Monsoon India Day 8 - Kashmir

Spent the day amidst the spectacular scenery of alpine meadows and forests of Sonamarg, whose lofty snow-capped peaks dominated the skyline all around. Our first stop was low down where we crossed a fast-flowing river into a nice forest seeing several Slaty-blue Flycatchers, a Brown Dipper showed well along a side stream, and we saw a few other commoner species including Hume’s Warbler. 

Brown Dipper

Driving higher up we arrived at an area of wide-open flower-filled alpine meadows where Yellow-breasted Greenfinch, Citrine Wagtails of the black-backed Tibetan race calcaracta were common, Eurasian Hoopoes were numerous, and a collection of really wacky-looking shrikes looked a lot like Heinz 47 hybrids..!! 

There sure was some spectacular scenery up here

Citrine Wagtail was a common sight throughout our stay

Eastern Goldfinch is now split from European Goldfinch according to HBW

Eastern Stonechat

Eurasian Hoopoe

Somewhere up here Spectacled Finch resides and it is still a mystery to me some weeks later! We explored side valleys, villages, meadows in all the places this species has previously been reported but the bird remained invisible and it was beginning to become our obsession to find this bird. We saw plenty of other species such as Eurasian Hobby, Himalayan Buzzard, 11 Himalayan Vultures soaring in the clear blue skies, Alpine Chough, Plumbeous and White-capped Redstarts, Common Rosefinch and others. 

Himalayan Buzzard

We ended the day after an abortive attempt to reach the high-altitude pass, at a little village hoping for finches to come into feed. All we saw were Common Cuckoo, numerous Russet Sparrows, Himalayan Woodpecker and several groups of Yellow-breasted Greenfinches.

Russet Sparrow

Monsoon India Day 7

We spent the day amidst the conifer forests of the hills around Gulmarg. At the base of the hills we encountered a huge party of Coal (Spot-winged) Tits and a few of the extremely localised Rufous-naped Tits, with Brown-fronted and Himalayan Woodpeckers, Rock Bunting, Western Crowned Warblers, Yellow-billed Blue Magpie, and a Dark-sided Flycatcher.

Driving up we began birding several kilometres higher where we hit a purple patch with a Chestnut Thrush, followed by a pair of Variegated Laughingthrushes that spent over an hour around us, followed by a cracking pair of Black-and-yellow Grosbeaks. 

Black-and-yellow Grosbeak

Variegated Laughingthrush

We ate our picnic breakfast here and scanned the clearing below us and were rewarded with Slaty-headed Parakeets, Scaly-bellied Woodpecker, Ultramarine Flycatcher, numerous Streaked Laughingthrushes, a Tytler’s Leaf Warbler skulking in the undergrowth, a Buff-barred Warbler, and several Lemon-rumped Warblers. Walking on we saw Bar-tailed Treecreeper, a very brief Indian Blue Robin and a Blue-capped Rock Thrush.

We continued our walk into the afternoon but were beset with low cloud and rain that came in waves so we headed to a chai stall and took shelter, seeing Russet Sparrow along the way. Another attempt at birding the same productive area proved to be futile, apart from our first Kashmir Nutcracker perched in the mist and gloom and where we heard its harsh rasping/grating call, so we headed to a great restaurant for lunch and whiled away a couple of hours as the rain continued unabated seeing a few Citrine Wagtails as we drove along. Eventually we had to leave the restaurant after a great lunch and headed again to the same area as this morning where this time we nailed much better views of several Kashmir Nutcrackers in the scope. A few Black-and-yellow Grosbeaks were also seen, along with some commoner birds and by now we had pretty much cleaned up all the targets for Kashmir. The drive back to the hotel was enlivened with views of a few Jackdaws – an Indian tick for yours truly! Also seen on the drive into the city were Spotted Forktail, Himalayan Bulbul and Common Starling. What a day!

Monsoon India Day 5 -6

Day 5 was mainly a travelling day as we returned to Delhi during the first rain of the tour to date.

Day 6: After an uneventful flight from Delhi to Srinigar in Kashmir we were met by our local guide Deepak and drove to our base for the next 4 nights. This was a houseboat moored at the edge of Nigeen Lake and a very different experience from the normal hotel. After lunch we headed to the hills just outside of Srinigar and spent a very enjoyable few hours notching up a pair of Kashmir Flycatchers that proved tricky to get a decent view of but after persevering for a while everyone managed decent looks at what can be a tricky species! 

Blue-capped Rock-Thrush

We were amazed at the number of Rusty-tailed Flycatchers here and we saw many, as well as Western Crowned Warblers, Blue-capped Rock-Thrush, Oriental Turtle Dove, Slaty-blue Flycatcher, Black Bulbul and a cracking Himalayan Woodpecker. 

Oriental Turtle Dove

Himalayan Woodpecker

We saw many Rusty-tailed Flycatchers

Black Bulbul

Black-eared Kites

Not a bad start to our Kashmir adventure.

