Sunday morning, Siddharth, Nikhil, a few others and I went birding. We were going to a place where my luck had always been disgusting, to say the least. It was almost as if all the birds and animals that were known to live there would run for it the minute they knew I was around!
We arrived at our birding spot after a quick half an hour ride, and were blessed with the sight of a mighty, beautiful and absolutely awe-inspiring bird - the steppe eagle. The guy was HUGE, to put it very mildly. Moving on, we came across a few ashy crowned sparrow larks and a few butterflies. And lo behold, our eagle was out, mobbing a kestrel!! The speed at which the eagle flew was simply unbelievable!!! It soared through the skies, maintaining its balance and suddenly it pushed back its wings before it touched the kestrel! Two of the most agile birds were at each other. The drama made us just hold our breath and watch, until the eagle decided to do the disappearing act. :(
The steppe eagle - The Tiger of the Skies. As we decided to move on, Chirag, one of the people who was with us, came screaming "Chinkara!!! Chinkara!!" The Chinkara, or the Indian Gazelle is a beautiful little antelope that is extremely graceful in every leap and step it takes forth. The chinkara is also an endangered specie, and it was like a dream to see it so close to the city.
We decided to try and see if we could get another glimpse of this magical creature and started walking in the direction in which Chirag led Sid and me - Chirag walking about 50 metres ahead of us. We ambled along, watching a couple of rufous tailed finch larks flitting around, and my concentration was focussed only on the larks. Suddenly, Sid goes "Mridula!!! You almost stepped on it. Look behind. There's a dead monitor." I turned around and was taken aback at the very size of the creature and I was thinking of how I'd probably walked across it. The two of us stood, on either side of the dead monitor, wondering how it could have died, considering there were no marks of blood or anything on it. We must have spent atleast 3-4 minutes pondering over the various possibilities. Then, I suddenly asked Sid, "Are you sure its dead?" He gave a little chuckle and said "Of course it is!!!" and raised his foot about 5 inches over the monitor to prove it to me, when the "dead" monitor "came to life" and darted and ran as fast as its stubby legs could carry it!!!! I gave out a piercing scream that even a train would be envious of, because the monitor ran in my direction, and jumped as far as I could jump and Sid and I were left speechless by this crazy encounter. It took us a good 5 minutes to recover. Initially, when we believed that the monitor was dead, neither of us bothered to click images of it, but thankfully, I did manage to click one, which I have shared below. It is a record shot though...
The monitor lizard! You can see Siddharth's foot in the frame - you can imagine how close were were to it.This incident just made my day and we were thrilled to bits!! However, a question lay riveted in our minds till now - Howcome the monitor did not feel the vibrations of us coming along and run for it in the first instance?
Moving on after this completely incredible experience, we saw loads of kestrels, one of which hunted before us. We also got lucky with the chinkara and did see that too!!
All in all, it was a tremendous day of birding that I can never forget for the rest of my life. To think that all these magical creatures live 20 minutes from my house is just amazing. However, that also makes me feel the need to save the habitat of these animals so that they don't go away forever.
Kestrel. One of the most agile birds around.
