The Khanapur – Ramagar route is a mess due to road construction. And avoid going through Belgaum city.
The best route to The Old Magazine House is via Hotel Gajaraj at Kittur Bypass – Alnavar – Old Magazine House. Nice good roads except for a few kilometers between Kittur and Alnavar. FYI not much cell connectivity between Kittur & Alnavar. Total drive time about 9 Hours. I had halted the previous night at Lonavala so that we could have a comfortable 0500H start the next morning. If we started from Mumbai, we would have had to start a couple hours earlier to make it to OMH by afternoon.
My Led Zepplin themed room at Cosset Hotel Lonavala 🙂 Couldn’t be a better way to start the trip ! ( Stairway to Heaven )
The shopkeeper where we had chai, at the turn off from the highway toll at Kittur. Pure sugar syrup that chai was. Interestingly he had goat wool caps hanging in his shop.
We made it in good time into OMH and reached for lunch and the evening hide session. All the usual suspects and the same perches.
Dark Fronted Babbler
The arty version
Ok here is what I did in Nik 3.0. Good to note this if I want to recreate this effect again.
And here is a set ( Click on image to see a larger version )
White bellied blue flycatcher
I shot, but with no intention to keep any of the images 🙂 Not bad the activity but the major activity picked up after the light went down, thats after 1700H. So not much chance of the high speed shot that I had in mind.
Yellow browed bulbul
A trogon pair was being spotted, so the next morning , that was something to look out for. For me I wanted the heart spotted woodie on this trip.
The next morning we did a trail outside trying for the Blue Eared Kingfisher. No luck there. But we got a fruiting tree with hornbills. The tree was inside and away from the road, so not much clear visuals. We could hear a lot of birds and saw Jungle mynahs, Pied & Grey Hornbills and barbets. On the return got a few Pompadour pigeons on a tree. All in all a nice morning walk.
That afternoon, not much activity and we went to another fruiting tree near the river. As we entered the area we spotted hornbills mud bathing. But on seeing us they flew off. That evening we made a bunch of hornbill flight shots.
Good workout for flight shots. Pundalik the naturalist told us that the timber depot had not much activity and there was no point in going there. Mohan the OMH manager also said that the timber depot is only active when there is a fruiting tree there. Next fruiting would be around mid january he said. Also the Great Pied Hornbills come only on a particular tall tree in the timber depot and only when it is fruiting. Point to note, to check when that tree is fruiting and make a trip just for the great pied 🙂
That evening as we chatted around the campfire, we met “Danny Kvyat” ( the name reminded me of the Russian Scuderia F1 driver ) who was waxing eloquent on how he has set up the hides and perches at OMH and other places including Sattal. I smiled and thought to myself, “Oh yeah mate, and you might as well be the F1 driver” 😉
Vinayak the main naturalist was back at work the next morning and we did the same morning trail. Much less activity on the same fruiting tree but this time saw a lot of malabar barbets gorging on the fig tree fruits. Then Vinayak, found us a few sunbirds on a flowering red flower which made for some neat shots. I used my flash here. And surprisingly got a leech bite too since I had moved into the undergrowth beside the road.
Purple sunbird eclipse male
Purple rumped sunbird male
After breakfast, the activity in the car park area really picked up and we spotted the trogon pair, I got the heart spotted woodie.
Malabar trogon
Heart spotted woodpecker
And the arty version
Also got a neat flight shot of the Scarlet minivet female.
The Blue Capped Rock Thrush was ever present and hopped on to a tripod which made for an interesting shot.
We also spotted the flameback woodi, drongos, brown breasted flycatcher and a few others too. This post breakfast session of field birding in the car park area was the best of this trip.
After lunch the activity picked up around 1500H. The usual Black Naped Monarch and the Paradise flycatchers made their appearances. Around 1530H we decided to go back to the fruiting tree near the river.
Mud bathing
Grabbed a quick video with my Nikon Z50
My goal was to take a wide shot of the hornbills flying against the sky. I got a few shots but the next time Id go a bit “tighter”. This time the 21mm was way to wide. The next time, Id use something in the 40-50mm range. I actually wanted to use the Nikon Z50 mirrorless. Since the action happens pretty quick, I thought if the camera was asleep, the slight wakeup time for the mirrorless, might miss my shot. Hence decided to use the DSLR with the 21mm Zeiss Distagon wide angle.
Chilling on the fields with Sundar. For a change I was shooting a Zeiss 21mm wide to get the hornbills “in the scape” !
That night after we had packed, we got called out to see a Spot Bellied Eagle owl, that too right outside our room. Of coure the action happens only when you are not ready ! I grabbed my Nikon Z50 + 50-250 kit lens and shot with whatever settings it had. Should have changed it. But oh heck , you know how it is lol :-)) As we all gathered nearer to view better, the birdie silently took off. Big in size I thought, though this was a juvenile female. What a way to end the trip !
Spot bellied Eagle owl ( The female here has a “wailing woman” kind of call !)
Another thing I wanted to try was to pre focus and get action shots of the birds. The shutter would be released via my shutter release cable while NOT looking through the viewfinder. This is to get “faster idea” of what was happening and hopefully trigger the shutter before I missed the shot 🙂
The way I figured it was
I did manage a few shots but the bird was just outside the frame. Oh well, something for the next time 🙂
And the Levitsa coffee sachet in the room is not bad ! Helped us wake up for the next morning 0500H return trip !
All in all a great short trip with a very enthu & talented bird photographer Sundark Photography. My take away on this trip from him was to put some more effort into post processing. All the pics on this trip processed with Nik plugins V3.0. I am still figuring this out, but given my style of shooting, I really didn’t need to do much in terms of post processing. But, this is work in progress. Thanks for the inspiration Sundar !
Note: Timber Depot fruiting – Mid Jan ( Check with OMH before going ) Check for the tall tree fruiting for Great Pied Hornbills
More pics in this album below.
We went there in January-end this year, from Pune. The Belgaum – Khanapur section of the road was mess. Surprised it still is ! You certianly have seen a lot more species than we did, – the trogons and heart spotted woody. And we barely glimpsed the pied hornbill – no sign of the great hornbills.
You’ve had a pretty good trip I’d say.
Great write up !
Belgaum – Khanapur will not improve for another couple years. Some local turf issues I was told 🙂