Bird's Delhi
For all those who thought Delhi is walled city with 16 million people and ever increasing concrete jungle, there is other side of Delhi too, its birds Delhi. These are few captures I have taken in last 2 years here.
Hoopoe The hoopoe is commonly seen even in urban areas across India. In IIT Delhi, JNU & Pusa agricultural institute they are seen but its very rare in city like Delhi. The fluffed up crest and the flip-flop flight makes it rather remarkable, and one remembers it. This one was photographed JNU campus Delhi.
Brahminy Myna Although this bird is quite common, and sports such brilliant colours, it is relatively less known, being often mistaken for the common myna. This species has been renamed "Brahminy Starling" officially - in fact, the entire Myna range was renamed "Starling", a fact lamented by J.C. Daniels in his preface to the Salim Ali Birth Centenary edition of "The book of Indian Birds".
White-Eye This tiny restless bird is a frequent visitor, sipping on the flowers. Even if you can't make out the white ring around the eye, you cannot mistake the yellow-orange colour, and the tiny size, as it jumps from branch to branch, sometimes in small groups. Getting a white-eye to sit long enough for you to photograph it is a rarity.
Indian Robin Saw this on my lawn a couple of times in Oct 2008, and then again in a Delhi park in April. 
Cuckoo (Asian Koel) One can hear them calling mellifluously in April May, but finding them is harder. Murphy's Law: They never call when you are looking at them. Proof: You are so focused on looking through the lens that you can't hear. Female Cuckoo (above) The cuckoo gene apparently carries a marker that specializes the female to lay eggs that match the host
species that it parasitizes. So daughter cuckoos will also parasitize the same hosts.
Male Cuckoo It is only the male cuckoo who sings, the female is largely silent (lucky him!)One April morning the cuckoo to the left was sitting on a branch, serenading away to the world, when another male cuckoo quietly landed on the same branch to its right. There was a ritual sparring, after which the intruder flew off again.
White-breasted Kingfisher This is the bird that got me interested in bird photography - October 2005, Delhi. (with the blue tail visible) is from the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi. It is also called the White-Throated Kingfisher.
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55 comments:
OOPS!! i though Myna has only variety, can see many here.
Lovely post Avinash
lovely captures,white eye looks cute little bird
Good one Avinash
surel this face of delhi is known to very less, the wild life
Pics are outstanding, You finally seem to enjoy and moreover learned all tricks of ur DSLR camera
good work.....
seems ur love for birds is back again, after long time...isnt it?
nice to see this post and ur passion back
Brahmini Myna is Very similar to the common myna in its behaviour, the Brahminy may sometimes be taken to be a common myna unless you look closely. So although you can easily see this bird, you may miss the brilliant orange and the hint of blue on the beak unless you use binoculars.
Mynas love exploring holes, and this one in the gulmohar tree is a favourite. The Brahminy enters head first, disappearing completely, but manages to turn around inside the hole and re-emerge head first. Occasionally, it might have an insect too...
The white-eyes were long considered a distinct family Zosteropidae because they are rather homogenous in morphology and ecology, leading top little adaptive radiation and divergence. The genus Apalopteron, formerly placed in the Meliphagidae, was transferred to the white-eyes on genetic evidence[citation needed]. It differs much in appearance from the typical white-eyes, Zosterops, but is approached by some Micronesian taxa; its color pattern is fairly unique save the imperfect white eye-ring.
Liked the brahmini myna pics
u wud love to know this Avinash:-
The adults of these 21cm-long birds have grey upperparts and reddish-orange underparts and black wing quills. The head has a black crown, nape and crest, and the underneath of the tail is white. The bill and the strong legs are bright yellow, and there are yellow wattles on the gape. The recumbent crest may be fluffed up when the bird is excited. The sexes are similar; young birds have crestless sooty brown head and dull general coloration.
This passerine is typically found in dry forest and scrub jungle. Like most starlings, the Brahminy Starling is fairly omnivorous, eating fruit and insects. It builds a nest in holes. The normal clutch is 3-4 eggs
In India, the bird is called Bamani myna (Bengal/Bihar), Kalasir myna (Hindi), Pabiyapawi (Uttar Bradesh), Harbola (Bengal), Popoya myna, etc. It was known as shaṇkarā in Sanskrit and compared to a parivrājikā (female ascetic wanderer) in the Mahābhāṣya due to its serene appearance; the English name may reflect this or refer to the traditional Brahmin choti hairstyle.
The nominate race is found in southern Peninsular India. Race leucopterus is found in Sri Lanka. Race cambaiensis of western India and erythrura of eastern India have the males with brown backs. Race intermedius is found in central India and parts of the Deccan region. A race munda was named for a specimen from Punjab but now considered synonymous with cambaiensis
beautiful birds
lovely post
I am so glad that you stopped and comment on my Coopers Hawk bird. I love those birds a lot and they come here to my backyard every day looking for a meal of another bird. Some days they go hungry though.
