tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83942663574615127422026-03-21T16:31:47.685+05:30I am on twitching quest...S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-69548136029140426372021-10-24T09:38:00.000+05:302021-10-24T09:38:51.497+05:30

Well, Honeyguides are an interesting birds and there are a number of them. Ten to be precise in the Genus Indicator. Eight of them found in Africa and two in Asia. Out of these two - one in India. I was chasing the one in India, the Yellow-rumped Honeyguide. I will get on to it after telling this story to start with. The story goes that I wanted to see this bird (like all other birds of the world

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-15586944999455517872021-08-07T20:30:00.000+05:302021-08-07T20:31:29.672+05:30

There are birds and then there are target birds - like the one I mentioned in the title. The Ibisbill, a bird that I chased for a long long time. The chase happens when you go to a place and do research for the likely birds in that season at that place. When I planned a trip to the Jim Corbett - it was not the tigers on my mind but two birds that were still refusing to be ticked as my lifers

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-87204676111855390702019-09-27T16:30:00.003+05:302019-09-27T16:30:37.585+05:30

It has been some time since I have gone birding anywhere. Days to weeks, weeks to months and months to years is how the time passes and so does the changes in our environment around. Life was already tough for the birds but recently the changes have been fast-paced. I have written about this lake earlier also, you can read about it here (Click Me) I have visited this place, Ameenpur lake

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-72244595015130143502019-08-04T22:46:00.000+05:302019-08-04T22:46:53.202+05:30

It has been a long time that I have posted to my blog in the recent past. The reason has been due to a double whammy, the great Indian Circus, elections was on - and the entire nation was out on the streets for three full months trying to pick up - who will rule the nation for the next five years, second was that in between this schedule I had tied up a trip to Borneo for birdwatching with some

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-19791119915377128512019-02-09T06:13:00.001+05:302019-02-09T06:13:15.294+05:30

I have wondered so many times - the only names of the birds that are understood the world over are the Latin names - or referred to as the scientific names of the birds. The only hurdle was that the meanings of the names were difficult to understand. I had to search the net often to get the meanings and of course, that was time-consuming. My desire to understand the meanings took me to search

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-65231320172522670922018-11-13T19:14:00.003+05:302018-11-13T19:14:55.536+05:30

Man the creator and the destroyer - unfortunately, the arrogance of the man has far-reaching implications for the world we live in. No other animal in the lifetime of this planet has done as much harm to the environment and it just does not seem to stop. I will take a very small example and build my case around it.  The case is - look at the television/or any media and look out for

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-58265350983366145262018-09-17T15:09:00.000+05:302018-09-17T18:48:55.902+05:30

Sadly my relationship with the Black Francolin is an old one. I say sadly that because I repent hunting it, it was a common game bird and a clever adversary at that, smart - it could hoodwink you even after it was shot and it was one of those hunts that made me a birdwatcher. This is a story from long long ago. I shot a Black Francolin and I saw as the beautiful bird fell to the ground. That

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-29847395602811572352018-08-27T23:18:00.000+05:302019-07-24T19:05:30.948+05:30

Before any reader of my age compares this blog to 'Confessions of a Window Cleaner' or 'Confessions of a Taxi Driver', and the likewise - the yesteryears movies - just forget it. You have come to a wrong web page. A bored birder is like a person sitting on a keg of burning gunpowder, the keg that can go 'Kaboom' at any bloody moment. He will blow himself of course but also take half of the

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-27319938282065455262018-08-16T15:14:00.001+05:302018-08-16T15:43:40.694+05:30

I am sure this works for every birder like this only - you are going to a new place for birding, you spend time studying what to expect and you dream about seeing a few of these target species. Firstly, there is no way that it is assured that you will see the bird - secondly, as and when you see it - it might turn out to be a fleeting glance and finally for a person like me - the trophy hunt

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-98504283820735492018-07-01T15:35:00.001+05:302018-07-01T15:35:22.887+05:30

I always am in awe of Oystercatchers. Though they are found in India too - the Eurasian Oystercatchers - that travel all the way from Europe to India. Unfortunately for me - I was yet to see them here. Though this bird was clicked during my visit to Sandy Hook, I post it first as I think this is my finest snap... The closest I ever got to them was during a cruise for spotting whales

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-64755236343378265912018-06-12T10:24:00.000+05:302018-06-12T10:24:33.436+05:30

Preparing for the US birdwatching visit sprung a surprise that I was not expecting at all. Living in India where we have six species of sparrows, I always felt that the sparrows -were mostly the Asian thing. Out of these five are in and around my city off and out of those - the house sparrow, native to India has been introduced knowingly or unknowingly in the entire world as to say. It was on

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-26001446229421902922018-05-20T20:08:00.000+05:302018-05-22T07:00:17.535+05:30

Here is how my story goes - the plot was - hunt the warblers among other birds in North America. Unlike the old world warblers - where they are referred too as 'Little Brown Jobs' - the warblers of North America or the 'New World' are small and mostly bright coloured making them a pleasure to see and less difficult to recognise. So when I planned to include a visit to the US for birdwatching -

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-61538687582621207842018-04-28T04:36:00.000+05:302018-04-28T04:36:44.741+05:30

Some milestones are special and there is no parallel one can draw. I hit the One-Thousandth bird in Europe (Italy) this year and the celebrations lasted a month. Now another milestone with logging the Twelve-hundredth bird - Oh! and what a bird... Let me start from the beginning. I came to the US for birding primarily and bird I did. There were two places that I had intended to

