Man vs Owls!

Owls for some reason, do not like me. Unlike members of my favorite group: raptors, owl clans have somehow always avoided me. I like to think that is because I scare them, the winged predators of the night. But, I kid myself. Owls are wise-asses. They probably think, “There goes another doofus with a camera! No way will he manage to see us. Let him lose his mind over warbler identifications!”. They probably laugh behind my back too. Jerks! Anyway, up to this point, in my four years of serious birding adventures, I had managed to rack up only four owl species: Barn, Spotted, Asian Barred and Brown Fish. Therefore, you see why I get personal about my grudge with the nocturnal nuisances.

So forcefully prying myself away from complaining about owls, which by the way I can do all day, I’ll get to the actual encounter. This was during my December 2017 visit to my elder brother’s place in Tezpur, Assam. These yearly trips are generally packed with great people, good food and promise of exotic wonders of Arunachal, and thus are the most awaited! That year we decided to hit the motherlode: Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary (EWS)! Following the discovery of Bugun Liocichla in 2006 and reports of innumerable rarities, this sanctuary has become the stuff of legends in the Indian birding community. So when the plans were chalked out, I picked up my Grimmett copy and mentally picked out the rarest of the rare. I even dared to venture on the “Vagrants” page. That’s how psyched out I was for the trip!

An additional bonus to this particular trip was the little known gem, OKSRT (an acronym for the Orang-Kalaktang-Shergaon-Rupa-Tenga) route. This is a recently opened alternative route to enter Arunachal from Assam, and is astounding in terms of unspoiled beauty and birds. Those not familiar with this wonder, I urge you to check out this article: http://www.saevus.in/a-journey-through-birders-paradise/ (Bragging point: written by my elder brother!)

OKSRT glistens in brilliant weather

Majestic cross-beddings in the OKSRT route

The adventure began promisingly with migration of flying foxes, calls of Jerdon’s Baza and magnificent sedimentary cross-beds. By the time we reached EWS, it was already afternoon and the light was fading. I slept that night with Trogons in my mind and rum in my belly. Over the next two days incessant drizzles, terrible fog covers and an all-penetrating dampness, convinced us that we had to return to Tezpur a day early. This was really happening. My first trip to the mythical EWS and I was returning a day ahead of schedule and with zero lifers. I’m sure the owls had something to do with the weather conspiracy. Jerks!

The Stephen King-esque Mist in ESW

So feeling entirely bummed out, I sat in the car for the journey homewards. We decided to really explore the OKSRT route this time. Well because, we had to do something! The weather brightened up around late noon and we stopped at a junction in the road hearing a number of calls. As soon as we stepped out with our cameras in our hand, a pair of Great Barbets flew on a dead branch and started chirping away. The air around us reverberated with the release of pent-up birding energy! While taking pictures of the Barbet couple, I spotted a raptor flying far away and quickly moved away from the pack towards it. I had locked on with my camera and was snapping away decent images. Suddenly while still looking through the lens, I noticed a smudge on top of the telephone wires in front of me. I put the camera down and saw what appeared to be an owl-like bird. As I am used to do so ever so often, through no fault of my own, I thought that it must one of the four species I had previously seen. Probably, an Asian Barred Owlet. However, it was too small for an Barred Owlet. So, I quickly turned my camera on it and realized with nervous excitement that this one’s new! The characteristic pattern at the back of the head was a dead giveaway and lo and behold, I was face to face with a Collared Owlet (Glaucidium brodiei)! The smallest owl of India. I couldn’t believe it. An owl lifer is like a precious commodity to me. It hardly ever happens. But, not this time! No, this was a pure, unadulterated and breathtaking owl lifer. And as it often happens, it happened to me while I was not looking for it. There’s a lesson there, I think.

Collared Owlet I

Collared Owlet II

Anyway, the rest of the journey was packed with lifers, about 6-7 in 3 hours, I kid you not! I finally got a taste of the exotic avian wonders of Arunachal. The major portion of the trip was ruined, no denying that fact. But as I look back, that day’s journey through the OKSRT will be one of my fondest birding memories. Mostly because of that illusive owl! All their schemes, treachery and diabolical plans could not stop me from adding a new member to my owl list. As I was in that moment, I remember I involuntarily kept saying to myself “I got you, you bastard!”

Collared Owlet III: showing it's characteristic back of the head pattern

Collared Owlet IV

Don’t get me wrong, owls are still winning the war. I just won a battle that day.

Falcons for Breakfast!

I am a huge raptor nerd. I can sleep, eat, and breathe raptors. If raptors are on the menu for an entire birding trip, I’ll come home bursting with joy! My rapture for raptors knows no bounds. See, I can’t stop when professing my love for them. Something about watching them soar in a blue sky or keeping the lookout from a perch on a dead tree branch triggers an ineffable awe in me. Ever since I came upon the term “Raptorphile”, I’ve been able to put a name to my obsession.