I also like your bird photograph and the photos of your birds are quite different from those we have here in Ohio. If anything your birds are more colorful.
I like the elephant in the sidebar too.
STRAY birds of summer
come to my window
to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn,
which have no songs,
flutter and fall there with a sigh.
Beautiful picutres !!
White-throated Kingfisher
The adult has a bright blue back, wings and tail. Its head, shoulders, flanks and lower belly are chestnut, and the throat and breast are white. The large bill and legs are bright red. The flight of the White-throated Kingfisher is rapid and direct, the short rounded wings whirring. In flight, large white patches are visible on the blue and black wings. Sexes are similar, but juveniles are a duller version of the adult.
The White-throated Kingfisher begins breeding at the onset of the Monsoons. In its courtship display it spreads out the wings with bill raised high to show the white patterns. The nest is a 50cm tunnel in an earth bank. A single clutch of 4-7 round white eggs is typical
i Love birds so found it very exciting ..pics are good
I stood in the parlor
watching their arrival
as they sought a safe home
to ensure their hatchlings survival
They flew in and out
returning each time
a twig in their beaks
and cooing sublime
The patio is sheltered
No rain enters there
and the fan so high up
perfection for the pair
Their nest built and comfy
they settled in tight
and covered the eggs
all day and all night
And then it happened
The miracle occurred
The hatchlings came forth
Tiny wings on a bird
Nature is mystical
and brilliant with love
and brought us such joy
on the wings of a dove
lovely post avinash, pics are very beautiful specially of Indian Robin
about CUCKOO
The host birds commonly do not recognize the foreign egg, and incubate it as if it was their own. The host then cares for the parasitic hatchling until it fledges, and often afterwards as well. In most cases, the host species is much smaller than the parasite, and it is quite a chore to feed the voracious young cuckoo. The young cuckoo commonly hatches quite quickly and ejects the unhatched eggs of the host from the nest, or it ejects or otherwise kills the babies of the host. Once their nest is discovered by a female cuckoo, the parasitized hosts are rarely successful in raising any of their own young under these sorts of circumstances.
lovely avinash
good 2 see being passionate about birds again
Male cuckoos maintain a breeding territory, largely using a loud and distinctive, often bell-like call. Interestingly, females of the nest-parasitic species of cuckoos also maintain a territory, independent of that of males of their species. In this case, the defended area involves foraging habitat for the discovery of nests of other species, rather than for access to females, as in the case of the male cuckoos.
Many species of cuckoos that breed in the temperate zones undertake a long-distance migration between their breeding and non-breeding ranges. This is true of species breeding in the Northern Hemisphere, which winter to the south, and also of species breeding in the Southern Hemisphere, which winter to the north. For example, the shining cuckoo (Chalcites lucidus) of temperate New Zealand migrates across open waters of the Pacific Ocean, to winter in tropical habitats of the Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Islands off New Guinea.
LOVELY POST
good captures, white eyed looks colorful & beautiful
beautiful bird's click..liked the Indian Robin
beautiful captues
Simply Beautiful post.
Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
good post 4 nature's lover like me...excellent captures
beautiful & cute white eye, loved it a lot
Lovely post
some very beautiful capptues
Loved this post
lovely pictures.....they look so beautiful.
lovely post, beautiful pics
Simply outstanding
Avinash ji,
bahut sundar photograph.badhai.
i love birds so it was treat for me, the white eye looks beautiful & cute.
Looking forward to similar posts.
Regards
Beautigul captures
Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description
Interesting to see so many birds - there are hardly any to see round where I live. Our unpredictable weather over the past few years has made their numbers decrease.
There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before. When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast
Lovely captues, loved this post
Very interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
brilliant photographs and interesting info.
thank you for sharing
lovely captures
lovely clicks abd info ....good work avinash
White looks cue, good post
Simply Beautiful
Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs
beautiful post
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
A wonderful bird is the pelican
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.
There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
O green bird of the blue sky
Tell me, will you go with me, brother?
I am afraid to go alone
To my Mother's Home
Which is on the other shore.
No capacity have I
To swim across the river of destruction.
Will you follow me?
Will you help me fly like you
To the other shore
Where my Eternity's Mother is?
BEAUTIFUL POST
beautiful pics and lovely blog
beautiful clicks
my first visit to this blog, n wat first post i saw, lovely captures, wonder such a densely populated city have so many birds
Excellent Captures.
beautul captures
hoping 4 similar sor of beautiful post on Nature in future also
Regards
nice birds ! must be hard to catch ...
What a fascinating bird eye view on Delhi's salient Avian fauna ! Mynah has at least 4 species in India and one is an accomplished human voice imitatator, the starling nomeclature is new to me ,Thanks !
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