Existential thoughts on birding in rubbish dumps

After two brilliant days, birding on our last day in Kaziranga (21 Feb) was hampered by the torrential rain that had started the previous afternoon. We left late in the morning after the rain had paused. We headed over to Diring Tea Estate, the main haunt for Blue-naped Pitta and a few more 'hill' species. We were hoping for good activity after the rain, but in fact it was pretty slow and birds didn't play ball - quite many species were 'heard-only'. Check our eBird checklist here. We heard one pitta right at the start of the trail, but couldn't locate it. No other birds were vocal in the degraded forest. Same for Oriental Scops Owl - three singing birds but we couldn't find any of them. We did add some species but nothing out of the ordinary. And it was nice to bird on foot after sitting in a jeep for so long.

Diring Tea Estate

Nest stop was Kaziranga Beel, a small wetland outside the reserve. Due to the heavy rain access to the wetland itself was flooded, and we didn't see too much there either. At least I could get down to ground level to photograph the small goose flock, in bad light. Good hirundine activity is evident by the photobombing birds.

Ruddy Shelducks and Bar-headed Geese (and Barn Swallow)

Bar-headed Geese are very pretty, aren't they? (and Sand Martin)

We had a couple of Bengal Bushlarks that were new to the trip:

A pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills entertained us by the main road:

In the afternoon we returned to the eastern range of Kaziranga NP. It was somewhat slower than previous days, and we really did not add too much. Two-barred Warbler and Black-throated Thrush were new trip birds. This White-fronted Goose was a good local record:

Indian Pond Heron on a mobile rock

On Feb 22 I started the long journey back home. Before flying out of Guwahati I had time to check the rubbish dump that holds the world's largest concentration of the Globally Endangered Greater Adjutant, the Asian Marabou counterpart. We had scoped them on the rubbish dump from a huge distance after landing in Guwahati a few days earlier, but I was hoping for better views. So I asked my driver to make a quick detour towards the rubbish dump. I thought I'd get views from outside the dump, but suddenly I found myself in the epicentre of disgust and misery. We were surrounded by hundreds of people rummaging through the rubbish, including young children. 

 

 

And I was there to watch and photograph birds. Globally Endangered birds. I have birded in many rubbish dumps and sewage ponds before, but this was something else. My brain was swinging between operation as a wildlife photographer, and feelings of a distressed western tourist just wanting to get away from these horrible scenes. In India one cannot escape from extreme poverty, but this type of extreme poverty is normally witnessed out of a passing train window. I was not expecting a close encounter with those miserable people. In the back of my brain I knew they exist, but my western brain normally avoids thinking about them. In this case, I was walking between those miserable people, carrying optics that cost much more than these people will ever earn, trying not to get my clothes dirty before boarding a flight. I felt so disgusting, and even much more now while I sit in front of my desk in the UK. 

I felt a sense of 'duty' to document the adjutants when I was there, that's why I went there, no? So I fired off some shots in bad light conditions, and asked the driver to get me the hell out of there.

This is the general scenery where the adjutants hang around:

I found it horrible to see people, cows and birds 'working' together on the same pile of rubbish:

Here are my photo objects. Not many birds can be described as ugly. In this particular setting, to my eyes these Greater Adjutants are genuinely ugly.

Huge

With Black-eared Kites - many on the rubbish too

After this distressing and surreal experience, I wanted to cleanse my brain a bit, so returned to Deepor Beel for an hour of quieter birding. Again it was good with large numbers of waterfowl, but nothing too exciting there. 

Lesser Whistling-Ducks

Bronze-winged Jacana

The last new trip bird - my only Brown-headed Gull of the trip:

Goose day

After a too long period without birding, went out this morning for a few hours before work with Quentin. We checked Cantley and Buckenham - in fact my first time ever there. The day started grey and grim but then the sun came out and it was quite brilliant. At Cantley there were quite many geese, and of note were 15 European White-fronts and 4 Taiga Beans.

There was a huge Lapwing flock there, I estimated about 1500 - good to see such a large flock of this declining species. About 25 Ruff among them. Also the mandatory Peregerine and several Marsh Harriers. 

