyar
218
pheasant-tailed jacana
Hydrophasianus chirurgus
219
pied harrier
Circus melanoleucos
220
red-crested pochard
Netta rufina
221
rosy pipit
Anthus roseatus
222
little ringed plover
Charadrius dubius
223
cinnamon bittern
Ixobrychus cinnamomeus
224
oriental honey-buzzard
Pernis ptilorhynchus
225
eastern baya weaver
Ploceus philippinus burmanicus
226
thick-billed warbler
Acrocephalus aedon
227
spotted owlet
Athene brama
228
pin-tailed snipe
Gallinago stenura
229
crimson sunbird
Aethopyga siparaja
230
greenish warbler
Phylloscopus trochiloides
231
black-crowned night-heron
Nycticorax nyticorax
232
ashy drongo
Dicrurus leucophaeus
233
red collared dove
Streptopelia tranquebarica
234
scarlet-backed flowerpecker
Dicaeum cruentatum
235
greater spotted eagle
Aquila clanga
236
golden-fronted leafbird
Chloropsis aurifrons
237
lesser whistling-duck
Dendrocygna javanica
238
white-tailed eagle
Haliaeetus albicilla
239
black stork
Ciconia nigra
240
long-legged buzzard
Buteo rufinus
241
small pratincole
Glareola lactea
242
black-necked stork
Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus
243
sand lark
Calandrella raytal

2012 Totals
Mammals: 19
Birds: 243
Reptiles: 0
Amphibians: 0
Fish: 0

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