The birds we spotted in Kabini, on the way there, and on the way back, were numerous…

On the way out, we started with the beautiful sub-adult

HOUSE SPARROW

nearby was the female: On safari, we saw many MALABAR PARAKEETS ...if you look closely, you can see the raindrops on this one! Photography was dificult because of the low light and the rain. If I had high standards like my fellow-photographs, all these photographs would have gone to the Recycle Bin, but me...I post here my SMS of the beautiful group of SMALL GREEN BEE-EATERS we found huddling together! We also saw this COMMON MYNAH which, through some mutation, was entirely bald... It seemed to be thriving fine, though I dubbed it the Egyptian Vulture Mynah! We went hunting for Blue-tailed Bee-eaters...the hunt was unsuccessful, but we did find this little blue jewel, the SMALL BLUE KINGFISHER: However, we did wonder if it was a genetic mutation or some form of pollution which was responsible for this.... A lifer for me was this LARGE CUCKOO SHRIKE (thanks for the id, Shreeram!) ...it was nice to two birds posing together.... here are the WHITE-BELLIED DRONGO and the SCARLET MINIVET ...two birds in the camera ARE two birds in the bush, or on the branch! Another Drongo was the spectacular-looking RACKET-TAILED DRONGO, with its musical-note tail! An IMPERIAL GREEN PIGEON sat in the mist and rain: Sometimes, STREAK-THROATED WOODPECKERS are not all that common to see, but we saw quite a few.... here's another one: Another woodpecker we spotted was this YELLOW-FRONTED (or MAHRATTA) WOODPECKER: We saw a few CHESTNUT-HEADED BEE-EATERS (I'm sure none of the others would consider this a shot worth posting, but I do!) A picture of happy romance was this SPOTTED DOVE couple: The raptors didn't disappoint, either. Through both days, we sighted a total of 12 CRESTED SERPENT EAGLES ...here's a juvenile (no doubt, a teenager that has been grounded by the parents for bad behaviour, that's why it looks like that on the tree!) here's an adult... The CRESTED (or CHANGEABLE) HAWK EAGLE also gave us a good sighting! There were plenty of PEAFOWL in the forests, and here are a few:

The peacock being the national bird of India, is a colourful bird to close with!