Ray of Hope

I had two reason to celebrate that day, I got the brand new camera from Canon, their freshly released EOS 5D Mark III and it was my daughter’s birthday. So our family decided to take a break from our routine and go on a short vacation to Bangalore to chill out. I always felt that Bangalore is cooler city compared to our humid coastal village. During my college days I used to frequent Bangalore quite often and was in love with the city. That nostalgia lingers even today. What I did not realize that I am jumping from frying pan to fire. Bangalore was hotter than my home town and is transformed beyond recognition in last 20 odd years. We had planned to visit Wonderla Amusement Water park on the first day and second day was meant for shopping in Bangalore city. After we finished playing in the Amusement park we returned back to our hotel in M.G.Road. Traffic was unbearable, there was a long traffic jam near the Outer ring Road to Mysore Road. When I asked the driver of the cab he said it is daily affair as the work on the Metro & connectivity via the outer ring road to the city was always under construction. Sun was setting, there was dust all around and what caught my eye was the Sunbeam shining through the dust. The above picture shows this ray of hope amidst chaos and traffic of Bengaluru city. After getting stuck there for around an hour there I was back to hotel to rest.

Rs 1-25

We stayed in a small budget hotel on M.G road behind the Oriental Building (LIC building) called Sri Lakshmi Comforts. This circle used to be called Oriental circle now renamed as Anil Kumble circle. This is the best budget hotel you can find in Bangalore, service is impeccable, rooms are clean and price is unmatched. The location is so close to all your shopping needs. The breakfast & lunch served in their adjoining restaurant is also serves very good food. No wonder it won this years Tripadviser award for the best bargain hotel. The entrance to the hotel is hidden and rooms are so quiet that you don’t feel that you are staying in a congested main artery of Bangalore.

Degeneration

Adjacent to to my hotel is another landmark building from the bygone era of erstwhile Bangalore – old Empire theater. Even though it has a name Kapoor Building embossed in the front of this dilapidated building, it was once a famous cinema theater. Now Paresh Lamba fashions and Arya Bhavan Sweets occupy the frontage of this building. The pictures you see around here are from that building and surrounding area. If you notice carefully you can see – Rs. 1:25, Seat:92 painted on the closed door of the defunct theater denoting the antiquity of the building.

In fact MG Road & Brigade’s Road has changed beyond recognition. Metro station has appeared like a phoenix from the ashes and has taken over the whole of MG Road. All the fond memories I had of the good old Bangalore seems to be razed to dust. One of my favorite haunts, Gangaram’s book shop closed permanently on the day I was, after 40 years in service. I have seen the some of my favorite restaurants like Nanking, The Only Place transforming into malls. Theaters like Rex & Plaza disappearing in thin air. G.K Vale & Lake view have moved with the tide to a newer locality.

Price of Modernization

Brigade Road has very few oldies left now, like Cauvery Arts & Crafts Emporium, the Post Office which still bears the British Government Coat of Arms (1914), Spinker & Co. (now used to sell discounted shoes), the oldest building spotted on Brigades is a small shop just opposite where the old Shoolay Police Station (now demolished) used to be called New King (1901). M.G. Road and Brigade’s had Basco’s for Ham (Omeer Building), Nilgiris for pastries, Crown Cafe for puffs (it was an exclusive meeting place for courting couples!), Bangalore Ham Shop (Andrews Building) for sausages, Lakeview for Icecreams, EGK or GK Vales, Albert Raj for photos, India Coffee House for real coffee, pubs were not heard of, but Bars were. There was Fatima’s (Fat’s) or Tom’s Cafe (Toms) or Crystal Restaurant.

The Kamandheru Restuarant on MG’s has now become a “Prestige Maidan” place, gone is the family atmosphere it once had. Church Street does have one or two old houses, as well as St. Mark’s Road with it’s India Garage , The spooky looking Bajaj godown ( formerly the Bangalore Post building, perhaps The Bangalore Spectator, before that) on Museum Road, Nanking Restaurant on Grant Road is gone! On St. Mark’s Road one can still find the stone Trac & Book House, Bible Society Buildings, Koshy’s, the Jewel Box, and the British Library. Lots of old houses on this road, all are being knocked down like nine pins.

Dished out

One of the places that one can remember was Gaylord’s a restaurant that had some live music and floor shows, and The Only Place, was a set of cottages and a homely restaurant that made very juicy steaks, in the compound behind. All what I cherished during my frequent visits college days seems to be demolished. In its place we have monstrosity of ‘Namma Metro’. Whether these changes are part of of evolution of Bangalore or deterioration of it I can’t say, only time will prove.

