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