Our kid likes Hyena very much and
best place to see it within Gujarat is famous Blackbuck National Park at
Velavadar. So we frequently visit this place to enjoy sightings of Striped
hyena as well as harriers. On that day park authorities decided to close park
for morning session due to rainfall on previous day. Therefore, we were just
randomly moving around on the surrounding road of park. It was morning time and
we heard a distant call of Painted Francolin. Meanwhile searching for the
Painted Francolin, we saw many other birds like shrikes, buzzards, kestrel etc…
all were perched on electricity cables. We also spotted a small group of black
color crow-like birds perched on roadside wires. They were busy in taking
sunbath and preening. At first, we
thought it’s a group of crow and moving ahead…! After some time while returning
to park entrance we saw them again at same place. This time we were really
curious and stop to photograph them. We noted the obvious differences. There were 5 Amur Falcons perched on wire. When we
approach to photograph Amur Falcons, they become alert instantly and fly away. We
cannot able to take good shots but delighted to count their number. There are
total 18 Amur Falcons. Five birds perched on electricity cables plus thirteen
other birds flew off from nearby trees. It is one of the unforgettable trips
for us as we saw Amur Falcon first time.
 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amur_falcon#/media/File:AmurFalconMap.svg |
Breeding Non-breeding
It is our wild guess that they
over there reverse migration. The Amur falcon breeds in East Asia. They migrate
in a broad front through India. The route taken to return to their breeding
grounds is not clear, but they avoid the long ocean crossing and possibly take
an overland route northward through Africa and to the west of the Himalayas.
14th April 2015
Blackbuck National Park,
Velavadar, Bhavnagar District, Gujarat, India
Nikon D7100
AF-S Nikkor
300mm F/4D IF-ED + AF-S Teleconverter TC-14E
f/8, 1/1250,iso-500
