The Marathon Migrator - Amur Falcon

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. 

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.

Nikon D7100

AF-S Nikkor 300mm F/4D IF-ED + AF-S Teleconverter TC-14E

f/8, 1/1250,iso-500

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