Monsoon India Day 4

After a later than usual start we headed to an area of acacia forest and rolling hills, which turned out to be particularly productive. The habitat was excellent and we found several pairs of Marshall’s Iora showing very well. I love this bird and seeing the male in breeding plumage was very nice indeed, having only seen them in winter before today and we had numerous sightings as well as hearing them sing. 

Marshall's Iora

Our other major find of the morning was watching a pair of White-naped Tits at their nest hole, which we found just by chance. Again, this is a very special bird and one we were keen to find, so to see them nest-building was a huge bonus. 

White-naped Tit

We followed this at a different site with yet another great bird and more good views of the simply stunning White-bellied Minivet. We saw 2 males and a female, with another male later on during our walk. 

White-bellied Redstart

Other good birds this morning included a pair of Black-headed Cuckooshrikes, Crested Bunting, Grey-breasted Prinia, several Common Hawk-Cuckoos, White-bellied Drongo, Plum-headed Parakeet, Small Minivet, Coppersmith Barbet and a hepatic female Grey-bellied Cuckoo.

Grey-bellied Cuckoo

 After a long rest over midday we headed to a lake not really knowing what to expect and were thrilled to discover it was full of birds. We added over 20 species to our list here with a flock of nearly 190+ Lesser and 3 Greater Flamingo’s, 6 Great White Pelicans, Painted Storks, Indian & Great Cormorants, Oriental Darter, 79 Eurasian Spoonbill, many River Terns, 2 Little Terns, 13+ Ruff, Green Sandpiper, Pied Avocet, Little Stint, White-browed Wagtail and others. Another section of the lake produced Little Stint and a whacky record of Sykes’s Warbler watched for quite some time in a small marshy area. We were left wondering if these shorebirds had left their breeding grounds early, were failed breeders or hadn’t gone north at all?

We ended up beside a small pond amidst dense thorn forest where a pair of Painted Sandgrouse flew over and an Indian Nightjar flew past us to round off a surprisingly good day.

Monsoon India Day 3

This was the big day as we went in search of a number of key target species in the fields near Sonkhaliya. After leaving the hotel at 5am it took over an hour to reach the first site, where we drove slowly along a dirt road that traversed a wide open plain of fields, crops and scattered trees. Within the first 15 minutes along here an awesome male Lesser Florican was located displaying in a field about 150 m away. We observed him from the car as he sprang high into the air, flapped his wings before stretching them right out, throwing his head back and puffing his body up into a ball before dropping back down to earth like a stone. A quite dramatic display accompanied by a strange clicking sound and which lasts just a matter of a few seconds. 

Displaying Lesser Florican is something you just have to see...

As luck would have it, after around ten minutes of watching him he decided to change his display site and came around 50m closer towards us. We just sat and admired this bizarre courtship display, and took a few photos too. Once satisfied with the views of this most wanted bird we explored the nearby area, finding a further 2 displaying males but all at quite some distance. We then checked a number of other locations, all in seemingly similar habitat hearing Painted Francolin and Rain Quail without being able to locate them due to the tall crops they were in, but a Singing Bushlark, several Rufous-fronted Prinias and Yellow-eyed Babbler were found along the way. 

Yellow-eyed Babbler

Rufous-fronted Babbler

We ended our morning’s birding amidst a more arid area with scattered bushes and this site proved to be a little goldmine as we found a covey of Rock Bush-Quails feeding quietly underneath a bush that defied all attempts at a decent photo and a calling Rain Quail  within just a couple of minutes of each other. The Rain Quail in particular was a little stunner as he called from the top of a small mound and after a bit of manoeuvring with the car we enjoyed fantastic looks. 

Rock Bush-Quail

Rain Quail

There were also several flocks of Rose-coloured Starlings, including some incredibly pink adults, as well as Ashy-crowned Sparrow-Lark and a flyby White-eyed Buzzard. We then made a couple of abortive attempts at finding Indian Eagle-Owl but did see Streak-throated Swallow, Little Swift, 

We spent the mega-hot midday period in an air-conditioned restaurant that had wifi, served good food and more importantly, cold drinks before heading out again at 3pm. This time we located an Indian Eagle Owl perched in a tree and not where we were expecting or had been looking! 

Indian Eagle-Owl

A couple of minutes later and a cracking Red-necked Falcon was seen perched on top of a dead tree, followed by the huge bonus of a confiding Painted Francolin that flew in right next to us, before flying over our car never to be seen again. What a bird and it’s one of those species that the field guides just don’t do justice to. 

Red-necked Falcon

Painted Francolin

So by now it was 5pm and we made the decision to try a different area about an hour away for sandgrouse. Along the way we had the first rain of the tour but fortunately it had stopped by the time we reached the site where we quickly scored with 5 Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse and a bonus find with a pair of Indian Stone-Curlew to round off a truly great day.

Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse

Indian Stone-Curlew