My Journal

Hello People,

Apologies for posting the trip report a lil late. I had taken a day off from work and wanted to go out for some Bird Watching. The previous Day ( Second sunday of April ) , I met Karthik and he suggested me that I could try Ranganthittu which is about 130 kms from Bangalore, off Srirangapattana on well developed Bangalore-Mysore Highway.

I left Early in the morning and managed to reach Ranganthittu by 7.30 Am. We were at the right place on right time. I was amazed to see so much of Bird Life around. As it was a weekday, there were hardly any visitors. Me and my cousin were the Only guests there and the forest department people were really happy to welcome us !

Without wasting much of time, we hired a boat and a very experienced forest guard Venkatesh came along with us for a good 1.30 hr boat ride ! We got to know it was OBS ( Open Billed storks ) nesting season, and we could see a lot of OBS nests and chicks.. As per the policies, I dont want to share the photographs of the chicks though they were amazing to watch !

It was my first Bird watching trip after the Naturalist training camp and we could spot about 31 species in a lil over 2 1/2 hrs and the first one to be spotted was the Tickles Blue Fly Catcher. I remember me and Donkey Deepak had a good sighting of this bird in Gol Ghar ( Bannerghatta JLR Campus )

P S --> Please dont go there on public holidays and sunday's. Fair chance of spotting birds around the sanctuary but we wont get seperate boats to carefully observe water Birds.

The Photographs of this trip can be viewed here --> http://picasaweb.google.com/kj.avinash/Recent

List of Birds Spotted in Ranganthittu

Jungle Myna

Common Crow

Tickles Blue FlyCatcher

Pond Heron

Painted Stork

OBS ( Open Billed Storks )

River Terns ( there were only two of em )

Night Heron

Stone Plover

Small Egret

Cattle Egret

Large Egret

Purple Rumped Sunbird

Brahminy Kite

Little Cormorant

Fruit bat ( Not a Bird though :-) )

White Breasted KingFisher

Oriental magpie Robin

Forest Wagtail

Darter

Eurasian SpoonBill

Red Whiskered Bulbul

Asian Koel Small

Blue KingFisher

Grey Wagtail

Indian Peafowl

Common Kite

Purple SunBird

100 birds of Bannerghatta

Birds of Ranganthittu ( can be purchased there for 10/- )

Book of Indian Birds 13th Edition by Dr.Salim Ali ( Learning to use this )

Happy Birding ,

Avi