Cloud Nikon

You may be wondering whether these photos were taken using my new Canon EOS 5D mark III. No they were not. I wanted to try out statement made by David duChemin which I quoted on my My Gears page – Remember, gear is good, but vision is better. So for this trip I left all my gear behind at home. It was a very refreshing experience. It opened up new possibilities to explore subject without the need for a specific gear. All the photos here are taken using my phone Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000. It also made me come out of my gear fetish-ism and free to explore the world. Here is an advice for thousands of my friend’s on all photography forums who crib that they could not create that great masterpiece they wanted, because they could not get that specific lens which is supposed to create such picture. Stop worrying about tool, think of your craft. As for 5D mark III is concerned, you have to wait till next week when I am reviewing this great camera.

Pied Cuckoo

As I am writing this blog, it is drizzling outside giving a much needed relief from searing heat which started few days ago. But this is not really a monsoon rain. In the month of May-June, India awaits eagerly for the south west monsoon rain which brings much needed relief from the sweltering heat of summer. Pied cuckoo is partially migratory and in India, it has been considered a harbinger of the Monsoon rains due to the timing of its arrival.

Last November I saw this Pied Cuckoo(Clamator jacobinus) on a Singapore cherry tree (Muntingia calabura) which had young berries all over. It flew and landed on a branch very close to me. I was using my Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM fited with Canon EF 1.4x III Extender on my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV. The bird was at the closest focusing distance from the lens. Unfortunately the background where the bird was sitting was not clutter less. There was quite a bit of shrub & grass between me and the bird.

Pied Cuckoo

The Jacobin Cuckoo, Pied Cuckoo, or Pied Crested Cuckoo (Clamator jacobinus) is a member of the cuckoo family that is found in Africa and Asia. Appearance is distinct. It is a slender, long-tailed, crested, black-and-white bird larger than bulbul. The spot on the wing appears as a white band in flight. Sexes alike. In juveniles, the crest is less developed and the wing patch is smaller than in adults. What is deep black in adults is dull and sooty in juveniles. The species is mainly arboreal and is very conspicuous during breeding season (June-August). Call is a metallic peew piu-piu-(piu); pee-ew; piu… (piu… pee-pee-piu).

In his epic poem Meghaduta, Sanskrit Poet Kalidasa draws parallels between the thirst of the Pied Cuckoo for the rain and the yearning of a pious heart for the divine. In parts of north India, the bird is known as the chatak, or the one that lives on drops of rain. Its black crest is construed as a second beak that points up at the sky, waiting for rain to quench its thirst. Farmers in Gujarat have christened the pied cuckoo kharadiyo, because they believe that its song is louder and more plaintive during kharad, the intermittent dry period between rainy days. Similar anecdotes are found in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, but as interesting as they might be, they don’t qualify as scientific evidence.

Pied Cuckoo

Does the bird always arrive before the monsoon? In all parts of the country? How does it know when the monsoon is going to arrive? Couldn’t the relationship between the two be purely coincidental? The bird is an exception on two counts compared to other migratory birds. It is the only bird that migrated from Africa to India; and did so in summer. The only real evidence, apart from stray sighting records over the years, was a paper by ornithologist Hugh Whistler in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1928. In his paper, Whistler wrote an impressive collection of sighting records of the bird from across the continent. According to him, all of them pointed to the fact that the bird was an abundant rains visitor for breeding purposes over a very large portion of India. But Whistler was candid about need for more detailed evidence. The records he had collected spanned many decades and were from different parts of the country.

Migrantwatch took up the challenge to test this scientifically and has been doing this since 2009 with the help several volunteers to collect data across India and the sightings from places to where the Pied Cuckoo migrates shows that it does, by-and-large, arrive in advance of the monsoon, but the exact dates are variable. It is been tabulated into Pied Cuckoo Campaign. You can checkout more details on their blog

Check this Pied Cuckoo animated map which shows the progression of Pied Cuckoo migration across the country in advance of the monsoon.© MigrantWatch

In March and April, almost all sightings are from southern India, where the species is known to be resident year-round. This remains so until the middle of May. In the third week of May, the first migrant sightings appear, in the West and the North-east. As the monsoon hits the Andamans, the first birds in northern India are seen. More and more birds are subsequently seen across the West, North and East. By the time the monsoon reaches Kerala (in the first week of June), Pied Cuckoos are everywhere, except perhaps the extreme West and North-West.

