Karnala Bird Sanctuary, 15.5.2011

My first Bird-watching trip after buying my new Nikkon Coolpix P500 camera!!!

I had no idea about the place since it was my first time here, so I decided to proceed up to the top (a long one-hour trek) before pursuing any hardcore bird-watching.

Anyways, the place was echoing with various birdcalls, and I could hardly make out any of them. . .

Saw quite a few birds on the way up. . . The most common was the Indian Tree-pie. Big, yellow and easy to spot since it isn't that scared of us. It's probably too used to nosy birders. . .  The other sights were fairly common ones :-

Red-whiskered Bulbul, Purple Sunbird, Purple-Rumped Sunbird, Asian Koel, Greater Coucal, Spotted Munia and a few other unknown to me then. . . I kept trying out my cam with some reptiles as well. . .

But the star attraction came only late in the afternoon. There is a small pathway that cuts right from the main road quite close to the entrance. This is an interesting area for all bird-watchers. There are hardly any people here so more is the chance to spot some feathers!

The Black-Hooded Oriole is the best sight in this area and I spotted almost five of them. My first oriole and it was just tooooooooo awesome!!!!

Bright Yellow with that typical black hood, red beak and flaring red eyes... The bird was almost glowing on the tree straight ahead of me and it took me five minutes to gather my senses and take a few memorable pics. Good use of the cam finally after all those lizards . . .

Black-Hooded Oriole

Other easy spottings in this area included Yellow-Footed Green Pigeon, Large Cuckoo-Shrike, Green Bee-Eater, Indian Tree-pie and Sunbirds. These were quite common but photographing them was really tough. Bird Photography is a different skill altogether. Probably more practice is needed. . .

Large Cuckoo-Shrike

Karnala will always be rememebered as the Oriole Special. . .