Grey-headed Fish Eagle - Kaziranga January 15

Grey-headed Fish Eagle

The Grey-headed Fish Eagle is plentiful in Kaziranga. They sit patiently on the top of large trees overlooking water bodies. We saw perhaps 30 of them during our trips. I was lucky to get their call. Jhunnu, the guide, pointed it out to me and helped me record the call. This is not the bird that you hear in the recording though. Though we saw a lot of these birds, I didn't see a single one making a kill though. Actually, the forest is so dense it is not easy to see the birds in action. You have to be singularly lucky to witness a kill being made.

Striated Grassbird

I clicked this Striated Grassbird at Nalban in February 2011. The bird was singing beautifully. I didn't have the recorder at that time to record it. Ever since I wanted to record it. I got the chance in Kaziranga at last when I saw it again in Burapahar. Didn't get a photograph of the bird as it was perched at a distance. But the call came loud and clear, albeit a little marred by some cicadas in the background. There were some hoolock gibbons shouting in the background. But these add to the overall effect in a positive way, I suppose.

The recording was done with my Marantz and Sennheiser K6/ME66. The sound is post processed on Soundforge with some fade in and out and basic volume raising.

Northern Lapwing, Kaziranga, January 2015

I saw my first Northern Lapwing in Kaziranga National Park, Assam where I spent 3 days from 23rd to 25th of January, 2015. I got lucky with the bird's call as well. However, the credit for the call ID goes to our guide cum driver Jhunnu who told me it was a Northern Lapwing that was calling. I saw the bird but couldn't make out if it was calling.

It is funny that although Xeno-Canto has a lot of Northern Lapwing calls, all of them are from Europe. There is almost nothing from their wintering grounds like India. There is one of zero second and another of one second. I could hear nothing when I played them.

I recorded this call with my Marantz PMD 661 Mk II and Sennheiser K6/ME66 combination in a Rode blimp.