Kokkrebellur - Spot Billed Pelican bringing fish

My travelogue continues from Somanathpur to Kokkrebellur. Kokkrebellur is a village in Maddur taluk of Mandya district of Karnataka, India. The village is named after the Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala) called “Kokkare” in Kannada language. It is situated near Maddur between the cities of Mysore and Bangalore. Apart from Painted Storks, the Spotbilled Pelicans(Pelecanus phillipensis) are also found here. Both are classified as “near threatened category” in IUCN Red List of 2009. The village is one of the 21 breeding sites existing in India.

I have visited on Pelicanry in the Carnatic, where the Pelicans have (for ages I was told) built their rude nests, on rather low trees in the midst of a village, and seemed to care little for the close and constant proximity of human beings. – Jerdon, TC (1864). The Birds of India. Volume 3. George Wyman & Co. pp. 858–860.

Thomas Caverhill Jerdon was a British physician, zoologist and botanist. He is best remembered for his pioneering works on the ornithology of India. Several species of bird including the rare Jerdon’s Courser carry his name. What he might have referred was most probably about Kokkrebellur.

Kokkrebellur - Painted Stork

The uniqueness in Kokkrebellur is the long established bonding between the Spot-billed Pelicans and the villagers who have adopted this bird as their heritage, since they consider the birds as harbingers of good luck and prosperity to the village. The benefits derived by the villagers from these birds are basically in the form of phosphorus and potassium rich manure obtained from the bird droppings. Further, over the years, the popularity of this uniqueness has also attracted tourists to the village to watch the birds.

Kokkrebellur - Spot Billed Pelican Nesting

The village is located 800 metres to the west of the Shimsa River. The area in the vicinity of the village offers large water bodies in the form of several large tanks such as the Tailur Kere, the Maddur Kere and the Sole Kere that sustain food needs of the pelicans and other birds. The village setting at Kokkrebellur has nesting trees in the form of Ficus (Ficus religiosa, Ficus bengalensis) and Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) trees.

The spot-billed pelicans are protected by law in India and also in several other countries of the region (Sri Lanka, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos) to avert threats in the form of tree felling for agricultural purposes. A community-based project has been established to perpetuate historical links of the pelicans with the villagers. There is a rescue pen looking after those chicks which have fallen down from the nests and abandoned by the parent birds subsequently. They are fed with fish and their health taken care off until they grow enough to fly off.

Kokkrebellur - Shielding the young from heat

Kokkrebellur is not a reserved forest sanctuary but is a small village where the storks and pelicans coexist freely, mostly in tamarind trees in the middle of the village, in total harmony with the villagers. Consequently, reports indicate increased nestling activity in recent years. Kokkrebellur has the distinction of increasing its Spot-billed Pelican population by more than double in recent years. Since the houses and the nests are so crowded together, taking a good photograph of a nest without disturbing the villagers and the birds was difficult. View is also obstructed as the tamarind trees cover most of these nests. There must have been over 3-4000 birds in such a small village.

Kokkrebellur - Gullet filled with fish for the young ones

When we reached the village it was around 10:30 AM. Light was quite harsh already. Birds were away fishing at the nearby Shimsha River. I could get very few good photos. There were quite a few village kids who were enthusiastic in showing us the birds around. After the whole trip around the village I found the real cause of enthusiasm was love of the gifts given by the visiting tourists. I had few biscuits to share with them, but that didn’t satisfy their hunger as they started demanding for more especially for pens with us!. Somehow slowly escaped from them to I head back to the main road towards Mysore where I was staying that night.

Kokkrebellur - Chick grabbing fish from the throat

This is one of those innumerable spots on the Bangalore – Mysore highway which can be easily overlooked if you are not aware of this place. A blushing signboard on the highway which often hides its face from the traveling vehicles doesn’t help the matters either. The place is 75 km from Bangalore and 12 km from the highway. After Channapatna, go towards Maddur. Before Maddur, is a village Rudrakshipura. It is just before the BPL factory. Take a left turn here and Kokkrebellur is another 12 km on this muddy village road.

Kokkrebellur - Hoopoe on the wall

The best time to see the pelicans is in January to March. The place is not a sanctuary, and the storks and pelicans live freely in the trees in the middle of village and are quite used to their human neighbors. Mysore Amateur Naturalists (MAN) have been working with the inhabitants of village to preserve the nesting site of the spot billed pelicans, which are an endangered species. Sans the storks, Kokkrebelluru is not exactly a tourist’s paradise as there is nothing much to explore. If you haven’t had your fill of birds, you can try Ranganathittu bird sanctuary as well, where you get to see an amazing variety of birds.

Black Drongo Frontal View

In the last blog I had talked on the Drongo I was chasing. So here are the photos of that photo session where I was chasing these group of Black Drongo’s for a nice pose . It was cloudy, windy and rainy evening. The weather was nice for photography, but light was insufficient.

