Oriental Scops Owl - Backwoods Camp

In terms of memorability and experience, seeing and recording the call of the Oriental Scops Owl comes second to the Sri Lanka Frogmouth. At the end of the day's birding on 8th March, as we came back to Backwoods Camp, Loven, our extremely knowledgable, amicable and lovable birding guide cum co-owner of Backwoods told me that he would look for the Oriental Scops Owl near the lodge's entry in another 15 minutes or so and asked me to come back.

It was already quite dark. By the time I came back near the gate it was quite dark. Lowen went looking for the bird along a jungle trail. As I tried to follow him he stopped me and asked me to wait near the gate while he would go in alone.

He came back in a few minutes. He had no news of the owl. He started playing the call of the owl from his mobile, holding his hand up. He kept on playing it a few times. We waited patiently in silence after this. After about 10 minutes or so the bird came flying from the direction in which Lowen had gone earlier.

It sat on a perch in the tree above us. And started hooting. Lowen showed the bird to us with his torch. I didn't see it too well. But I certainly heard and recorded it very clearly.


After a few minutes the bird flew away back to where it came from (presumably bored if not confused by the false alarm of a non-existent competitor), while the forest around Backwoods slipped back into the night's silence.

It was a brief encounter. But an interesting one. Made interesting perhaps because of the setting. I wish we didn't have to get it through call playback. Perhaps next time.

PS: It is curious that the bird is not listed on ebirds. I have written a mail to them. They are yet to respond though.

The Sri Lanka Frogmouth - Backwoods Camp

My trip to Goa's Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary this March was very fruitful from a sound recording point of view. I stayed there from 6th to 8th March and recorded many species. The general recording quality, due to my better equipment this time as compared to the previous outing, was quite decent. In terms of species too, I got a decently wide variety. 

Like in March 2013, this time round too, I stayed at Backwoods Camp. However, in terms of total number of birds seen or heard it wasn't as good as last time. But in terms of variety of species I got quite a mic full of them. 

The most notable and memorable experience for me this year was getting to first see and then record the Sri Lanka Frogmouth. 

Last time in 2013 I had "apparently" seen the Sri Lanka Frogmouth. They took me to a darkish corner in their campus and pointed to an even darker corner inside a tree. The others in the group said they could see it. I could see nothing except a lot of darkness. I had nodded my head on being asked "can you see it?" but in my heart of heart I knew I had not seen it.

The frogmouth is like a nightjar. It stays perched at its favourite location and does not fly off easily. 

This time they said the bird was a lot more easily visible and indeed I could see it very very clearly when one of their boys took me to the tree behind the kitchen. I could see the female only though. They said the male and female were both perched together till a couple of days ago and could be easily seen but now the male is perhaps sitting on the eggs in the nest. 

They did not know where the nest was and the male remained illusive to me. 

I asked Pramod (one of the co-owners of the property and an experienced naturalist) on how difficult or easy it is to record the call of the bird. He said the birds would call just once between quarter to seven and seven. That is, just after sun down when it starts to get dark. So go prepared to spend 15/20 minutes in the jungle. 

I did exactly as told. Went there with one of the boys in the lodge and waited with the microphone targeted in the direction of the female. The recorder was on. I started at 6:40 and waited patiently. Contrary to what I had thought initially, I found it is very exciting to stand like that in the middle of the jungle (with the lodge nearby) when you know that something is going to happen or might happen. A duffel bag with the recorder in it hanging from the left shoulder, microphone over your ears and a blimp in your right hand. Standing like a statue. 

At around 6:50 I could hear a young boy whistling somewhere in the distance. I asked the boy from the lodge if there was a village behind the forest in the direction of which my blimp was pointing. He said yes but added, "what you hear is a white-rumped shama though". I was quite amazed and regretted speaking in the middle of the shama's singing. 

Just when I was wondering whether Pramod was right about the timing and mentally thought I would switch off at 7 pm,  I heard this long shrill call - a series of high pitched notes - coming from the other direction. It was the male calling from the nest, I was told later. As soon as that call ended the female responded with a similar but monosyllabic sound. These two together lasted for a few seconds only and I am glad that my recorder was still on. It was 6:57 pm.

The next evening around the same time we were waiting a little distance from this spot, waiting for the Oriental Scops Owl to appear and call. With an eerie precision, the Frogmouths called exactly at 6:57 once again. First the male and then the female. Apparently after this call exchange the two of them set off to go hunting for food. I haven't seen this but only heard. 

The recording might be a little low because a. I did not know what to expect. b. the male called from behind the microphone. I have only normalised the recording in soundforge. The equipment of course is Marantz PMD 661 Mk II, Sennheiser K6/ME66, Sennheiser PRO 280 and Rode Blimp.

I heard the same call the next morning at 5:55 am when I was getting ready to leave. 

Someone told me that Frogmouths are so difficult to see because they can hardly be heard. But after this experience, I realised that they are extremely predictable if only you know their habits.