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-78019266428889829832018-03-06T14:23:00.001+05:302018-03-07T12:36:30.804+05:30

I am from India - well that's a kind of obvious statement for a lot of us who know me. Anyway, the story goes like this. We have this small bird in India called Goldcrest and I have missed seeing it so many times. It is present all along the Himalayas and fairly common. But it is tiny, tiny as in tiny really - at just 9 cm, a bare cm larger than the smallest bird of India. To appreciate the

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-83918338029221252422017-12-22T09:05:00.000+05:302017-12-22T09:05:27.709+05:30

When you look at this bird you will be surprised when someone points out - well it's a woodpecker. Afterall when you see a bird of a family you have a picture in mind that says - here - that bird is a wagtail, that one is a crow - within that, you then shortlist that bird - it is a house crow or a Yellow Wagtail etc. When I first saw it a few years back and I was told that it is a woodpecker

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-70680063884512371712017-12-14T11:14:00.001+05:302017-12-14T11:14:27.484+05:30

Oh! I have been crying like a baby about how difficult it is to get pictures of birds in the tropical areas of East India. Well, it is truth and nothing but the truth. All this while I was looking at the stunning images by one birder, Malcolm Peake - who is the Administrator of Worldwide Birders on Facebook and pulls out one photograph after another - stunning, to say the least - that keeps me

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-88304191810884321192017-10-21T14:15:00.000+05:302017-10-21T14:15:27.773+05:30

To say that Arunachal Pradesh is a birding heaven is not telling any lies. Like the entire North-East India - it is a place to be if you want to bird. But like all true stories - birding heaven it is, but the birds are not easy to see and there are other problems also. Hunting is an area of concern and inspite of efforts of many - it goes on unabated. The need of the times is mass education,

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-70743309547818242902017-09-14T18:54:00.004+05:302017-09-14T20:11:08.707+05:30

I did a wonderful birding trip to Leh - a little heaven on earth. A different kind of heaven that one has to breathe and experience oneself to know what it is all about. Well though I did go there for birding and am writing about it - it may not serve as a pure guide that one would expect out of a trip report - but then I will try to pen down all the tips and tricks that pop up in my mind. The

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-68002579238089103602017-07-19T11:32:00.001+05:302017-07-19T11:32:22.590+05:30

I have now been to Khonoma in Nagaland a total of 5 times, the reason being - I wanted to bird for a complete year and document as many species I can during this period. My last trip was a difficult one - the rains started lashing Nagaland like never before and the special dish of the day was a million Leeches crawling up my legs. That made me stick to the track walking almost 15 km along the

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-58785982574601240312017-07-07T21:41:00.000+05:302017-07-07T21:41:57.324+05:30

The bird and it's Beard... A 'Surdy Boy',  SIKH Photo courtesy Aman Preet Singh Virk (Click Here for his blog) Many a time in life you realise that you have some part of you hardwired in your DNA - like take me for and example - being a 'Surdy' - a Sikh by religion - there is a definite fascination for beard - Oh, in this case, the bird with a beard. I have chased it for a fairly

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-70236918152984695982017-05-16T15:42:00.000+05:302017-05-16T15:42:20.367+05:30

Unseasonal rains had me locked up inside the Resort I was staying in Nagaland and the birds were chirping just a bare 100-200 km away in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and around. A wonderful thing happened at that moment - a small group of friends (birders) made a plan for Assam and Arunachal Pradesh birding. My help was sought for tying up some administrative details - well my friends

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-91936917625301544272017-05-05T21:44:00.001+05:302017-05-07T08:40:10.255+05:30

It is a beautiful bird and a bird that is fairly common in Uganda, Africa covering almost half the continent - almost the entire central and the south Africa to speak of it. I saw this bird and its so very beautiful behaviour of such an interesting mating dance we saw it doing.  Okay, the basics first - the bird is fairly small finch bird with a stubby bill at 11-12 cm. The male

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-53571890848349530562017-04-22T14:22:00.001+05:302017-04-22T14:22:51.315+05:30

Spiderhunters can be seen sunbirds on junk diet. After all, how do you explain the drab colours when rest of the Sunbirds are so shiny, beautiful and colourful? Well - spiderhunters are of the genus Arachnothera, part of sunbird family Nectariniidae. There are eleven species found in South and Southeastern Asia.  These birds (two of them found in India) were very high on my list of

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-67514485730166802102017-04-18T11:12:00.001+05:302017-04-18T11:12:23.045+05:30

Continuing with the tiny beauties of Himalayas - here is another one - the Black-faced warbler. The bird forms part of the bush warblers (Scotocercidae) and at only 10 cm - it is a perfect contender for the tiny bundle of joy for the birdwatchers. These birds are small, and being warblers - they hop around in the thickest of the bush and that does not make the job any easier for us to see

S S Cheemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08648402715597232403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394266357461512742.post-5158095284316082272017-04-17T17:17:00.000+05:302017-04-17T17:17:35.752+05:30

Two things happened since my last update - Firstly, I have travelled and did some fabulous but not so easy, the difficult kind of birdwatching. Well, that update will take some time to happen. Secondly, The blog was selected by Feedspot as one of the top birding blogs in the world, eightieth to be precise. The  So I planned to carry on with the bird series - in continuation to the one I

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