Birds from the Hail Himalayas

Bird watching is a late hobby of mine but it is one that is going to stay with me. On many trips, I just do not get time to click any birds. Not so at Hail Himalayas. I saw many and managed to click three birds, two of them for the first time.

I saw this bird for the first time when I was walking to the waterfall. It paused for a while but I had a 11-16 lens mounted on my camera. And even before I could think of changing lenses it flew away. Later it came to the Hail Himalayas campsite itself and then I had the leisure to click it.

This is how the bird looks from the top. I could manage the id via Indiamike Bird Thread. I just do not know what I would have done if the kind folks at the thread would not keep identifying bird after bird for me.

This is a partial view of a Forktail. It has a long tail and I could capture only a part of it. The tail is forked, hence the name Forktail. This is also a first sighting for me. These days the backyard hardly ever yield any new birds!

I have seen White Capped Redstart many times. It is a faithful at the bank of the Ganges at Rishikesh, I have seen it at Jim Corbet too. When found near habitation my experience is that is is quite fearless too. This one was near the temple next to the waterfall. It let me creep quite close to it.

And while you read this, I am off on a vacation (no invitations, my own personal vacation) to Gujarat. The idea is to try and reach the Runn of Kutch. I picked up Gujarat in the end because it would not be cold at this time of year!