Life At Mitthi

There are times when life give you a blot from the blue!! Or a bolt with a dash of blue😀. Indian Pitta or Navranga Last year in the month of July , I had joined bird expert @arpitdeomurari and three other enthusiasts  to catch a glimpse of this bird ( in Udaipur )  in migration from the foothills of Himalayas to southern India and Srilanka . We were fortunate to spot it but I missed having my camera to capture it for my records.  Come July 2025, while having lunch in our dining area, I spot some movement behind my Adenium pot . I was expecting a snake which is common in our premises. In order to identify the kind of snake lurking around,, I kept keen watch and what I spot made me rub my eyes twice!!  Camouflage of this elusive bird. Despite its vibrant colors, it blends itself so well in the surrounding!! It was the movement of black lores of the bird which caught the attention initially.  Finally it revealed itself. An Indian Pitta ( Navranga ) foraging on t...

Greater Coucal Deep resonant calls , ‘coop, coop, coop’ often heard in the warm morning hours in our garden. The call is loud with good bass, enough to make one feel it emanating from some musical instrument. And just as a peacock scream is repeated by its fellow mates at different locations within the vicinity, similarly this sound is also carried forward to distant birds until the sound fades away. Acting on a childish instinct, I had tried imitating the call and it responded. This continued for a while till I saw the gardener from the neighboring  house prying to see the new kid in the area. This shy bird remained hidden from my view for many days before I spotted it hopping cautiously from the branches of a mango tree to Shirish. A fairly large bird with black head, purple black upper mantle and undersides, dark copper brown wings , ruby red eyes, short thick black beak and long black feathery tail. It is a very common bird in the Indian subcontinent and is an inhabitant of a...

The Bird Sanctuary  Feeding on millet In your quiet garden wakes a magic tumult   Of winged choristers that keep the Festival of Dawn,   Blithely rise the carols in richly cadenced rapture,   From lyric throats of amber, of ebony and fawn. The bulbul and the oriol, the honey-bird and shama Flit among high boughs that drip with nectar and with dew, Upon the grass the wandering gull parades its sea-washed silver, The hoopoe and the kingfisher their bronze and sapphire blue. Wild gray pigeons dreaming of a home amid the tree-tops, Fill their beaks with silken down and slender banyan twigs, But the jade-green gypsy parrots are only gay marauders, And pause upon their sun-ward flight to plunder red ripe figs. In your gracious garden there is joy and fostering freedom, Nesting place and singing space for every feathered thing, O Master of the Birds, grant sanctuary and shelter Also to a homing bird that bears a broken wing.   -Sarojini Naidu   Sarojini Naidu, a f...

  Perched 20 mts away from the pond near our kitchen. How many predatory birds trumpet their presence?  How many of them are brightly colored and not camouflaged in dull brown or grey color?  Not many I know of. That is precisely the reason I think this one is called what it is- KINGFISHER!  Kingfisher equally inquisitive of me taking the picture. Gifted with bright blue wings and back, an ochre body, sharp long orange beak , this medium sized bird   can never go unnoticed in any of its visits to my backyard. For it annunciates its arrival with a loud – Kil…kil…kil..kil. The call is so loud and clear, that it is easy to know which part of the garden it has flown to. No wonder it is called ‘kilkila’ in hindi. An onomatopoeic name. On our mango tree next to the lily pond. Unlike most of the birds, this one is not so shy. Even in presence of humans, they prefer to continue with their business. Hence, I have been fortunate to observ...

Whi..Whi..Whi… Whi, a quick loud whistling sound heard approaching the tree outside the kitchen, near the waterbody. A distinctly different call from the sweet notes of sunbird, oriental magpie, Indian robin or any of the bulbuls. At first, I expected kingfisher or a variety similar to it since our waterbody has plenty of mollies, which attract such birds. By the time I could get a good look at it, it flew away with its catch. I could not get a glimpse of its prey nor its features. Could only gauge its size and color, which is not sufficient information to identify it. Thereafter, whenever I was in the kitchen, I would keep my ears on guard for the whistle. We had good supply of its food so was assured of it. And as expected it did come again. A small bird, dull grayish brown in color, with a dark cheek patch, a pallid white brow patch above the eye, a strong head and a sharp hooked bill. It fed on dragonflies hovering on the water-body. Announcing its arrival with its pec...