As the name suggests, this blog has to do with Falcons. More specifically, the Red-naped Shaheen Falcon, aka the Barbary Falcon (Falco Pelegrinoides Babylonicus). Now, to be completely honest, this was one of those birds that I never thought about seriously. Not because I had any objections to seeing them, but I just thought that opportunity would never come for an amateur birder like me. Therefore, occasional glances on the pages of the Grimmett book were my entire consideration for Shaheens. Meanwhile I was busy satisfying my appetite with more common raptors of the plains.

So, it took a magical place for an encounter with this magical bird. This was during my Ladakh trip in October 2017. For those who haven’t been to Ladakh, all I can say to you is all you’ve heard is true. Yes, it’s as beautiful as those over-edited photos promise. It’s that alien, otherworldly and different from any other place that you’ve ever visited. 

For a geologist like me, Ladakh is the wonderland. It’s where rocks have won the battle! Everywhere you see, the rocky ridges, the thrusted jagged peaks, the towering granitic edifices whisper of their violent geological past. The only thing I want to change about Ladakh, is the overflow of tourists. However Ladakh is not to blame for that.

Banded hills outside of Leh

The mythical More Plains

Among all the places I visited during that trip, the beauty of Nubra Valley stood out to me for it’s contradictions. Colossal snow peaks paved way for smaller rocky cliffs, which seamlessly transitioned into a vast undulating desert, dotted with monstrous dunes.

The valleys of Nubra

I had started the Ladakh trip with dreams of soaring Golden Eagles, peeping Little Owls and perky Groundpeckers. What I got up to that point were accentors, unidentified warblers and a boatload of Eurasian Magpies. But, fortunes changed just as soon as we entered Nubra, with a long distance sighting of an Eurasian Hobby! So when we started from Nubra pretty early the next day, I was optimistic. I secured a window seat on our car and clutched my camera. For most part of the journey, my head was almost out of the window, searching the sky with squinted eyes. Suddenly, something caught my eye at the ground level, and I shouted out for the speeding car to stop. As the dust started to clear from the screeching of the brakes, I could look back and make out a familiar shape sitting atop a boulder on the side of the road. I let out a muffled yell “Falcon!” and in a instant two more cameras were on it. In nervous excitement, we bumped each other with elbows thinking it would fly away the next second. But it didn’t. Instead it taught it’s neck and started calling. The call reverberated from the rocky walls and wafted through the valley of sands. The beauty of that moment I can never put into words. It was still early morning and the thin sunlight shrouded the bird in a heavenly halo.  It almost seemed like all the natural elements of the place transmuted themselves to reappear as that shrieking bird, in some kind of secret alchemy ritual.

Red-naped Shaheen I

Red-naped Shaheen II

This experience was even more mysterious, because I could not identify the bird. At that moment it was driving me mad, but a good kind of mad. I don’t remember how long the encounter lasted. As it flew away, we sat down exhausted from keeping still in the most awkward of postures. The name “Merlin” popped in my head and I proclaimed it with a slight hint of smugness! Nobody challenged the identification, because we knew so little about them, and none of us had seen them previously. So, many fist-bumps and high-fives later we settled on Merlin.

Red-naped Shaheen calling

Parting shot of Red-naped Shaheen

It was not until I came back and started going through the photographs that I realised that I had been wrong. I was about to post an image of that bird in an forum, and just thought to recheck the id. Although of similar size, shape and colour, Merlins have a prominent supercilium that this bird didn’t have. So all my efforts to rebrand this bird as the Merlin failed and I realised that this was one those rare times when I had a magical encounter with a bird, without knowing its name. It was a strange feeling. I like putting names on things and categorize them. It comforts me. Thus, what ensued was a frantic search of literature and the internet, to come up with the proper identification of the bird. About half-an hour later, I was satisfied with Red-naped Shaheen, (Barbary Falcon). The surprise of what I saw hit me then, as I realised I just stumbled upon a bird I had never given a second thought to. A bird I had never imagined I would be fortunate enough to encounter. A bird whose only reference to me before, were the tales of Falconry from old movies and documentaries. And the funny thing was, not only I saw a bird that I thought I’d never see, I saw it perched atop a boulder, in the golden early morning light, surrounded by the majestic peaks and dunes of the magical Nubra Valley. It was too good to be true!

Golden Eagles and Little Owls can go suck it!

Robins dipped in gold!

As far bird encounters go, this is right up there with some my fondest. If the title isn’t a dead giveaway for you, there's a chance you might be on the wrong part of the internet my friend! Anyway, the bird in question was the Golden Bush-Robin (Tarsiger chrysaeus) and the place was a rain-soaked alpine valley in the western Himalayas.

So, this was during my Valley of Flowers trek in August 2017. I had extremely high hopes for this trek in terms of birding, because the upper reaches of this route meanders through the Nanda Devi National Park. Nonetheless, all of us birders stuck to plains know that a trip to the hills promises many encounters with winged wonders, and maybe a prized lifer or two!

