Birds around my home

To the north of our home is an open plot.  This is more than a thousand square yards and is in litigation (I think so).  The land being unoccupied, trees grow wild.  When our locality was not developed, about 15-20 years ago there would be snakes and once I spotted even a mongoose in this area.  In rainy season there would be constant croaking of frogs which would even enjoy our premises and feast on insects.  Even snakes would come into our compound across the branches of trees in our premises that are projecting and intertwining with those in the open plot.  Even now we occasionally see green snakes or some other small snakes that are non-poisonous.  Poisonous or non-poisonous, the appearance of snake creates intense fear in all of us.  

As wildly grown trees with its residents is a constant threat for us, we spend money to get the trees cut down and burn all the dried leaves.  But the land is so fertile with one shower of rain all the trees start growing with lively verdant branches.  Squirrels are ever running on the trees and many birds come and perch on the branches.  Many types of birds come here.  It will be interesting to watch these beings and their activity.

As a child I have seen sparrows, crows and pigeons around my home.  I have seen parrots which were caged to predict fortunes.  I have also seen parrots and peacocks in Zoo.  Frankly speaking I can recognise these birds and ducks and cranes.  Other birds, as a child if I had seen in Zoo, I don’t remember now.  As I see different birds around our house I try to check out the net to know the names of these birds. I miss the sparrows and crows which for seen regularly as a child.

At this house, few years ago, we had almond trees and flock of parrots would come and crush all the fruits within minutes and make the compound dirty.  The honeybees also swarming to it and building honeycomb made us cut down the tree.  We still have few trees of mango, guava, papaya and teak.  Monkeys are our most troublesome visitors.

Now I want to present few birds that are seen around my home.  A few I may not able to name.

Kingfisher:  I heard of it, might have seen a picture.  But when I first saw I felt awed at its beautiful plumage.  In the month of March and April for a few days I have seen this coming and perching on the branches in the early of hours of the day and in the evening.

One day as I was inside the home I heard a strange chucking sound.  I came out to see what it is, is it squirrel or any bird.  After inspection of all the trees for a few moments, I noticed the kingfisher with a lizard in its mouth.  I was astounded.  I haven’t seen such a scene before in my life.  I immediately got my camera and clicked.  I thought the bird will fly away as usual when it notices me.  But it did not move at all.  The sound I heard was that of the dying lizard.  In a short time the lizard became limp; the bird swallowed and flew away.

This looks like a dwarf  Kingfisher?

I thought Kingfishers will stay near lakes and ponds and eat fishes only.  As it is summer lakes and ponds are dry kingfisher has come into city and surviving on different prey! But generally kingfisher also eats frogs and other vertebrates including snakes.  It crushes the vertebrates, immobilises and kills before gulping it.  Here it is very clear how it has held the neck of the lizard and crushed to make it immobile before feasting on it.

I will post few more pictures of other birds soon.