This blog post is about photographing the birds that visited one tree located behind my In-law’s apartment. So all the bird photographs in this blog are taken from just one tree.
If you are new to my blogs or have not read my other post about how I got into bird photography, my birding hobby started just recently so while I was living in India I had never noticed birds. I knew all the common ones like parrots, pigeons, crows and sparrows plus our national bird Peacock but apart from those I had never paid much attention to birds.
When it came to visiting India for the first time after I got into birding I was excited to photograph Indian birds as all the birds would be new to me. My wife’s family lives in Ahmedabad where we always stay first when we visit India due to direct flight connection with Ahmedabad airport. And on my first morning I went up to the terrace of their apartment to see what kind of birds are around.
Now their apartment exists in a typical urban environment like big cities of India, but just behind their apartment there is a big tree and its same height as the apartment so it was an advantage to photograph all the birds that usually prefer to sit on higher branches of the tree.
The first bird I saw on it was a Yellow Footed Green Pigeon and I was pumped as I was unaware of such birds existing in my state and it is such a beautiful bird (I was a fairly new birder at the time so I didn’t do much homework). Shortly after that came the Black Kite, later on I realised that there are a lot of Black Kites in Ahmedabad. In one photo taken from this apartment I counted thirty two Black Kites in it. But it was amazing to see this bird of prey in these huge numbers.
The location of the tree was perfect in the morning as the sun rose behind the apartment hence all the birds were perfectly lit on a sunny day. And in the evening there were opportunities to get silhouettes and back lit shots.
As my favourite bird species is parrot I was looking forward to photographing the Rose-ringed Parakeet and boy did they come! There were groups of parrot visiting the tree every few minutes and flying off to another quickly. They always chose to sit on higher branches as well which gave me quite a few opportunities to photograph them.
Purple Sunbird was another bird that I was unaware of, and when I saw it the first time it looked like a Hummingbird but I was aware that there were no Hummingbirds in India so I just couldn’t figure out what it was and I could not manage a decent shot on my first day either.
Later on 2nd day it came a bit higher on canopy and I managed to get a couple of decent shots from which I later on Id the bird. That day Red Vented Bulbul also came to rest on the top branch of this tree and sang its heart out. I was aware of the name Bulbul but I had never seen it from this distance so it was an exciting moment!
If you are from India or have been there then you would have been woken up with beautiful songs of Asian Koel, the male is black with red eyes while the female has black and while plumage with red eyes as well. I had never seen the female before so it was good to manage a few shots of them.
Oriental Magpie Robin was another bird I had to later on identify, it too has a beautiful song and it performed it quite well for me.
In the evening as the sun was setting behind the tree there were less opportunities for well lit photos but I managed to get a silhouette of a rose ringed parakeet on a nice clear day.
When you have not seen a bird and you are not expecting anything particular then to come across a bird with striking colours is a thrilling experience and one would get your adrenaline going. One such bird was a Lesser Flameback – a woodpecker which is a non existent species in Australia. These woodpeckers always visited during the evening and often when the light was very poor for getting a decent shot. But one day they arrived just as the sun was setting so I could manage a few shots of them while they were busy finding insects from tree bark.
On my 2nd visit after two years I saw Shikra and a Common Chiffchaff on top of all the usuals I had seen in the earlier trip.
By this time my brother in law also had gotten into birding and he had planned a visit to Nalsarovar plus we had traveled to a few more places as well so I didn’t spend that many days on the terrace. But he has seen an owl, Coppersmith Barbet and Laughing Doves on the same tree as well.
Ringnecked Doves and Indian Mynas were also frequent visitors during both of my trips; considering they are very common birds that was no surprise. Although now I think of it I didn’t take a photo of Indian Myna on this tree, I have some where they sat close to me on the terrace but none where they are sitting on this tree. The common bird that couldn’t be seen anywhere in this area was House Sparrow but that happened to be the case in a lot of urban areas as their urban population has declined in recent years.
There was a group of angry looking birds who always seem to be arguing among each other, known as Jungle Babblers. They mostly stuck to the lower branches or on the ground but every now and then one of them came up higher on the tree to give me some photo opportunity.
So we may not realise significance of a single tree on a first glance but over the time it provides shelter to so many different birds. And specially in urban areas it’s importance goes even up a notch.
I will leave you with few more photos of the above mentioned birds, if you have made it this far please let me know your thoughts and also which bird did you like the most? Until then happy Birding!
