The Heniges Log Blog

Dholes Den Birding

Ok people, you have asked (one of you anyway) so here it is! The first of many great BIRD POSTS!!!!

Some necessary background: we left Mysuru and headed toward the Bandipur Tiger Sanctuary. Most unfortunately some folks were killed by a tiger and the entire state of Karnataka shut down all its preserves to visitors. So our plan to see and/or be eaten by tigers was thwarted. But! But. There were birds!

We stayed at a very fancy (for us) resort called Dholes Den, named after the wild dogs in the area. Turns out it is owned by an Indian/German couple that happened to be there during our visit, and they were wonderful hosts. But most importantly, they have a naturalist on staff, Ghirish who is a stellar guy and even more stellar at finding and identifying wildlife, including birds. I like to think my unabashed enthusiasm for seeing so many new species endeared me to him, but probably not because we dragged him out of bed at 7am every morning to go birding. We appreciate you Ghirish.

Black-headed Ibis
White-cheeked Barbet (strangely named until you see below))
Coppersmith Barbet
Rose-ringed Parakeet

We saw three species of parakeet, the Malabar, Rose-ringed, and Plum-headed. They tend to clamber around on branches, pick off leaves to eat, and hold the leaf in one foot and munch away on it. Quite adorable.

Malabar Parakeet
Purple-rumped Sunbird

These delightful sunbirds are very reminiscent of hummingbirds, although slightly larger and all have the uniform curved beak. We saw a few species of sunbirds.

We are nearing the end of Bird Extravaganza Round 1. Our penultimate duo:

A Painted Stork (note the red/pink painted butt) and a Little Egret

If you've made it this far through the bird photos, you deserve to see the finale: the Spotted Owlets!

They are not in fact babies, they are just owlets.

But I mean c'mon, look at that thing!

Of course there were numerous birds that I wasn't able to photograph, with my personal favorite perhaps being the bee eaters. They are ridiculously bright-colored and we saw three species. The Indian Hornbills were also quite impressive, and I would be remiss not to mention a few sightings of the Common Hoopoe. It's worth a google.

Until next time friends! Assuming any of you are left here at the bottom of this giant bird post....

Comments

  1. Stina
    Alright - I have to admit those owlets are pretty darn cute! Looking forward to the equally impressive food blog posts on this journey ;)
  2. VicklePickle
    Incoming transmission from Roslyn... +++++ Pls bring home owlets. +++++ Over and owlet.
  3. Marne' and Sprocket
    Finally some bird pictures! Thanks for sending such amazing photos, you really took some nice shots. I think the spotted owlet pictures would look nicely framed and hung on one of my walls . . .Thanks again!
  4. Angel Carrie
    I like birds.
  5. Chelsea
    Wowza that Malabar Parakeet photo - can't wait for you to show me how to use my camera.
  6. Maggie
    The owlets are very cute! Less cute are the rose-ringed Parakeets, we have 50,000 of them around London (escaped pets from the 50s) and their favourite game is to poop on the runners and latte drinkers walking below! 😂
  7. Sierra
    Ok sad no seeing tigers but also glad no being eaten by tigers!! I accept excellent bird photos as a substitution in this specific case

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