Well, you may think that the title for this post is strange. And I would not blame you for it. It does sound odd. But things will be revealed shortly 😀

It was a Saturday afternoon in late October and I had returned home from my morning nature walk. Browsing through a birding related WhatsApp group, I noticed a flurry of messages about a sighting of an Eurasian Hobby at one of the lakes. Now that is news for birder in this part of the world 🙂 .

Eurasian Hobby, a small raptor belonging to the family of Falcons, is a passage migrant through Bangalore. Birders do report sighting it in some years. However it is still considered a rare sighting given the chances of actually getting to seen one, even in the months when it is passing through. Raptors are also birds that are quite regal in their appearance. I think both of these aspects make sighting one high on any birders wish list. Well, it certainly was on mine 😀 .

Now when I say that I got excited on seeing the messages in group, would be an understatement. I literally jumped of my bed upon seeing the picture that the birder had posted of his sighting of the bird that morning 🙂 . I began to wonder what were the chances of the bird still being there. These passage migrants can be very unpredictable. “Should I go and try for it?” I wondered. I finally decided that I would visit the lake the next morning. I then got a message from another birder friend saying that the bird was still being sighted. I could not bear it any more. I would leave for the lake immediately! “It is better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all” I told myself. It is amazing how we come up with philosophical arguments to convince oneself when it is comes to something that one is passionate about 😛 . Well, off I went to the lake.

The area of the lake from where the bird had been reported already had several birders by the time I reached. News travels fast in the birding community 😀 . We all started the search for the bird in earnest. There were also a couple of people who had managed to see it earlier in the day. Though we all searched high and low, luck did not favour us. The bird was not to be sighted in the spots where it had been seen earlier.

We humans can be peculiar at times. While searching around for the Hobby, we all got excited when we noticed a Falcon land and perch on a tree top. We all peered through out binoculars and some took photographs to identify the bird. Then someone exclaimed, “Oh, it is only a Red-necked Falcon.”. And I went, “What do you mean ONLY a Red-necked Falcon?”. Red-necked Falcon, though a resident bird in these parts, are also very rare to sight. I could recollect only two instances in my several years of birding that I had sighted one. So I happily peered through the binoculars enjoying the sighting 🙂 .

An hour and half later, it was time to head back; dusk would fall soon. I was disappointed on having got to see the bird, but certainly not sad for having come all the way and tried 🙂 . I would try again the next day morning along with my birding buddy, Kumar.

Next morning, we were back at the break of dawn. Some of the others from yesterday were already there. They had however decided to scan further down the path. Kumar and I however decided to explore the area where it had been last seen the previous day. As I scanned the various trees and electricity poles, I soon exclaimed, “I see it!”. There it was sitting atop the same electricity pole where it had been sighted by a person the previous afternoon. I called the others and informed them of the sighting.

The pole was the farm land of a local farmer. We had to cross several plots of farming before we could get close enough to it. So we made it a point to periodically take photos to get a closer and closer picture as we approached it. Here is one I took from quite a bit of distance:

The bird did not seem shy at all. It continued to sit on the pole despite several people being pretty close to it. We also saw the farmer walk right under the pole and move things around below that area. This gave us confidence that it was not going to fly away because of people being present. We finally reached the spot where the other people were standing. Here are some of the pictures I took of the bird from there:

A magnificent bird, don’t you agree? We spend almost 45 minutes with the bird. Here is a short video I took:

Hopefully by now the title of the post also makes sense 😀 .

Interesting in reading about another magnificent raptor? Read my post on Parenting in Bonelli’s Eagles