Weaver and more...
Two weeks back we had gone cycling to Big Banyan tree off Mysore Road. We happened to site a beautiful colony of weaver birds just off the road on a thorny tree. We were quite excited and decided we shall come back next week with binocs and camera.
We kept the promise we had made ourselves and went birding around big banyan tree. Its the breeding season for Weaver birds. So we were glad to watch the Baya Weaver in bright yellow breeding plumage. Lot of nests in the tree were still being build. There were some complete (may be old?) and others half done.
Close to the same place we found 2-3 floks of munias. Each one with 10-15 members. And there were different kinds of munias in the same flock like Black headed munia, scaly breasted munia, red munia (Avadavt)
Scaly Breasted Munia
We also Indian Silverbill which is munia family but they were in a flock of there own happily picking food from fields around
Indian Silverbill
In a nearby water hole the king showed its excellent skill at fishing (Pied Kingfisher). It would be still in air at one point and study the water and suddenly dive for the catch.
Pied Kingfisher
After this we continued towards Manchanbele Dam and watched Sunbirds. There was a huge flock of them
Purple Rumped Sunbird (Male)
To our surprise we saw the beautiful coppersimth barbet perching on a near by tee and it did not make any call. Usually it always use to be other way round, we would hear it but not see it
Coppersmith Barbet
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:
Baya Weaver
Scaly Breasted Munia
Red Avadavat(Red Numia)
Black Headed Munia
Indian Silverbill
Purple Rumped Sunbird
Coppersimith Barbet
Spotted Dove
Laughing Dove
Eurasian Collared Dove
Ashy Priniya
White Browed Bulbul
Red Whiskered Bulbul
Red Vented Bulbul
Red Rumped Swallow
Common Iora
White browed Wagtail
Indian Robin
Red Wattled Lapwing
Little Cormorant
Little Egret