Birding in Kinnaur
Streaked Laughingthrush
Its been a long long time since I posted on LJ. We visited Kinnaur, HP from May 22 to Jun 6. Places we visited are Kalpa, Lambar, Charang, Chitkul, Sangla, Sarahan, Narkanda, Thanedar, and Kothgarh.
This turned out to be an amazing trip in terms of birding. Almost every other bird we saw was a new one for me. Orange seemed to be most popular colour among the birdies. Majority of birds had at least some bit of rufous/orange in them. One surprising thing was that we didn't see much raptors, spotted Himalayan Griffon 2 times and that is all in whole trip. Also we didn't visit any lakes so didn't see much water birds.
Himalayan Bulbul
Some of the highlights of the trip are the Yellow Billed Blue Magpies we spotted all the time when we were in Sarahan. And the tits, small little beauties that are in so many variety in the Himalayas. And ofcourse the Bulbul is again the most spotted bird. But this was Himalayn Bulbul that I had not seen earlier, looks exactly like the red vented Bulbul, except for a yellow vent. May be slightly bigger. Another surprising thing we saw was that the crow seemed to be harassed by the smaller birds!! once we saw a drango chase a crow away and other instance we saw a shrike chasing away crow. Other abundant ones were sparrows and their cousins like russet sparrow, buntings, and whole lot we couldn't ID.
Here is link to some of the photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anand_s/sets/72157624182827897
Here is the complete list of birds we saw:
Great Barbet
Common Blackbird
Black Bulbul
Himalayan Bulbul
Rock Bunting
White Capped Bunting
Yellow Billed Chough
Eurasian Cuckoo
Oriental Turtle Dove
Black Drango
Varditer Flycatcher
Yellow Breasted Greenfinch
Common Hoopoe
Rufous Necked Laughingthrush
Streaked Laughingthrush
Yellow Billed Blue Magpie
Spotted Nutcracker
Eurasian Golden Oriole
Wedge Tailed Green Pigeon
Black Redstart
Plumbeous Water Redstart
White Cap Water Redstart
Common Rosefinch
Long Tailed Shrike
Rufous Sibia
Russet Sparrow
Blue Capped Rock Thrush
Black Throated Tit
Green Backed Tit
Rufous Naped Tit
Rufous Vented Tit
Spot Winged Tit
Treecreeper
White Wagtail
Oriental Whiteeye
Himalayan Woodpecker
Himalayan Griffon