Last Saturday I couldn’t find anyone with a car for birding, so and I got into Bus no. 365 once again, and of course, both the birding and light were lovely...

We started off with several RED-RUMPED SWALLOWS which were sitting on the wire, preparatory to swooping and hawking in the air. Here’s one, singing its sweet morning song:

There were several JUNGLE MYNAHS, too, with their blue eyes and their "moustache" over their beaks! The fruiting and flowering trees are a haven, and a heaven, for hungry birds just now. Here's a WHITE-CHEEKED BARBET, which I call a "greedy fig"! The area near the Herbivore Safari has this very snazzy male ASIAN PARADISE FLYCATCHER, streaming his tail to and fro in the sunlight and dappled shade: We saw several GREAT TITs on the bark of the trees, pecking at insects: Several GOLDEN-FRONTED LEAFBIRDS were also busy in the foliage. Here's the lovely-looking male: And just to show how good the camouflage of the leafbird is, here's the female eating figs amongst the leaves. How quickly can you spot her? Even that most common bird, the ROSE-RINGED PARAKEET, looks lovely as it flies up to land on the branch! Other things were very appealing, too, in the golden morning light. Here's the resin on a tree, golden amber: A little WILD JASMINE flower smiled up at us: The CARPENTER BEES were busy, humming amongst these yellow flowers whose name I don't know: I don't know whether to call this dog a domestic one or not...it certainly looked beautiful basking in the morning light! The ponds were full of this beautiful "weed" plant, which Karthik tells me is Ipomeia carnea: I liked the spotted surface of the pond, it looks like abstract art! It was not a great time for butterflies, but we did see this CHOCOLATE PANSY: and this BLUE TIGER, hanging on to a twig: And suddenly, I caught sight of a DINOSAUR, too... ha, ha, that's one of the many life-size models which the Forest Dept has put up here and there in the area! (Some of them are not in good shape...this one has a hole in his leg, for example!)

The “catch” of the day, however, was this LITTLE CORMORANT, lit from behind by the glorious morning sunshine, which was trying to tell me (in real fisherman, I-am-telling-the-gospel-truth fashion) how large the fish was, the “one that got away”! :)

“It was THATTTT large!”

Being just a half-an-hour’s bus ride away from my front gate, Bannerghatta is a lovely area to visit in the morning!