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Situated in northern Karnataka at an altitude of 1550 ft, DANDELI is another name of peace and adventure. Lush green environment and dense forest houses plethora of flora and fauna and one can get lost in exploring it. Bird watching is a great option for enthusiastic birdwatchers in Dandeli region. There are around 300 plus species of birds found in Dandeli including 4 species of Horn Bill out of world’s 9

I drove to Dandeli in December 2020 from Bangalore and it took me 8 hours to reach the place called Old Magazine House (OMH) which is right in the middle of thick forest of Dandeli. OMH campus itself houses numbers of uncommon birds.

During winter, especially from November till February, many migratory birds visit Dandeli. This is the time when many photographers also visit this place and OMH is the most preferred stay due to ample birding opportunities within the campus.

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LIFERS

During stay, I got many new birds and those turned out to be lifers for me. I could sight good numbers of lifers during my recent stay and my entire visit to Dandeli paid off. Places like Timber yard, Hornbill place near Supa Dam bridge are amongst those one can find many rare birds. Below lifers I could find in my recent visit:

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THE HORNBILL STORY

Birders in Dandeli traces Hornbill and capture their behaviour. Hornbills are giant amongst the birds in Dandeli. They are named on the shape of the bill. They feed on fruits & small animals. Male are bigger than the female. You can find four species of Hornbill at Dandeli. The Great Hornbill, Malabar Pied Hornbill, Malabar Grey Hornbill, or the Indian Grey Hornbill.

One of the distinctive features of Hornbills is the projecting helmet kind of structure (casque) mounted on the large beak. The shapes and colours of Hornbill give some species their names: Red-Knobbed Hornbill , Helmeted Hornbill, and Rhinoceros Hornbill.

Hornbills are very shy and alert and tends to stay away from human presence. Some also heard abandoning their nest due to presence of human.  

Below picture were clicked from a distant. It takes a lot of hard work and most important patience for the best picture to be captured.

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HORNBILL COURTSHIP

Hornbills pair for life. There is an interesting story while selecting their partners and it’s known as the courtship. Male Hornbills impresses the female before the breeding season. The males pick the best fruits and offer them to the females to lure them to mate with them. During courtship they are in their own world and are least bothered about anything else. It is strongly believed that hornbills are faithful partners and usually mate on the same tree where they nest.

The courtship seemed like a full dress drama for the following nesting period. Female has to decide that the prospective partner is trustworthy and capable to take care of her and her chicks during the nesting period. While nesting, the female enters into a nesting spot which is usually an appropriately chosen hole in a tree and seals herself inside for close to 2 months, until the eggs are laid, incubated, hatched and the chicks are ready to fly. During this nesting period, the female looses her feathers and becomes very weak. She depends on the male to bring the food for her and chicks. 

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HORNBILL AERIAL CASQUE BUTTING

Aerial casque butting is quite a display of male-male aggression on securing the female. We were observing hornbills seating on the opposite big tree and waiting for the mud bath. One of the males took off from the branch where it was perched, flew out just above another perched male, and while still in flight, clashed its casque loudly with another male and settled on another branch. It then repeated the behaviour for quite some time and both the males flew off from the branch and repeated the course mid air.

It’s quite a display fulfilling and satisfying your photography hobby.

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THE SPOT-BELLIED EAGLE OWL STORY

This column of the page is dedicated to Mrs. Jyotsana Nirula who spotted this majestic bird with a large yellow bill, black eyes, and “horns.”

After a tiresome birding marathon, we were camping at the OMH camping area in the evening, chatting with other photographers, sharing stories of all past experiences and there came an alert from Mrs. Jyotsana about the Spot-Bellied Eagle Owl flying behind us to a nearby large tree branch. And then the search began. I had already packed my gears including tripod and gimble for next day travel back to Bangalore.

But for the lifer, it was absolutely no pain to assemble them back again and make ready for the shot. We saw the owl flying to another tree and waited for him to settle. Resort staff helped us set the torch on it and make it lit so as to shoot him with minimum ISO. We spent some 15-20 mins shooting him and then let him alone since the owl was hungry and looking for it’s prey and any further experiment probably would have disturbed him.

And the story didn’t end here. After this great lifer shot, we settled around the campfire and were discussing about the owl shot and sharing our pics. I felt some movement around my right foot as I was wearing sleepers and not shoes, and suddenly the resort manager, Mr. Mohan, who was seating beside me dragged my attention to life taking dangerous Giant Scorpio.

I looked at it and it was really a big, almost size of a palm and scary too. For a while I got stunned and thought what if it had stung me. In a few moments, I came to my photography sense and took it as a rare object and started clicking photos. Few other joined me too. We then made a circle around the Scorpio and started clicking it from every possible angle.

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THE 4K VIDEOS

First time ever, I shot videos in 4k with my D500 and astonished to see the clarity. Didn’t know D500 is capable of such a great video clarity. Here are few videos made during my Dandeli visit.

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