Actually, Garima, who drove , Gayathri, and me to Valley School, says that the morning was "low" on sightings; yes, indeed, we did not see too many BEE-EATERS, no LARKS at all, and my usual ORIENTAL HONEY BUZZARD had probably gone to visit relatives for the weekend...but what we saw was interesting enough! One of the most leisurely poses was given by this ASIAN KOEL (male) that almost worried us, so contentedly was it sitting in the tree....

We started the morning with a perky ORIENTAL MAGPIE ROBIN, perched in its typical posture, on a telephone pole: A flock (is that the correct collective noun?) of COPPERSMITH BARBETS, bright and colourful, were feeding on the figs of the BANYAN tree: It was nice to see them enjoying their breakfast thoroughly and polishing the figs off! As we walked down the path, I got this scene of blue, brown, white and black, as a BRAHMINY KITE made a CROW fly off from its vicinity: This was the first time I have seen a PALE-BILLED FLOWERPECKER actually doing what its name says...pecking at a flower! A large TAMARIND tree (see those ripe fruits, yummmmm!! I feel sorry for anyone who has not had the joy of sucking on tamarind fruit and having their face go involuntarily wonky at the sourness of it) had several ROSE-RINGED PARAKEETS: This was some PRINIA, but I can't make out which type it is, and have helpfully labelled my photograph "some prinia": I want to show you how one actually *does* see birds in the foliage; they don't come out conveniently and show themselves to us, but it's more like the photo below, where one has to quickly spot the ORIENTAL WHITE-EYES...the little beauties! as they hop around between the leaves: But then I got this slightly less foozly shot of one: Little birds like the PURPLE-RUMPED SUNBIRD rarely come close, and one has to spot them as they move in the foliage and briefly show themselves: Even when the birds are nicely on view, up on the wire (ironic that this bird was sitting on the wire as it is a WIRE-TAILED SWALLOW!) what they do just to irritate me is to string themselves out one bird to one mile of wire,so that photographing them is tough: On our way home, we spotted this female INDIAN ROBIN:

Garima was able to get a photograph of the spectacular white male ASIAN PARADISE FLYCATCHER, but I had to settle for the rufous plumage of the lady:

Next up, the butterflies, insects and others…..