They want to be Salim Ali

The Cloud 9 Nature Club took its second step last Sunday. It was raining since the morning and I was mentally resigned to the fact that we will not be able to go out. As I was about to doze off at 4 PM in front of the TV, the phone rang. It was Aahan. Hello uncle! we are ready and we are coming ... but its raining I said .. no it has stopped he insisted ... Well! Let's go then but what if it comes again .. we are coming with umbrellas uncle ... and they came with bags, chips, juice and umbrellas. All 3 of them... Aahan, Aryan and Sarthak. So we started, Mimansa too came with us and lo behold there was this rainbow out there to greet us.

I assigned the boys some roles this time. Aahan was going to take notes, Aryan was going to be the observer and Sarthak was going to be navigator. To begin with we watched sun birds and priniyas in the bushes behind our houses on the track leading to the club house. It was drizzling and operating the camera safely was cumbersome. The drizzle stopped though by the time we reached the club house. Mimansa decided she will walk back as we were headed to the forest, she did not know we were carrying chips.

However the boys were excited, their idea was to head straight to the jungle. Well I knew from past experience that the club house area itself had to lot to offer. I was not going to be disappointed. The boys gave me a great pose just before beginning the work.

Our first target was a wild tree that bears lot of berries and therefore is very popular with birds. We found a small greenish bird that was hard to keep track of. With great difficulty and help of Aahan I was able get a good picture. It was a Greenish Warbler, a small bird.

Suddenly Aahan got excited and exclaimed .. New bird! New bird! .. and lo behold there was a White Chested Kingfisher sitting on the lawn tennis court's fence. I tried to get closer for a better picture but it gave me a slip. It was going to give us few more slips in next few hours. 

The lawn tennis court has a part of forest looking over it from one end and the bee-eaters were busy catching bees by swooping down into the clearing provided by the tennis court. We spotted as many as 4  bee-eaters.

We left the club house and headed to the woods to try and find the Kingfisher, as we were trying to locate the Kingfisher, a very sweet call echoed and I ran towards it trying to calm down Aryan who was excited more about the Lays chips that he planned to sit down to finish. I had never heard a Kingfisher and the call was too interesting to ignore for the chips. We crossed into a densely wooded area and the call went again. It was a bird somewhat smaller than a crow, brown in color with white spots all across the body. After capturing few pictures, we all sat down in a clearing and enjoyed our chips. I took the time to browse through the book and identify the bird. It was the Asian Koel .. now I knew why the call was so sweet. This was a female, the male is about the same size but black in color.

This was yet another very satisfying trip, I told the boys that now you will start spotting birds everywhere subconsciously which has been now confirmed by Sarthak. I told them I plan to take them to Pune university which is famous for its flora and is known to harbour lot of birds. I also told the boys that I am 33 and I am starting now while they are just 7-8 so if they keep on going they have a chance to go very far. Can we become Salim Ali ..? came the question. Yes why not... yes absolutely, I replied and I realized ... Yes they can become Salim Ali :). Next destination Pune university .. with my Salim Alis.

Munia ri Munia

"Chalat musafir moh liyo re pinjare wali Munia"... if you are an Indian, specially one from the north I will wonder if you have not heard this bhojpuri song from the famous Raj Kapoor movie "Teesri Kasam". Ever wondered who this Munia is? Read on ...

Munias, Finches or Nutmegs, these are birds little smaller than house sparrows that are also called Silver Bills because of their silver colored beaks. They flock together in groups and two such groups are regular visitors to my backyard and they actually are two different types of Munias.

Spotted Munia or the Spice Finch

This bird loves the dried bamboo perch in my backyard that has lot of greenery around. I often find 3 of them playing around often along with other birds specially a group of plain Munias that I am going to describe next. I have posted a solo picture as this has better details of the bird. It can be easily identified as it has a distinct spotted breast that are actually scales, has a brown head, neck and back. The beak in shape is peculiar of Munias, short and wider at the base, silvery black in color.

Plain Munia

I find these birds very playful and fond of each other. I do not remember seeing them alone. They are always full of activity and watching them is fun. You can once again notice the peculiar Munia beak. The breast is white and back is dull shade of brown with darker contours. The end of the tail also is a darker shade of brown. Here are two pictures of these birds that I could capture with very distinct backgrounds.

Before I sign off ... If you have never heard the song mentioned in the beginning, check it out at Chalat Musafir, and those from the Remix generation can enjoy this recent version Munia Ri Munia.

Nature trail with Cloud 9 kids

I live in a densely populated Indian city called Pune. Fortunately I have been able to find a tranquil corner surrounded by forest land to live in. The place is called Cloud 9. Last week as we were celebrating Mimansa .. my elder daughter's birthday I organized an impromptu quiz for the kids. Off course I started with questions related to nature, guess what .. Soon the kids started requesting for questions from Indian movies. I was taken aback and that was the genesis of last Sunday's nature trail with Sarthak, Aahan and Aryan and also Mimansa to begin with.

With Dr Salim Ali's book on Indian birds with the kids and my camera with me we started off from the vegetation in the housing society itself. The kids would get excited with every chirp and every hop of the bird and will scare them away. The first lesson ensued, you need to be quiet and listen to the sounds. As everyone went silent and went all ears, the magical voices started presenting themselves and we started following them. Following is the account of the birds that we spotted.

Our first sighting of the day was that of the Indian Robin, a female. It was busy eating insects that were unusually active given a sunny day after many days of rain.

Next was a female Sun bird (looks like it was going to be a day men chasing females).

By now the kids were very excited and soon we were zeroing on a tree from where we could hear some loud calls of a bird. It was the Bulbul, another regular in the area.

It was time now to venture out of the housing society and on Sarthak's suggestion we went to the forest area to the left of the exit. He mentioned being there with his grandpa and seeing many birds. He was going to prove himself right.

As we were going after the butterflies, a sweet and sharp song attracted our attention, we followed it, it was a small bird flying in the air and singing. To our luck it landed itself on the fence and allowed me to click. I did not know which bird was it, it had a truely fascinating voice. The kids thought if I don't know it, may be its a new discovery. They were cheering that we found a new bird. I had to tell them that it was just my ignorance and it was time for the book to tell us that it was a Tree Pipit. A bird that sings on the fly and found on grassy lands.

More excitement was in store ...

It was a bird I had noticed a few months back but had been looking for it ever since. The Small Blue Throated Bee Eater. We spent next one hour chasing this shy bird who will give us a slip everytime we approached it.

I was able to get some decent shots and this one with a bee in the beak was a prize.

By now all of us were thirsty and tired, after a sweet rest in the shade of a tree we headed back. The boys asked for my permission to take off their shirts and I couldn't say no. Aryan declared he is heading straight to my home as he knew there were ice-cream cones left from Mimansa's birthday in the refrigerator. Sarthak announced the birth of "Cloud 9 Nature Club". It was a great day of fun and learning. Today I found Sarthak telling other kids about the nature club, he told them we are going this Saturday too. I am absolutely looking forward to it.

Sarthak, Aryan, Aahan