Cloud was causing variation in light. Trying to capture near black subject against white background was a challenge. I took my meter reading from a single point metering from the body of the Drongo. As we all know camera meters are stupid and they try to adjust the meter to expose to 18% grey. So my black bird would come as 18% grey(means over exposed). To compensate for that I had to under expose by 1.5 stops to get accurate exposure. Other option is to look for some thing which is neutral like green grass which when you convert to grey scale is close to 18% grey and take reading from there. There is also a possibility of sky getting blown out due to higher brightness. Fortunately cloud helped me here to soften that effect. Therefore when you see somebody dismissing a cloudy, overcast day as bad time for photography, you can instantly judge their level of understanding of lighting and photography .

Black Drongo on a Street Light fixture

Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) is a very common breeding resident bird, found in open areas, wetlands and near cultivation. This is a glossy black bird with a long deeply forked tail. They are usually found in open forests and similar lightly wooded habitats from southwest Iran through India and Sri Lanka east to southern China and Indonesia.

These are aggressive and fearless birds, 28 cm in length, and will attack much larger species if their nest or young are threatened. There are also some cases of Drongos preying on small birds. They have also been on occasion seen feeding on dead fish.

Squabbling Black Drongos

The Black Drongo has short legs and sits very upright whilst perched prominently, like a shrike. The adult Black Drongo is mainly glossy blue-black, although the wings are duller. The tail is long and deeply forked, and there is a white spot in front of the eye. Young birds are dull dark brown.

It lays three or four eggs are laid in a light cup nest placed in a fork often on the bare outer branches of trees.

It eats insects and other small animals. It will attack much larger species if their nest or young are threatened. There are also some cases of Drongos preying on small birds. They have also been on occasion seen feeding on dead fish.

Black Drongo on a Street Light fixture

The Black Drongo has been introduced to some Pacific islands, where it has thrived and become abundant to the point of threatening and causing the extinction of native and endemic bird species there.

It is said that they imitate the call of the Shikra so as to put mynas to flight and then to steal prey. Similar behavior, using false alarm calls, has been noted in the Fork-tailed Drongo. There are some cases of the Black Drongo preying on small birds, reptiles, or maybe even bats.

Black Drongo Dorsal View

Being common, they have a wide range of local names. The older genus name of Buchanga was derived from the Hindi name of Bhujanga. Other local names include Thampal in Pakistan, Gohalo/Kolaho in Baluchistan, Kalkalachi in Sindhi, Kotwal (=policeman) in Hindi; Finga in Bengali; Phenchu in Assamese: Phenchu; Cheiroi in Manipuri; Kosita/ Kalo koshi in Gujarati; Ghosia in Marathi; Kajalapati in Oriya; Kari kuruvi (=charcoal bird), Erettai valan (=two tail) in Tamil; Passala poli gadu in Telugu; Kaaka tampuratti (=queen of crows) in Malayalam; Kari bhujanga in Kannada and Kauda in Sinhalese.

A superstition in central India is that cattle would lose their horn if a newly fledged bird alighted on it. It is held in reverence in parts of Punjab in the belief that it brought water to Husain ibn Ali, an Islamic prophet.

I am Hungry

hi, I am a Blue-tailed Bee-eater. They call me scientifically Merops philippinus. I belong to great bee-eater family called Meropidae. We bee-eaters rank among the most delightful birds on Earth and possess startling grace and beauty.

Yummy Nice Bee

My species very similar and is sometimes considered to be conspecific with the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater (Merops persicus). We live throughout South East Asia. We are strongly migratory.

Let me remove his sting

Like other bee-eaters, I am a richly-colored, slender bird with predominantly green; my face has a narrow blue patch with a black eye stripe, and a yellow and brown throat; the tail is blue and the beak is black. I can grow to a length of 23-26 cm, including the two elongated central tail feathers. Even though we have confusion in our sexes as both sexes are alike we manage to breed along.

Wow that was delightful

We love to breed in sub-tropical open country, such as farmland, parks or rice fields. My favorite spots are near large water bodies. Like other bee-eaters our main food are insects. I love bees, wasps and hornets. I enjoy catching them in the air by sorties from an open perch. I like to eat bees and dragonflies in roughly equal numbers. The insects that are caught needs to be beaten on the perch to kill and break their exoskeleton.

Ugh here comes my bee snatcher

We bee-eaters are gregarious, make nesting colonially in sandy banks or open flat areas. A relatively long tunnel in which the 5 to 7 spherical white eggs are laid. Both the male and the female take care of the eggs. We also feed and roost communally.

My photographs were taken with Canon EOS 7D and Canon EF 300mm f/4.0 L IS USM lens. If you liked my story please send me your comments.