eBird -- India international centre -- 26 Jan 2025

India international centre
26 Jan 2025
5:48 PM
Incidental
All birds reported? No
Comments: Morning was sunny and bright.
Submitted from eBird for iOS, version 3.1.3 Build 3.1.33

9 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
2 Red-wattled Lapwing
7 Black Kite
3 Indian Grey Hornbill
4 Alexandrine Parakeet
9 Rose-ringed Parakeet
3 House Crow
7 Large-billed Crow (Indian Jungle)
7 Common Myna

Number of Taxa: 9

Starting the day with hornbills and lapwings is nice! We enjoyed the bracing cool morning.

Day zero travel to Delhi

Jan 25th

And so we are off. Project report draft done, tooth cap reglued (yes, it popped out yesterday!), woollens packed, grand sweets taken for our travelling companions and still our suitcases under the max weight.

I continue to grieve about the Olive Ridleys that are dying by the dozens every day on our beaches, and seeing Pulicat from above made me think of them again.

Fitful snoozing, reading an amusing (not intentionally so but still) essay on the Kumbh tamasha and a sudoku and paneer sandwich later, we are descending into Delhi, capital of our Republic, on the eve of Republic Day.

A trip to Bharatpur and Ranthambhore has begun! And these Raj watercolours on the walls of India International Centre were very appropriate.

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.