Gould's Shortwing

[Rajneesh Suvarna]

This is a shot of the Gould's Shortwing by Shashank Dalvi, the pied piper of Eaglenest. As it is a shot of a very elusive bird I am posting the same on his behalf.

This is what he has to say about the bird

Shortwings are one of the India’s most difficult (elusive)species of birds... Lesser and White-browed being the most commonest but are still difficult to see. Rusty-bellied Shortwing is locally common but again extremely difficult to see it. But when it comes to Gould’s Shortwing its different ball game all together... The status of this species nothing but ‘Mythical’. There have been only handful of record of this species from India. You can virtually count no of birders who have seen this species in the wild. This June we (Alstrom n myself )had pleasure of watching this bird in its breeding ground and we realized this bird is not that rare if one looks for the bird in the right habitat, time of the year and elevation. This bird was one of the ‘9’ individuals seen by Per Alstrom n myself. This bird was shot at 4200 meters of elevation. After seeing no. of individuals we totally agreed on this species acquiring its monotypic Genus. Sorry for the bad quality of pic...

Cheers,
Rajneesh
http://www.naturechronicles.com

"The mind is like a parachute, it works only when it's open"

[Vinod Kumar Gupta]

 A very rare shot(surely the first shot of the bird seen by me)

 

Its a nice shot showing all features very well

 

Where was it exactly taken.Does eaglenest sanctuary extends till 4200 m?

 

Vinod

[Saurabh Sawant]

To add, Shashank shot this with Canon EF-S f/3.5-5.6 18-55mm lens (Kit lens as most of us know it), which seemingly is impossible but is reality. Stupendous work by him.

Regards,
Saurabh

--
Regards,
Saurabh Sawant
_
"The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/saurabhsawant1/

[Atul Jain]

Shashank’s inspiring find of Gould’s Shortwing at Sela Pass about a month ago and my failure to locate this bird in Khonoma, Nagaland, pushed me to take yet another whirlwind tour of Arunachal Pradesh. The objective was to reach Sela Pass and look for this bird again. I was quite aware about the perils of taking a birding tour in North East in the monsoons. There was a fair chance that I would not even reach Dhirrang, as the highway is quite prone to landslides. However, the lure of adding a lifer became better of me and I took the plunge with full gusto.   I left Guwahti on a very rainy morning and reached Bhalukpong Police Check Post at 10 a.m. I had earlier arranged for Dorjee to meet me at the check post with my ILP (Inner Line Permit). Dorjee is a “Bugun” and is turning into an excellent birding guide. We quickly dispensed with the police formalities and left for Dhirrang. The first disaster struck within 15 minutes of our departure from Bhalukpong. Due to massive rains the night before, a landslide and an uprooted tree was blocking our way. The vehicles were stranded on the both sides of the road. A quick round of discussions followed among emissaries from both the sides. Dorjee was leading the contingent from ours. A viable solution was reached and an action plan was agreed upon.. Without much ado, we all were assigned some real hard manual work. In no time, the tree was reduced to pieces, which were conveniently thrown off the road. The taste of first victory was sweet, though it increased our craving for more.   It was getting dark, when we reached our hotel; Pemaling in Dhirrang. An early diner followed, as Dorjee had decreed to leave for Sela Pass at 3 a.m. in the morning. Initially I could not see any logic of leaving so early for a bird, which is nesting. But later on, I appreciated his foresight. At this time of the year, the weather is only good for 2-3 hours for bird watching early in the morning. As clock strikes 10, the mist swoops in and so do rains.   On reaching Sela Pass, we took the “kachha” road on the left and started walking. The first bird we spotted was Golden Bushrobin. Later on we realized that, it was all over the place and is quite common at this time of the year. More birds were added to our growing list; Dark Breasted Rosefinch, Alpine and Maroon Backed Accentor, Firetailed Sunbird, Winter Wren, a nesting Plain Backed Thrush, Blue Fronted, White Capped and Black Redstarts. A muffled sound led us to a flock of Snow Partridges. The flock had young ones and thus had attracted a party of 3 Yellow Throated Martens. The Martens were on the prowl and our heart went out for the Partridges. Realizing that we could not fight with the forces of nature, we moved on, leaving the flock of Partridges to their fate. About 200 mts ahead was a landslide with stones strewn all over the place. This rubble of landslide is home to 3 nesting Gould’s Shortwings. Dorjee was at work and in no time we were gaping at the antics of 2 Shortwings. The Rufus on the upper parts is quite striking and I would say it is almost red in color and the heart shaped spots on the belly are quite endearing. We absorbed ourselves in this beautiful gift of nature and in no time 30 minutes flew past.  Grudgingly we started our walk back to our vehicle. We had more in store for us!! We stumbled on a family of Grandala. The pa and ma Grandala were busy collecting food for the young one. It was a heart stopping moment, when the ma Grandala pushed the food in the young one. I almost thought that she will overrun the baby. However, this concern was totally uncalled for. We were quite hungry by now and headed towards the only “dhaba” on the pass. The fare was simple and predictable. It was Tea with Maggi Noodles. By now, the weather had taken its turn and it started raining. We quickly reversed our vehicle and headed back to Dhirrang.     The next day was the departure day to Guwahti. However, we took a detour to Mandala to look for Rufus Parrotbills. The drive to Mandala and further on is pristine and is abound with wildlife. A cat crossed our way, which we could not identify. We drove further ahead of Mandala and reached the bamboo thickets. The bamboos had flowered this year and had dried, None the less, we were able to get; Firetailed Myzornis (we counted at least 6 individuals), Goldnaped Finch, Brown Bull Finch, Black Faced and Chestnut Crowned Laughingthrushs and few Nutcrackers. But no Parrotbills !! Taking this as our fate and probably a reason to come back again, we headed back to our destination.

[--ramki--]

Fabulous trip & report, audacious Atul! Congrats. 

-r-

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wildventures.com

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