Getting Deeper into Birding in Kerala

Crested Serpent Eagle - taking off. April 2012
Never thought I would get to thank #social-media for rekindling my interest in birding ! Checkout this public Facebook Album of mine to get the complete #picture :-)

Yes, it's the third time this year that I went back to Periyar Tiger Reserve .. the interest was kind of re-initiated last year when I got to take part in a Wild-life photography workshop at the same venue with the renowned Balan Madhavan which was set around that years Full moon time in April.
It all slowly fell into place when I looked back at those pics from April 2012 and found
the following picture which I took of the Crested serpent Eagle....
Crested Serpent Eagle from Periyar Reservoir
This was followed by two more trips this year .. and each time nature has presented me with special moments like this one
Malabar Grey Hornbill with feed for female - March 2013

Each picture led me to go deeper into understanding about bird behaviour as explained here...

I guess the Tipping point came with the introduction to two facebook groups...first one was 'Birdwatchers of Kerala' and the second one was 'Indian Birds' 
These groups kind of reduced the lead time for my learning ... Yes, the Visual medium and the shared Knowledge was just too good.. and I did not care to look up reasons that makes people share, like this one did....

I also realised that I was being 'surrounded' by birds and other forms of wild life, wherever I go ...well actually, I began to be aware of my surrounding better, was also able to listen better to sound in nature..even when I'm not inside a forest / nature trail .... People in my profession can really do with some extra stuff on Listening for sure.

It was a real pleasure to see the impact of all this on people around me as well.. My 2 year old started adding bird names (his versions of course) to his vocabulary and my 7.5 yr old helped me get the Pronunciation of Dr. Salim Ali better ! 

Here are the just some of the #results, apart from the countless intangible ones for me from this trip - for which I should specially thank my good friend who in her usual impromptu manner landed in Kochi :-)

Fauna sighted on 17th and 18th Aug:

1. Jungle babler
2. White-bellied tree pie
3. Hill myna
4. Mountain Imperial Pigeon
5. Malabar whistling crush (boy these can really sing)
6. Blue-winged parakeet
7. Rufous tree pie
8. Common Tailor bird
9. Greater racket tailed drongo
10. Spotted dove
11. Red vented bulbul
12. Red-whiskered bulbul
13. Swallows (Not sure which kind)
14. White-throated kingfisher
15. Great Indian Hornbill (See pic)
16. Bison (Gaur)
17. Nilgiri langur (lots of them)
18. Pied wagtail
19. Indian cormorant
20. Pied kingfisher
21. Jungle myna
22. Dab chick or little Grebe
23. Ashy wood swallow


Here are two of the lucky ones which I could capture IMHO:
Great Indian Hornbill

Mountain Imperial Pigeon

Looking forward to this exciting journey...will be back with more pics ... maybe it's time I re-activated my flickr page

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