A Peregrine and Woodpeckers - a nice start for my birding year

 Jan 1st

Ebird list with Vismaya, the peregrine.

E-bird list with the Flamebacks

I have not been birding much this last fortnight of December, so it was nice to have these chance encounters.  

Vismaya had not given me darshan, being driven away by the on-off rain of the last month.  Jan 1st and I caught sight of her, in her usual perch, preening and dozing intermittently.  

I was fascinated by how it felt like she was staring at us.  Did she sense the movements in the balcony across?  Maybe assessing if we could be lunch?  

In the evening, I was hearing the loud ki-ki-ki call of a Flameback intermittently, and went to the terrace to investigate. And Sekar's eyes picked up not one but two of them!

The Black-rumped Flameback pair - how they clung to the wall, and pried and poked between the bricks.

Every hole was investigated, and then they both flew off with a kikiki call.

A new camera and lens, that gave us some anxious moments gave us some lovely pictures too.