Bird watching at Nandi hills

A previous account here way back in 2009.

All NTPians, myself, Deepa Mohan, Sumeet Moghe, Kannan, Poornima Kannan, Nandan Bhatkal and Naveen grouped along and visited the place for some bird watching activity. The Devanahalli road was foggy enough to reduce the visibility to bare minimum and a cuppa of hot tea later, my sleep had vanished as we reached the ticket counters. Weekend, long queue and I did the honor of grabbing the tickets and we drove up and got off well before the parking area. 

Highlights of the day for me were the Indian blue Robin and the Asian Paradise flycatcher (male, female and sub-adult) and also not to forget the Blue capped Rock thrush that was very co-operative all along.

We strolled around the area scanning for the birds and the Grey Wagtail was the first among them to gather our attention and the Greenish leaf Warbler kept calling all around us only showing glimpses of himself. Being such a small birdie, wonder how he manages to fly so long for spending the winters here...amazing!

The area around the Tippu drop has been reconstructed and the edges of the cliff all fenced due to the many people who tend to jump off from this cliff and that's a good move but sacrificing the natural beauty of the place with iron barricades all around. Monkeys are pretty large in number and sometimes very volatile snatching whatever they can from your hands and bags.


A day well spent and a wonderful getting back to Nandi hills, need to visit here back soon before the winter vanishes and thanks to Poornima Kannan for those sooper Idlis that all of us gobbled in no time!

Bird checklist-
Asian Paradise Flycatcher
Blue capped Rock Thrush
Indian Blue Robin
Greenish Leaf Warbler
Tawny Bellied Babbler
Olive backed Pipit
Oriental white Eye
Tickell's blue Flycatcher
Grey Wagtail
Ashy Drongo
Black Drongo
White cheeked Barbet
Common Buzzard