Today we’ll have the last wildlife photos until Sunday for, as I said, posting will be light until then. This batch comes from reader Saloni Rose, an evolutionary biology and neurobiology student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (ISER) in Mohali, India, near Chandigarh. (See her website, Obscurum per Obscurius.) Although I visited that department about a year ago, I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting her. Herewith her lovely bird photos, with her captions indented:
One of my favourite courses at IISER Mohali was a course on Ecology. We learnt to identify different bird species, estimate plant biodiversity and observe animal behaviour. I remember the days where my friends and I would take our bird books and binoculars around campus and gasp in excitement every time we saw an exotic bird. I want to continue birding whenever I go and document them (inaturalist.org). This is my set of pictures of birds I found in my parents’ workplace (Rawatbhata, India) this week. To describe the region, it is located in the dry arid south-west part of the country.
Purple Sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus): I found these birds constantly hovering around, drinking nectar from the flame of the woods (Ixora coccinea). Purple sunbirds are sexually dimorphic: the males have a bright metallic purple colour on their wings while the females were dull grey. The downward curving bills help them in nectar feeding.
Indian Roller (Coracias benghalensis):
Coppersmith Barbet (Psilopogon haemacephalus):
Continuing my birding adventure, I decided to go to a wetland about 20 minutes from the Anupratap colony. Wetlands in Rajasthan host several migratory birds over the winter (Check out Bharatpur). About 7:30 AM, just as the sun was rising, we reached a small waterbody surrounded by wheat fields. To my amaze, there were several exotic waterbirds including ducks, ibises, kingfishers and cranes. Ducks, in particular, were very docile, it was extremely tricky to get a close-up shot. Here are some photos!!
We saw a group of Sarus Cranes land on the other end of the waterbody. Sarus Cranes are the tallest of all flying birds, growing as tall as 1.8m. Their numbers are drastically decreasing due to habitat loss and they are declared “Globally Vulnerable” by IUCN. Their scientific name is Antigone antigone. Antigone (Greek mythology) was Oedipus’s daughter who hanged herself. The bare red neck of Saras Crane symbolises her death by hanging.
Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis). The Pied Kingfisher has a cool hunting strategy: they hover over water at one place, circling around before vertically diving in!!
White throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis):
Ruddy Shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea):
Lesser Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna javanica):
Reblogged this on Obscurum Per Obscurius and commented:
Check out my photos
You work is splendid! Thanks!
…’your work’, I mean.
Nice pictures. You succeeded in getting good light. Whenever I see pictures of exotic birds I don’t recognize, I try to guess the origin. I’m hoping to broaden my knowledge. In this case I didn’t even get the continent right. Thanks for submitting these.
Thanks. India is home diverse terrains hence a wide variety of bird species. I have been going all over the country to photograph birds. I will send more pictures over time.
I thought that sunbirds were endemic to Africa. Good to see they are found in India too. Or are they convergent?
I checked, they are all nectariniidae. They even cross Wallace’s line.
Apparently the greatest diversity is found in Africa (in my garden alone I’ve seen five different species, so I tend to believe that), so it is suspected they originate there.
And I forgot: some very nice photos!
There’s even one species of sunbird in Australia.
Beautiful pictures! Very interesting species and commentary.
Thank you very much.
I particularly like seeing the ducks. There seem to be ducks everywhere, but every location has their own version of them.
Ducks forever!
My favorites: the lesser whistling ducks.
The first wetlands bird looks like the North American great egret (Ardea alba). Is that species so widespread or is it just similar? Anyone know?
I was thinking the same thing.
Great photos, birds I’d never seen before.
Officially, it’s all one species, Ardea alba. But I’m not sure that’s ever been studied enough to be sure. I’ve noticed obvious differences between American and African populations in breeding-season appearance that do suggest a reason to question — in breeding season, African great egrets’ bills are black. Don’t know about the Indian population.
Those kingfishers mean business – action shots difficult no doubt. I look forward to more birdies & other Indian exotica Saloni.
The roller is a beauty.