HSBC organizes an event called as Bird Race every January. Before you imagine that it is a flying competition between birds, let me explain what it is! It is our race of finding the birds. It is an event where several teams of 5 members each explore the birding places in and around Bangalore and try to sight as many birds as possible.
This was the 1st time I was participating in HSBC Bangalore BirdRace 2011 event, which was on 16 January 2011. ( http://birdrace.dhaatu.com./ ). Though I didn’t have much knowledge about birds names. I joined group of friends to participate in this with our group name – paradise flycatchers. Before the D-day, I went through the website http://www.indiabirds.com/ to make myself familiar with bird IDs. Many of the birds looked similar to me and I was confused about the names since there were around 500birds. Never knew that these many bird species are found in India.
The event was supposed to start from 6am and end at 6pm. We had to cover 2 places in Bangalore west and we started our journey towards Manchinabele dam. It was the 1st time I was visiting that place and was too excited about this event.
Though it was a very cold winter morning, I was enjoying the ride. We stopped at a place for tea and I saw that there was something which I wanted to eat from many days i.e., bun and gulkan, I used to eat this so much when I was a kid and it got back childhood memories. While I enjoyed eating it like a kid, my friend was wondering looking at my excitement.
On the way to Manchinabele, saw big banyan tree. There were many birds around. I don’t know what was wrong with me that day but crows were looking like some other birds and I irritated my friend showing crows many times. Sunrise was amazing that day. It looked like a painting. We did some sunrise photoshoot too.
- Beautiful sunrise
I saw the smallest birds which I had never seen. Found many birds sitting on the wires ,bushes and trees. Chirping of birds was so soothing.
- White-browed Bulbul. Photo courtesy : Prashant Kulli
We didn’t know ID of few birds, we clicked pics of those birds and also recorded the chirping of birds so that we can check it out later. Before reaching the dam, we had found many birds – common kingfisher, flycatchers, sparrows, fowls, pigeons, doves, bulbul, myna etc.
- Grey heron, patiently waits for its prey
I was amazed at the beauty of the dam, greenery around. We walked around the birds’ places silently without disturbing their habitat.
- Grey-breasted Prinia. Photo courtesy : Prashant Kulli
After observing as many birds as we could, we sat down to note down all the birds we found. We clicked few landscape pics. There was 1 more group with huge zoom lenses clicking pics.
- People boating in Manchinabele dam
We headed back towards our next destiny since it was getting late and we had found quite a lot of birds. Next we went near a lake but found just 1 or 2 birds.
Next we decided to go to Ragihalli and found quite a lot of birds around like green bee eater, wabblers etc. This place comes in the vicinity of Bannerghatta National park and we walked through fields and also places which looked like jungles to find the birds.
- Yellow wagtail. Photo courtesy : Prashant Kulli
It was a beautiful experience looking out for birds everywhere and enjoying the nature’s beauty. This event is organised to create awareness and I think it served the purpose atleast in my case. The results were to be announced after 6pm, We had found around 82 birds and we stood 28th. Looking forward for the next bird race and hoping for better results next time and to learn more about birds.
Life 