If you are a birder reading this post, you may be wondering why I have a picture of a Grey-necked Bunting as the title picture of this post when the title mentions a Whinchat. Well, this is a post of twitching for a Whinchat but not succeeding to see it. Instead seeing another lifer that had been eluding me for a while 🙂

Whinchat is a super rarity in India. One had been sighted at a place around 300 kms from where I stay in Bangalore. Normally for such a rarity I would have accompanied my birding friends when they made a trip to see it. Unfortunately I could not join them as I had to head out to Goa for my son’s scuba diving certification. But I was not one to let go of a chance to see it 🙂 . A week later, I was to drive down to my parents house for Christmas. As part of this journey I decided to take a chance at trying for the Whinchat.

We left home by 4am and finally reached the spot by 9:30am. One of the first birds I saw was a Blyth’s Pipit on an overhead wire.

There were already a four other birders when I reached there. On talking to them I got to know that they had reached by 6:30am. They had not yet sighted the Whinchat. I was not going to be discouraged by what I heard. My son and I spent the next 1.5 hours exploring the area. Sadly we did not get to see the Whinchat. It must have decided to head on 😦 . But I got to see three Grey-necked Buntings.

This was a bird that I had been trying to see for the last 2 years without luck. I had even tried for it at a known area when returning from Goa to Bangalore a few days earlier.

Besides the Buntings, I also got some excellent views of three Booted Eagles and Common Kestrel, winter visitors to these parts. Here is a photo of a pale morph Booted Eagle:

The resident Zitting Cisticolas were super busy. I observed a couple of them collecting nesting material. Here is one such individual:

By 11am we decided to move on. Though I had not got to see the Whinchat, I was still super happy that I had finally got to see the Grey-necked Buntings. So it turned out to be a detour well worth it 🙂 .

Interested in knowing some other rarities that I twitched? Check out my posts on the Pectoral Sandpiper and Lesser Noddy.