The Golden Bush-Robin was on my wish list for a while. My first encounter with this beauty happened back in February of that year, in the little village of Kolakham, nestled in the eastern Himalayas. But as with many first encounters, it left a lot to be desired. In a way, that golden flash caught in the corner of my eye in the early morning and an utterly blurry photograph, only added fuel to the hopes of a dream encounter. This was the one that got away!

A Golden-bush Robin hiding in the undergrowth in Kolakham

The thing I do before every trip is a thorough search of eBird database of that area and come up with a bird wish list. I love this phase of anxious and pedantic research, mostly because at this stage all of it is within the realms of possibility!

Before I digress some more, let’s get straight to the day of the encounter. This day was earmarked for the Hemkund-Sahib hike. Clear blue skies at dawn lifted the gloomy air that had descended after the rain-drenched Valley of Flowers hike the previous day. It rained on and off the entire day and picked up strength just when we crossed the threshold of the Valley. I packed away my camera and stood under a boulder with three layers of dripping, wet garments, just when a pair of Red-headed Bullfinches appeared about 5 feet ahead! They went away as quickly as I was in the midst of figuring out the pros and cons of taking out my camera in the rain. Funny how things work out, right?! Anyway, cut to the next day, and I was more eager than ever for a solid day of birding. I started early and quickly overtook the gang. No distraction was going to deter me from birding! About an hour later, I realized two things. Firstly, my concentration quickly shifted from birding to the growing leg cramps and my aching lungs and secondly, the hundreds of horses dragging an aroma of noxious gases released from their posterior was distraction enough! Compared to the Valley hike, the Hemkund-Sahib route is a monster, gaining about 6000 ft from the basecamp (Ghangaria) in about 6-7 Kms, with constant 60 degree slopes and a billion horses. At one point, I swear I saw a grin on the face of one horse, after he changed lanes at the last minute and gave me a jarring bump! In all honesty, that may also have been the delirium caused by onset of High Altitude Sickness.

 Pilgrims on the Hemkund-Sahib hike

                                                          

Three hours into the hike, things got better. Not in terms of birding though. The only birds I saw up to this point were the ubiquitous Pink-browed Rosefinhes. Rosefinches it seemed, had taken over the Valley! Now I have been on treks before and the one rule that I follow that you must not sit down, except for emergencies. The logic is pretty simple- your muscles that gradually get used to the strain, get relaxed and you have to start all over again. However, after a little over four hours of hiking, I was seriously questioning that stipulation! On a sidenote, I forgot to mention that the weather turned cloudy once again and slight drizzles were hanging in the ever-thinning mountain air. Enough was enough, I chose a place to unburden my pack and sit down for a few minutes as one more bout of cold rain ensued. By this point, the only thing motivating me was the promise of a hot meal in the Hemkund-Sahib Gurdwara.

 Treacherous slopes on the Hemkund-Sahib hike

                                                             

Just as soon as I took out my water bottle to take a quick swill, that familiar golden flash caught my eye. It was coming from the other side of path. The rains had eased leaving a thick fog that hung low amidst the boulder-strewn valley. Suddenly, a small bird popped up on a moss covered boulder and started calling vigorously. It took me a fraction of a second to identify that bird, and I stood transfixed watching a Golden-bush Robin in its elements for the first time. The splendor of its colour stood out in the steel grey background. It felt like it had come from a quick dip in a pool of the most magnificent gold and droplets were still sparkling in the air. Ten seconds in I realized it was coming closer, and I quickly went back to my pack to retrieve my camera with all the agility I can muster. I jumped back with my camera in my hand leaving my pack open and on the ground. The bird was now about 10-15 feet away from me on a majestic perch and singing its heart out. Now, I have this recurring nightmare that one of my dream birds is perfectly in focus in my camera, but the shutter fails to close and the bird flies away. Thankfully this was not the case this time, as I frantically snapped away dreamy photographs one after the other. 

A Golden-bush Robin

Golden-bush Robin II

Mind you, I only have a point and shoot camera with high zoom (Nikon Coolpix P610) and someone with a dslr and a telephoto zoom lens would have been able to capture award-winning images for sure. In a little while, I put away my camera utterly satisfied, and decided just to marvel in its beauty as it hopped and sung away. The setting in time played its part in enriching the experience. The clouds slowly drifted and a weak veneer of sunlight filtered through. The snow peaks started to glisten in the background as I stood there with pure joy! The experience was even more special because I had given up hope of a decent sighting. And truth be told, during the rest of trip the weather let up, bringing a slew of lifers and many memorable encounters. So, I guess that Golden-bush Robin, on that desolate day in the alpine meadows of Nanda Devi National Park, was singing a change of fortune.

Golden-bush Robin III

In one quick jump down to the ground, the Robin disappeared and I started on my way again. The rest of the way was hard but I completed that with a smile of delight. 

Oh, and I sat down couple of times after that!