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...

    When our house was designed with 3 water bodies, we had imagined it to be home to our mollies and few water lilies. Little did we know that very soon it would form its own eco system and sustain itself. Frogs , toads, dragonflies, water snakes and many other insects we know not as yet, moved in too. Could nature exists undisturbed at this micro level? How naïve of us to think so!! To maintain the balance, soon we had these daily visitors- Indian Pond Herons. They are generally found near lakes, mangroves, swamps, reservoirs, rivers and even at sewer streams(unfortunately). I have seen egrets and herons roosting on wild shrubs and trees at the periphery of the lake near our house. But I guess, easy availability of food with almost no competition has made them our daily visitors. Many a times we have tried to protect our mollies from falling prey to them, but we soon realised it was a futile attempt. We feel very protective of our colorful mollies since they have been with...

  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...