Then we continued to Buckenham. The flock of 21 Taiga Beans was showing very distantly by the railway - not even a chance for a record shot. There was this group of about 20 barnacles - I assume they are feral? Among them is the famous Ross's X Barnacle hybrid - odd looking bird:

Some large Wigeon flocks were about, here they are showing the typical grey axillaries, a good feature to separate them from American Wigeon ;-)

Among the four-legged animals we had a Weasel and two Chinese Water Deer (thnx JHM).

Thanks to Quentin for the fine morning.

Cantley Marshes

Yotvata geese on Birdingfrontiers.com!

After my recent post with images of the White-fronted Geese at Yotvata, I was contacted by Martin Garner, who raised the idea that these birds belong to a Pacific or East Asian population. He sent me some interesting reading material, I sent him large images, and after a good ID discussion Martin produced this fascinating blog post. Read it - it is very mind opening. And for myself - I keep learning every day. Cheers Martin!

Pallid beauty

This morning I went with Jonathan to bird in the Eilat area. Our first mission was to see the Grey Hypocolius found by Barak Granit a few days ago near the IBRCE. We searched for it for a long time but at first with no success. We worked the nearby date plantation, in which we had an Olive-backed Pipit. I heard a very interesting Phylloscopus calling several times. It first sounded to me like an odd humei call, but after consulting with my iPod I found it closely matching proregulus! The bird was very mobile and stayed high in the canopies. I kept losing it, even with the help of Itai and Jonathan. I had a glimpse of it flying from treetop to treetop - it was tiny but I could get no plumage details. Eventually we gave up on it, but if a pallas's gets found tomorrow then it's mine!

We returned to the IBRCE, and soon after we had a few brief encounters with this beautiful bird. Unfortunately it was very shy and jumpy, and kept disappearing in the thick vegetation of the IBRCE. lucky I managed a couple of shots. I was very happy to see it - haven't seen one for many years.

Grey Hypocolius - male

While searching for the hypo I had quite a few Indian Silverbills:

We continued to Yotvata fields. In the southern field I had two Richard's Pipits, male Hooded Wheatear and a few Crag Martins. No sign of the recent rarities (Blyth's pipit and Little Bunting), but it was nice to see the couple of Hoopoe Larks that have been hanging around in the field for a week or so. Bizarre to see them feeding like Crested Larks in the dry field. I am used to find them in the remotest corners of our desert. Part of the time they were feeding with a small group of Ringed Plovers - interesting combo.

Hoopoe Lark

In the northern fields we enjoyed (too?) good views of two first-winter White-fronted Geese. The white forehead is quite developed for a youngster, but the lack of barring on the underparts and dark tip to bill indicate these are young birds.

White-fronted Goose

There was considerable size difference between both birds, but the small one was not small enough...

This seems to be a good season for white-fronts in Israel, with small groups recorded in several sites all over the country.

Other nice birds in the field were 1 Oriental Skylark and a couple of Caucasian Stonechats.

Caucasian Stonechat

White-tailed Eagle

This morning I participated in the national waterbird census organized by the NPA. My team checked several reservoirs in the S Judean Plains and coastal plains. We began late after we got a report on poachers shooting gazelles not too far away. Unfortunately the bastards managed to disappear before we arrived.
Birdwise, things were pretty slow with waterfowl numbers much lower than usual. This is somewhat surprising bringing into account the terrible weather conditions north of us this winter.
Zohar reservoir was the only productive water body. This beautiful reservoir is big and complex, with developed vegetation and always supports a great diversity. One of the first birds we saw was this huge White-tailed Eagle, spooking all the ducks and being harrassed constantly by crows. It was nice to see a 'real' bird, without rings, wingtags or antennas . I apologize for the miserable record shots - the bird was very distant.

Other quality birds there were two juv White-fronted Geese (my first geese this winter), 6 Ferruginous Ducks among the many other Aythyas, 3 Great Crested Grebes, and over 50 Wigeon.

There were about 500 cormorants and a single Pelican thrashing the fish in the reservoir in a real feeding frenzy: