The Orange Beauty

Sinhagad Valley

Sinhagad valley is quite a well known place among nature lovers, bird watchers and trekkers. Situated at foot hills of the famous Sinhagad fort, it’s a small valley with patches of semi deciduous forest and agricultural farms. Such a habitat provides an ideal environment for a large variety of birds and other flora and fauna. Over the years it has become favorite place for photographing flycatchers and other birds. Its been two years, since I first visited Sinhagad valley and it has provided some terrific opportunities in terms of sightings and photography. This article narrates one such incidence with Orange Headed Thrush. 

Orange Headed Thrush

Primarily two subspecies of Orange Headed Thrush, 'z. c. citrina' and 'z. c. cyanotus' are found in India. The citrina family is mostly restricted to northen parts of India while cyanotus is resident in peninsular south India. The cyanotus has a white throat and face sides, with two black stripes running downwards from below the eyes. During the months of May-June, these beauties can be seen feeding and singing in the valley. This provides a good opportunity to observe and photograph them from up close. However, it is very difficult to approach them most of the time. But on few occasions, they tend to forget about humans and allow close encounters. One such memorable incidence happened with me last year. 

Usually I go out for birding and photography with my friends Tushar and Vikrant. Both of them are avid birdwatcher and naturalist and ofcourse they do photography. During earlier visit to valley, myself and Vikrant had good sightings and made few pictures of it. Naturally Tushar was desperate to try his luck and get his fair share of sightings and pictures. So all three of us decided to spend one morning at the valley. Vikrant expressed that he would rather do a trek to Sinhagad fort instead of birding this time hence we  decided to meet up in the valley around 9am. 

As usual me and Tushar headed towards the valley after having a cup of tea at our regular hotel.  We started our day looking for various birds with orange headed thrush at the back of our mind. In a place like Sinhagad valley, it is extremely difficult to locate a small bird like thrush. At best one can wait at spots where it is expected to be feeding, hoping that he may turn up there. Both of us were busy enjoying birds which came our way. Soon we noticed a pair of babbler like bird flew from the ground and settled on a distant tree. We could not identify them and the pair moved into nearby bushes and started calling. Wow, that must be Indian scimitar babbler, I thought. After making way through bushes and climbing few rocks, I got their glimpses perched on a small tree on the higher slopes. Climbing there without disturbing them was impossible, so I fired few frames from where I was standing and took some record shots just to confirmed my thoughts. This was my first sighting of scimitar babbler in valley. Till then I had only read about it in Jim Corbett’s books mentioning how he always relied on their calls, warning him against the presence of a carnivore. I retracted back after that. It was already close to two hours in the valley and still there were no signs of orange beauty.

Tickell's Blue Flycatcher

Vikrant joined us by then and was chatting with Tushar. On seeing my pictures he commented that one can also find them at water stream in winters. We decided to leave them in peace and moved on. On the way Vikrant spotted a serpent eagle (CSE) sitting at a tree top on an adjoining hill. At first look we thought it’s not possible make our way up there and we decided to walk further. Suddenly Vikrant shouted ‘barking deer’ and started shouting at us to click pictures. I kept looking at his face like fool trying to understand what he means. And before I could spot them, they vanished in thickets and tall grass.  Such a miss only left both of us to face angry Vikrant. He was of course frustrated that how on earth one can miss an opportunity of clicking deers in the valley that too on open grassy slopes. We stopped there hoping to see it again. All this time we didn’t see any of orange headed thrush.  

After a while I looked up and was surprised to see that CSE still hanging out on the tree top. And what followed after that was a little stint from all three of us in pursuit of CSE. But thats another story for another day. Vikrant decided to call it a day after our CSE stint and left us all alone to look for the orange one. 

Both of us decided to rest on a mound at the edge of an empty field. Particularly I am not used to trekking or hiking, so climbing a small hill in pursuit of CSE totally drained me. This was certainly the end of our day’s birding efforts and we were busy chit-chating. While relaxing I looked back for moment towards the empty field and couldn't believe my eyes.  An orange headed thrush was feeding just few feet away from us, completely ignorant about our presence. I immediately signaled to Tushar and boy, how could I forget the glint in his eyes seeing the orange one. We felt our tiredness vanished with the fresh sighting. We were fully charged and picked up our cameras again.

Common Iora Male

By this time he shifted few meters towards left so laying flat on our belly we crawled to the edge of the field and started looking for it. Soon Tushar located it and we aligned ourselves hoping that it would cross the field and end up somewhere on the ground in front of us. But this guy was crazy, this fella must have seen us laying on the ground and peeking on his activity time to time. Still, instead of continuing on his path, it turned and started coming straight to us and within few seconds it was right in front of us on the edge of the field.  This guy was so close to us that Tushar could no longer focus on it and had to crawl back few steps. We made lot of pictures in that time. Laying flat on the ground we were in a position that to our right we had this empty field and to our left there was a slope of 4-5 feet which meets the main trail. This fellow walked straight to us then again started moving towards the trail to our left. 

For a moment I thought our session is over but I was wrong. We followed him on the trail and soon he again turned towards the place where we were laying earlier. In between I changed my memory card and had some water. I was almost shivering with excitement. This little break allowed me to calm down a bit. By the time I got ready to click again, he was on the slope and busy feeding. I again got down on my belly and made some pictures. He was continuously closing on me and soon he was well within touching distance. I just can’t explain what I felt that moment. It was out of the world experience. The black bands on his white cheeks and brown eye were so clearly visible in the view finder. I was watching this orange beauty with hair splitting clarity. The olive yellow feathers blended so well with its ashy blue feathers around his shoulder area.

For the first time in our lives, we were stepping back to get a picture instead of closing on. Finally we gave up and left him on his own again. Tushar also had his pictures and now watching him feeding right next to his feet. We couldn’t believe our luck and till today we remember the whole episode like it happened yesterday. He flew away soon after that and we started winding up. What a birding day it turned out. From scimitar babbler to CSE and finally the orange beauty apart from commoners, all seen within a span of couple of hours.  That’s the beauty of the Sinhagad valley.  We never got such an opportunity again till date. Mostly the orange headed thrush keeps a distance from people. But the one we met was totally remarkable and I would go further and call him a crazy fellow. We felt a strong urge to touch him many times during our encounter but somehow controlled our emotions. 

Orange Headed Thrush

This summer we only got few glimpses of the Orange Headed Thrush in the valley. Lets hope that we keep watching them in valley for the years to come by.

Amit Kalele
September 2010