The quarry area is where I sighted my first Egyptian Vulture in south Bangalore, so it’s always with eagerness that I go there. This time, of course, the lowering skies and the drizzle made it impossible to see too much, and I was able to photograph even less…but it was beautiful, nevertheless, to get some creatures on camera!

Krupa and I have a kind of arrangement…the minute he leaves my side for a minute or two, I sight something interesting! (And, according to him, I make it worse by photographing it and showing him the photograph as well!) There was no exception this day; the first time he went a little further with Chandu, I spotted this

GREATER FLAMEBACK WOODPECKER

male in the tree…it sat SO still that I started wondering if I had seen a bird or the branch of a tree, as it was also far away! But the camera does not lie….

The second time we parted company, I was really thrilled to sight the migrant PIED CRESTED CUCKOO atop a tree (naturally it flew off in the minute or two that he took to come over!) Chandu spotted this BRAHMINY STARLING on the bamboo: (photography is tough in a fine drizzle!) However, the sighting of the day was definitely this RUFOUS-TAILED LARK which foraged around, unfazed by the presence of our car, right next to the road...even at such a closeup, you can see what a great job of camouflage the bird can achieve! The colouring of the bird closely approximates the mud on which it moves about.... I got a nice portrait, too: Here's another of my "birds as they appear to us" photo...can you spot the GREY FRANCOLIN in the picture? We enjoyed seeing three kinds of Munias...the SCALY-BREASTED, the WHITE-RUMPED, and these beautiful BLACK-HEADED MUNIAS: doesn't it make a delightful picture in the reeds? Apart from the birds, and the Ladybird that I posted about, I got this beautiful, tiny SPIDER on a small sheaf of grass; Karthik has promised to id it for me: I was intrigued by the perfectly round holes in the rock, here and there, until Karthik told me they were probably drilled by men, to put in dynamite for the blasting! I snapped a tiny wildflower, which Karthik says, is probably HYDANTHES: The moisture meant there were MUSHROOMS everywhere....little brown umbrellas...

and very delicate white ones:

For more pictures,

click here

…you can see SMS’s of the Long-tailed Shrike, the Common Babbler, and the White-rumped Munia, among other things.

Off to attend and 's baby's naming ceremony now... with my MLC of course!