Christmas in Sultanpur & the Black Shouldered Kite

When we reached Sultanpur on Christmas day morning it was covered with thick fog, in almost complete whiteout conditions, for the first one hour ( & it was really chill) we began by walking along the wooded area and birding more with ears than the eyes.

Though this pair of Grey Horn Bills kept us entertained.

As the light improved it was the Black-shouldered Kite which made an appearance. We were infact very close to it, but it was hardly bothered about our presence, it was busy preening itself once in a while gave us the looks but mostly ignored our presence.

Then we saw a flock of Small Minivets & a flock of Scarlet Minivets

Then came this Roller Bird which was flashing its brilliant feathers against the sun

Then the visibility slowly improved, there were many small birds which i could not identify. Then we reached the lake for viewing the waterbirds. There were atleast 2-3 thousand water birds with Common Teals, Pintails, Gadwalls, Shovelers, Greylag Geese, Water Hens & many which i could not identify.

The Painted Storks colony was like a market area. We did see three Aquila Eagles, but were too far away to identify. One may have been a Booted Eagle.

Though i was disappointed not been able to identify many birds, i was happy on one count............. i handled a camera, a Canon SX 10 Digital on my own !!

We also had to quickly come back home 'cos i had invited some of my friends over to my place to celebrate Christmas. We had got a small Christmas tree (actually a pine tree), made a few decorations, got some lights et al, my maasi baked an awesome cake with strawberries on it, my mother also baked a cake, generally we had a blast.

Tomorrow night i go for my school trip, we travel to Himachal Pradesh to Shoja for our expedition in the snow................