Birds at IIP Dehradun Campus : Blue-bearded Bee-eaters, Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters, Green Bee-eaters and Lineated Barbet

Bringing you another post on the birds of IIP Dehradun. We spotted a few Bee-eaters on the Eucalyptus trees that line up the long road. We actually get a strong whiff of Eucalyptus oil when we reach this spot, a very pleasant start of a long walk I must add.

The Bee-eaters that made a racket on top of the tall trees, looked excited as Bee-eaters always feel like. We could see the beautifully spread out wings and their characteristic flight, excitedly taking a small flight taking a round and then coming back to the same spot. Often a coupe of them would perch on the same branch, do some talking and start flying in the characteristic manner. It's a pleasure to watch Bee-eaters when you have enough time..

This is the Green Bee-eater with that unmistakable elongated central tail feathers, as if a stick juts out from the tail.

You would see them almost all over India except very high altitude but to see them in wilderness is so much fun.

They keep showing up here and there, often knowing someone is keeping an eye on them.

And there are these Chestnut-headed bee-eaters found in foothills of Himalayas and forests of the southern India. These are marginally larger than the Green Bee-eaters.

Beautifully feathered, lovely eyes.

The most delightful sighting was the Blue-bearded Bee-eater. We saw them in large numbers but always too high up on the trees and it was only their silhouette that gave away their identity. These are larger birds than the other Bee-eaters and the blue beard shines beautifully again light. The beak is a bit longer too.

We were hoping to see a lot of Barbets there in Dehradun and I was particularly expecting the Great Barbet that we spotted once in Simla.

We did get to spot a Lineated Barbet which we don;t find in Delhi so it was quite an achievement. Actually one fellow lived on a smallish Banyan tree right in front of the guest house canteen so we could spot him many times.

And they were found to like these berries very much.

An avid birder friend recognised these berries as Turkey berries. I wish I had known these berries earlier. Would have plucked some and cooked for the record :-)

The Brown -headed Barbet comes to drink water from my rock garden and a Coppersmith-barbet is often seen on a wild fig tree near my house, these two are the only Barbets we see in Delhi. The great Barbet was seen in Simla and Blue-throated Barbet once in Palampur Iwish I could see other Barbets soon in different parts of India.

And yes, I was expecting the Blue-tailed Bee-eater as well in Dehradun but could not spot them. May be next time?

I am hoping I will be there every year for the bird count.
Amen.

Birds at IIP Dehradun Campus : White-browed Fantail and Warblers

 We traveled to Uttarakhand last week. The motto was to go for The Great Himalaya Bird count assisted by Archhimalaya.org but we had booked the guest house at IIP Dehradun so we could stay there and enjoy birding ahead of the bird count. It turned out to be a good rest after a hectic week and a flu attack I was suffering. We actually were pondering over the possibility of cancelling the trip as I was not too confident of feeling well, but since we had 4 days at Dehradun to rest we decided to go ahead with our plan. It was a great decision as I got to rest properly with 2-3 hours of bird watch each morning and evening in the beautiful campus of IIP.

The straight road from one end of the campus to the other is the most beautiful road to walk and people have spotted leopards and other animals on this road. The tall trees look beautiful in the morning and you can see the tea gardens flanking both sides of this road.

It is a heaven for birds and birders both.

In fact the first morning was a sign of the times to come, I woke up with a sweet bird song, at about 4.30 AM unbelievably, and wondered which new bird I would see and whether I would be able to recognise this bird song with any of the bird I would see. The bird, in fact came to show me off her beautiful song and dance performance later in the day and I felt so blessed. It was a White-browed Fantail and the dance is synchronised with her song. It was wonderful to watch this bird several times.

The first time this bird was spotted by Arvind when he was walking alone around the other end of the guest house where some construction work was going on. I was not well so returned to our room for a short nap after a 2 hour morning walk. He came back and shown me these pictures. Seeing the bird I felt so jealous because I wanted to see this bird myself, I had seen a wonderfully shot video of Flycatchers some time ago and instantly recognised this beauty.

White-browed Fantail is a delightful bird to watch. But I had still not heard this bird so I could not associate the morning bird song yet with WBF flycatcher.

The background is not good for making the picture look good but the bird is really beautiful. Especially the way it fans the tail and turns quickly at 180 degree to fan the tail again.

Seeing these pictures I had no idea of the dance performance it does.

And then we decided to have another walk after lunch. We walked from the guest house on the beautiful road that spans from one end of the campus to the other, 4 Kms in total. Just as we crossed the turn to Director's bungalow, I could hear the song again on a tree. Looked up and here it was. Dancing and singing away in glee.

We enjoyed the song and dance performance twice more but clear pictures could not be taken. Partly it was too far and too fast moving and party because it's difficult to click pictures in thick foliage when one is standing right below the tree.

I will keep posting Birds of IIP Dehradun in a series this time. Sharing another bird in this post. We saw so many warblers and the identification of warblers is so difficult for amateur birder like me. The best I could identify this one is a Lemon-rumped Warbler.

See this series of pictures so different angles of the bird is visible. Let me know if you think it is Dusky warbler that I was contemplating regarding this one.

Lemon -warbler or Dusky warbler. Please confirm if you recognise them.

And stay tuned for more and more birds coming up. We spotted around 100 birds in this trip, some were common to make the count but some birds were spotted for the first time by us. Overall a really good good trip birding wise.