It was long time since i took my camera and aimed at a bird in recent times. And that too i realized it, when i was not even able to hold the camera steady at the shutter speed of 1/40!!!! i seriously was worried, that i have given so much of gap, that i had to shoot randomly, and practice shots before i was able to be comfortable with holding the gear, though its not that light-weighted (its Canon 7D + Sigma 150-500). 

And only after transferring those random shots, i did realize that this monsoon makes things more soft and pretty, in green. It was like, Go-Green everywhere, it was so nice to see those greeny greeny things everywhere.. just to compare how much the little rains has turned the place today different, you can check out the pics taken at this place during our visit there this march @ http://blog.redthil.com/2012/03/weekend-birding-valley-school-bangalore.html

So, this time, my first preference in listing the order of the images turned to "Green", than the birds... So, here are few of the pics which calms the eyes as soon as we look at them...

Sunday, 20th May 2012

Dont want to iterate again that, this even was a last minute plan..thats the default always.. This time we, ie Parry, Albin and me, decided to visit the Shivanahalli area. To reach this place, In the bannerghatta-anekal road, travelling towards Anekal, we have to take right at the board which says "way to Ramakrishna Mission School".. i think its around 3-4 kms from the bannerghatta circle. Our destination was that School. 

So, we started at 5.30am from our place and headed towards that school. After we take right from the bannerghatta-anekal road, we ensure that our windows are down, and no other noise disturbs the birds sounds from outside. Its always a very nice thing to drive on that road in the early morning hours. 

Our first stop was near a big open area, a not-so-steep rock near the road. We refer this place as the White-Eye Spot, as when we visited this place for birding for the first time, we saw a flock of Oriental White Eye's here.. and hence we named it that way.. We always stop here for sure.. if not for the birds, its an awesome view from that place, where we can see the most part of the Bannerghatta Forest area (i was always in 150-500, hence didnt get that view this time also.. next time, will try to get a shot of that awesome view. There i got a glimpse of this Paradise Fly-Catcher - Female. Also saw Golden-Oriole.. it was inside those tree with big leaves and also having lot of branches which always makes taking pic of this one more tough.

Though this was our first stop, where we got down and went around spending time looking for birds, our trip started with a fantastic sighting of Changable-Hawk Eagle.. Parry got nice shots of this. one of them is here below:

After more birding, we were near the Ragihalli village. And Parry was telling about a lake [kere] in that area, but couldnt find it and also the way to it.. even after inquiring the local people. it had always been a mystery, as, we ask a guy in the shop in that village, he tells us to move little ahead and turn right... after going that "little-ahead", we ask a guy out there, he says that we came too-far and has to get little-back... so, all along these visits there, we always get lost between this "little-ahead" & "little-back".. and never found that right, which even the google maps shows.. today we finally found that mystery right-turn towards the kere.. and we did find an amazing kere (though there were not much of water there at this time)..

We spent lot of time there, watching the swallows picking up the mud at the banks of the little water to construct its nest , and watching the green-bee eaters catching those insects and line-up themselves in that small tweak.. it was really a nice time there.. here are few pics taken there..

Saturday, 19th May 2012

This was not a pre-planned trip as such.. (well, all our weekend birding plans are decided the previous late night only).. but this one, i went alone... the reason being, we had an office cricket match (an inter-team match between the teams in our building), morning at around 10am.. and the venue being the BEL Grounds (near  Hebbal), i decided to take this opportunity to visit the lake early in the morning, and then head to the match.. tho i always go to the match, whether i play or not.. and this time we had little trouble with the head count, so, it was ok for me to go also, for the head count...

So, started from home at around 5am , first some cab (tempo traveller) to Shanthi Nagar bus-stop, and then took the BIAL bus till Hebbal Fly-over.. and this lake is just near that flyover.. my plan was to reach the lake atleast by 7am and to my surprise, i reached the lake at 6am itself.. early morning travel is always good, in-terms of traffic and the climate (as coming back after the match at 2pm was terrible...bangalore has become soooooo hot these days, in-terms-of climate...)

Anyways, coming to the birding, dint see much of an activity there .. and also, very few varieties of water birds were only there.. so, here are few pics taken there today morning...