My Journal

There used to be a black coloured Cat at my place called Amavasye ( The dark/No moon night ). She gave birth to 5 cute kittens. Tragecally she died even before the kittens could open their eyes to see the outer world. We took care of these kittens , thought them to drink milk and soon they were all out of their confinement, playing all over my house.
One night as our Labby ( Labrador retriever ) started barking, everyone woke up at around 2 midnight and found a stranger Male Cat running away out of the window as soon as the lights were lit.
Shockingly , it had killed a kitten by grabbing the neck and surprisingly four others had managed to escape to safety.

After this incidence, My Parents were left with one question unanswered " Why should a cat come and kill another cat? that too a baby cat ? " I too was a lil curious about this until i realized these are cats , afterall. We've leart and seen that big cats like Tigers and Lions may even kill the young ones if they are born to another male. This ensures that the female will come into Oestrus and bear the new male's Offsprings.

This is a known behaviour amongst all Cats, with Tiger being the largest of all. They might differ in sizes, but share a many of the common characteristics and behaviours.

However, the remaining kittens are now safe. Interesting fact is, Labby is looking after them ! :)

Introduction
India Bird Races, have been inspired by the Hongkong BirdRace, with lil modifications.
These Bird Races are sponsored by HSBC and are organised in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai etc every year.
BirdRace is a dawn to dusk event where teams of bird-watchers ( 4 in each group )will spend the entire day birding in and around Bangalore. The participants will try and record as many species of birds as possible, learn about the finer points of bird-watching from the experts & the experienced, and then later in the evening, all teams will meet at a suitable venue over dinner and an interactive tête-à-tête. While there are strict rules there is a fun element to this exercise, which has helped stimulate enormous interest in bird-watching as a highly popular hobby. The event has given a good idea of the nature of this region’s birdlife and helped to build support for environment and nature conservation. One such event concluded in bangalore on 18th of January this year.
With a team of four called the " TEAM BLUE JAY ", we registered for this event. But two had to give it a miss. We were short with two pair of eyes. However, its all about the joy of Bird Watching. Myself with a partner raced for our winged folks. Unlike the idea of covering all birding spots of bangalore, we decided to stick to one area and cover as many species as possible. With Common Crow as the starter for the day, We started at around 6.05 in the Morning and headed straight to Manchinabele. Most of our count and many lifers for me ( like the woolly necked stork ) came from this region.The most common birds of the day were the swallows ( Red Rumped and Bard ). I must ve seen about hundreds of em. A Crested Serpent Eagle in Manchinabele , Common Buzzard and Common Kestral at TG Halli added to our joy.
We might have missed out on so many commoners like the spotted owlettes and mottled wood owls of Lalbagh ( since we dint get to visit lalbagh ), many of the new species were added to our list like the thick billed flower pecker, Rosy Paster, wooly necked storks etc. A few of the birds includin many warblers went unidentified ( missed our teammate Anaconda Ashwin here ). These are the areas of improvement which are marked for the next year.
Herez the list of Birds that were recorded.
Bangalore Bird Race 18th Jan 09
Common Crow
Blue Rock Pegion
Asian Koel
Rose Ringed Parakeet
Plain Prinia
Common Kite
Black Drongo
Large Pied ( White Browed ) Wagtail
Cattle Egret
Median Egret
Pale Billed Flower Pecker
Thick Billed Flower Pecker
Shikra ( Female )
Common Sparrow
Pied Bushchat
Barn Swallow
Brahminy Kite
Indian Robin
Greater Coucal
Laughing Dove
White Brested KingFisher
Spotted Dove
Red Rumped Swallow
Jungle Babbler
Small Green Bee Eater
Large Grey Babbler
Common Babbler
Red Wattled Lapwing
Wooly necked stork ( white necked )
Black winged Stilt
Open Billed Stork
Yellow Wagtail
Grey Wagtail
Common Coot
Red Vented Bulbul
Purple Rumped SunBird
Black Cormorant
Crested Serpent Eagle
Oriental Turtle Dove
Long tailed Shrike
Ashy Bellied Drongo
Oriental Magpie Robin
Baya Weaver
Little Cormorant
Indian Roller
Paddy field Pipit
Indian Bush Lark
Great Tit
Dab Chick
Ashy Drongo( Differs from Ashy Bellied)
Common Kestrel
Red Whiskered Bulbul
Oriental White Eye
Ashy Prinia
White Cheacked barbet
Eurasian SparrowHawk( id confirmed by Judges )
Asian Brown Flycatcher
Spot billed Ducks
Little Grebe
Blue Beared Bee Eater
Yellow eyed babbler
Common Sandpiper
Eurasian Collored Dove
Common House swift
Common Kingfisher ( small blue )
Grey Jungle Fowl
Common Buzzard
Long billed vulture
Perigrene Falcon ( Shaheen ? )
Egyptian Vulture
Bay backed shrike
Purple moorhen
White brested Waterhen
Darter ( snake Bird )
Indian Cormorant
Rosy Paster ( starling )
The Team which won the 1st place recorded some 147 odd species.