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June 1999

                        We moved  into the house and there was a lot of time for observing the birds.  I find that an hour in the morning – about 8 am, and an hour in the evening, around 5 p.m., finds me a lot of birds.

            Have noticed a lot of orioles.  Golden, black-naped, black-headed, slender-billed.  They pair up around this time and are seen flying all over the hillside.  The females are an olive colour with a streaky front.

            A lapwing has made our lawn its home.  It is very territorial and circles the lawn with harsh cries before alighting.  We find it sitting quite still in the mornings – presumably asleep.   It makes a din through the night.  There are two kinds of lapwings here – the red-wattled, and the spur-winged.

            The most common dove around here is the spotted dove with the checkerboard design along its neck.  There is also the Nilgiri wood pigeon.

            I’ve also seen what I’ve identified as the fairy bluebird.  The Tickell’s flowerpecker and the red-breasted flowerpecker have visited the garden – their stay has been short and they didn’t make the garden their habitat.  But they were there long enough for me to observe and identify them.

June 2000

            This has been a treat month.  The bulbuls built a nest in the moss stick in the flower pot and three fledglings grew.  We watched them everyday and saw them learn how to fly.  We watched them being fed.  The parent bird would bring in insects and then sit on the chair back next to us, scolding us.  It wanted us to leave.  If we hung around too long with our morning tea, it would sit on top of the babies and hide them.  I remember the day when the nest was empty.  I was sure the monitor lizard had found them.  Then we saw three little weary morsels sitting on the barbecue stand.   They’d managed to flop there.  The parents sat on the pepper creeper and kept watch.  In two days, the stronger two made it to the tree and then they all disappeared.

            Then we watched the tailor bird start looking for stuff for its nest. It is not a shy bird, and spends long hours looking for nest material.

            There were lots of sunbirds of all kinds this month.  The dull olive females seemed to be more visible, and definitely more active.  However, there were also a lot of the bright metallic males.  The loveliest bird was the yellow-backed sunbird.  This bird decided to spend its mornings in the Cordia tree next to the verandah – so one could watch it at leisure.  It does not flit around as much as the purple sunbird either.  Its upper body is a brilliant scarlet.  This month I got to see the Loten’s sunbird as well.

            While Shakuntala was here, we saw a coppersmith.  Before this, I’d only had one in the garden at Gomia.  I can hear the knocking of the barbets against the trunk, but I cannot find the tree they are making a hole in.  At Fort Aguada we saw the blue tailed bee-eater.

            It has rained very heavily and continuously.  We can hear the breakers from the house.  The upside is that when it stops, all the birds come out to forage and to dry their feathers.  It is marvelous to see them sharing branches and preening themselves.  And they stay put for a long time so they are easy to watch.

June 2001

            The  rains have disappeared.  I visited Carambolim and it is dry.  Even the little swampy bit with the egrets is gone.  I was out for the second half of the month and the weather was the same when I got back.

            The yellow backed sunbird and Loten�s sunbird are regulars at the cordia tree.  Both the male and the female are there.  The rest of the garden has the red-whiskered bulbuls, a pair of white-browed bulbuls, lineated barbets, and koels.  The orioles are not there.  The lapwings and white-breasted water hens appear now and then.  The kingfisher has obviously found another place.

            This is obviously tree-pie season.  There are several pairs and they make a lot of noise � a kind of squawking like water birds.  Their tails are full now.  They are all over the garden.

            I took a couple of amateur bird-watchers to Carambolim just when it began to rain mildly once more.  There were a handful of moorhens, a few jacanas and one purple heron.  On the way back, we stopped at a village pond and what a treat.  There were three black and white pied kingfishers on a twig.  They kept making vertical dives to catch fish.  We watched them hover almost stationary in the air before plunging.  We also saw coppersmiths and plovers.

            The treat of this month was a frigate bird that flew slowly along the lawn.  It was alone and it is distinctive.  It is very long, black and has slim wings with a long wingspan.

June 2002

The South West  monsoons are here in a big way!  And the place looks so beautiful.  There is nothing like Goa in he rains.  I am waiting for the Carambolim lake to fill up � just now there are moorhens, jacanas and ibis pairs.  The coucal comes along for his morning walk and the koels sit in the trees.  A lapwing pair has taken to chasing each other around the garden.  They are very noisy.  Whitebacked munias are around too.  The kingfisher is back on his perch.

We went to Mollem and I saw the racquet tailed drongo and what luck! A scarlet minivet.  It is the most beautiful red colour!  We also saw orioles and possible a female minivet too.

The garden has the yellow-cheeked tit back again � a pair � and the ioras, chloropsis, the bulbuls, tailor bird, koels (less noisy) magpie robins, barbets are all around.  The green faced malokha comes in once in a while.  A racquet tailed drongo flew across the garden one day.  

  June 2003

It has been raining and the bird scene has not been great.  The koels are calling infrequently, and I heard the brain-fever bird just once.  There was a viper trying to get into the house, so it had got itself wedged in the front door frame.  Unfortunately, it had to be killed. 

This website has begun getting hits from unusual people from all over the world, so I am very pleased.