The species is distributed south of the Sahara in Africa and south of the Himalayas in India. Also found in SriLanka and parts of Myanmar. Within Africa, there are movements of the species although they are resident in tropical Africa. The east African population is migratory and moves over southern Arabia into India during April. The habitat of the species is mainly in thorny, dry scrub or open woodland avoiding areas of dense forest or extremely dry environments.

Pied Cuckoo

In the breeding season, birds call from prominent perches and chase each other with slow wing-beats and pigeon like clapping flight. Courtship feeding has been observed in Africa. The species is a brood parasite and in India the host is mainly species of babblers in the genus Turdoides. The color of the eggs matches those of the host, typically turquoise blue. The eggs are slightly larger than those of the Common Babbler (Turdoides caudatus) or the Jungle Babbler (Turdoides striata). Other hosts include the Red-vented Bulbul, and the eggs laid are then mostly white. Eggs are laid hurriedly in the morning into the nest of the host often dropped from while the bird perches on the rim of the nest and over the host eggs often resulting in the cracking of one or more host eggs.

The skin of young birds darkens form pink to purplish brown within two days of hatching. The mouth linking is red with yellow gape flanges. Unlike some cuckoos, nestlings do not evict the eggs of the host from the nest although they claim most of the parental attention and food resulting sometimes, in the starvation of host nestlings. These cuckoos feed on insects including hairy caterpillars that are picked up from near or on the ground. Caterpillars are pressed from end to end to remove the guts before they are swallowed. They sometimes feed on fruits.

Pied Cuckoo

Coppersmith Barbet

I saw this Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala) on a late evening sitting on branch next to a white house. White background of the house, the dry tree branch it was sitting and colorful bird made a very nice setting. I was using my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV fitted with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM and a Canon EF 1.4x III Extender supported by Benro C45T Carbon Fiber Monopod. I wanted a greater depth of field to encompass the beauty of the dry branch. So I used aperture of f/8 & Shutter speed of 1/250th of second. But the light was insufficient. I raised ISO to 12800 as I knew that on 1D Mark IV I can afford to go that high and expect minimal noise. Bird heard my shutter sound and got alarmed. I was able to capture this beauty in few shots before it flew away.

Coppersmith Barbet

The Coppersmith Barbet, Crimson-breasted Barbet or Coppersmith (Megalaima haemacephala), is a bird with crimson forehead and throat which is best known for its metronomic call that has been likened to a coppersmith striking metal with a hammer. It is a resident found in South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. Like other barbets, they chisel out a hole inside a tree to build their nest. They are mainly fruit eating but will take sometimes insects, especially winged termites.

Coppersmith Barbet

This species of barbet is found to overlap in range with several larger barbets in most of South Asia. In the Western Ghats, it partly overlaps with the Crimson-fronted Barbet (Megalaima rubricapilla) which is of a very similar size but having a more rapid call. The red forehead, yellow eye-ring and throat patch with streaked underside and green upper parts, it is fairly distinctive. Juveniles are duller and lack the red patches. The sexes are alike. The Sri Lankan form has more black on the face, more red on the breast and darker streaks on the underside.

Coppersmith Barbet

Throughout their wide range they are found in gardens, groves and sparse woodland. Habitats with trees having dead wood suitable for excavation is said to be important. Birds nest and roost in cavities. Keeps solitary, pairs, or small groups; larger parties occasionally on abundantly fruiting Ficus trees. Fond of sunning themselves in the morning on bare top branches of tall trees, often flitting about to sit next to each other. The flight is straight, with rapid flaps.

They compete with other cavity nesting birds and frugivores. Megalaima asiatica have been noted to evict them from their nest holes, while Red-vented Bulbuls have been seen to indulge in kleptoparasitism, robbing the male of berries brought to the female at the nest.

Coppersmith Barbet

The nest holes are also used for roosting and some birds roost alone in cavities and these often roost during part of the day. Immature birds will roost with the parents but often return to roost early so as not to be prevented by the parents from entering the roost cavity.

The call is a loud rather metallic tuk…tuk…tuk (or tunk), reminiscent of a copper sheet being beaten, giving the bird its name. Repeated monotonously for long periods, starting with a subdued tuk and building up to an even volume and tempo, the latter varying from 108 to 121 per minute and can continue with as many as 204 notes. They are silent and do not call in winter. The beak remains shut during each call – a patch of bare skin on both sides of the throat inflates and collapses with each tuk like a rubber bulb and the head is bobbed.