Friday, March 6, 2015, Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India

Today we explored the area near Kanha National Park
(Image courtesy of VENT)
(Click on images to enlarge)

Today is Holi, which is traditionally celebrated by throwing colored powders and colored waters on friends and passersby. From Red Earth and Pouring Rain: As they had said good-bye in the meeting of seasons, the soon-to-be Begum Sumroo had told him about the fires of spring that celebrated the death of Holika, who had stepped into flames in response to a challenge from a holy man, and had been speedily immolated; the Begum smiled as she told the story, but Thomas had seen the flesh pooling and cindering, stripping away from clean white bone, and shivered. ‘But, Thomas Sahib, or Jahaj Jung, I should say,’ the Begum said, ‘in the evening there are the fires marking her immolation, and when the morning comes, there is the throwing of coloured powders at each other, the drinking of bhang, singing of ribald ballads, teasing, cajolery, a harvest and then a planting. The one cannot be without the other; ask any village dotard and he will gravely scratch his beard, try to look wise and tell you this, and probably ask for money after.’ Holi colors for sale in Mysore (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Holi poster from the London Tube

Flowers of the Palash (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) Baagh courtyard with Palash trees in bloom

Because of the holiday, we couldn’t visit the national park, so we had a quieter day, which was quite welcome. We met the others at 7 to bird the hotel’s extensive grounds. It was like Christmas. Standing on the verandah outside the hotel restaurant, we looked up into a Palash tree (also known as Flame of the Forest and traditionally used to make colors for Holi). It was full of bright red blossoms and being visited by swarms of nectar eaters, such as the beautiful Golden-fronted Leafbirds, which were among the several lifers we got just standing there. (The Leafbirds are also a new family for us.) For a birder, it was a treat comparable to sitting on the verandah at the Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad. One had the same frustration of not being able to look at enough of the gorgeous birds at the same time. Golden-fronted Leafbird (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Jungle Owlet (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

After things quieted down around the Palash tree, we wandered all over the hotel’s grounds, including their extensive vegetable garden, which had cauliflower and eggplant almost ready to harvest. We kept getting more and more birds. The best was a Jungle Owlet, a tiny dark owl about the size of an American Robin. As we wandered the grounds, we could see goats that had been let loose to forage in the dry rice paddies beyond the hotel’s grounds. As we watched, they found a hole in the fence that allowed them to enter and begin devouring the garden, but soon a member of the hotel staff came to deal with the problem. Goats about to discover the Baagh’s garden

Baagh dining room with Palash flowers (Image courtesy of the Baagh Resort)

We continued walking the grounds until around 9 when we returned to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. We were served scrumptious aloo parathas; I went back for more. Once we’d eaten, we continued the search for birds in the grounds for a while til it grew too hot and then retired to our rooms. Lee and I had decided to opt out of lunch (we’re getting really overfed), which turned out not to have been a good idea. When we got together with the others to go out at 3, they informed us that while they were at lunch, the Plum-headed Parakeet and the Indian Nuthatch (both beautiful birds I had longed to see better) had presented themselves for inspection at the restaurant’s open doors. Moan!

Male and female Plum-headed Parakeets (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Indian (Chestnut-bellied) Nuthatch (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The hotel’s entrance is a traditional farmhouse, quite handsome, but it has been painted white, unlike the houses all around, which are very bright colors. We enjoyed having a chance to study its construction:

Entrance to the Baagh Resort

Traditional construction at the Baagh

Signs of Holi exuberance

When we got to the road in front of the hotel, we could see splashes of colored powder on the road, the result of somebody’s Holi exuberance. We noted that most of the passersby had been liberally dusted with pink and green and blue.

White-naped Woodpecker (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

At first, we drove about along village pathways between the dry rice paddies, where we were happy to get our second lifer woodpecker of the day, a White-naped Woodpecker. This is the territory of the Three-striped Palm Squirrel, but it seems they are much less gregarious than their cousins with the five stripes, so we hadn’t seen one until now, but at one point during this ride, I distinctly saw a Three-striped Blur, as it dove under a bush. Three-striped Palm Squirrel (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Walking about near a small stream through the parched land, we came across three teens, the two boys knocking plums out of a tree and gathering them, the girl watching a music video on her cellphone—I suspect she’ll be hard to keep down on the farm. We drove further away from the national park, passing between fields and through small farming villages. Three or four times we were stopped by makeshift toll barriers manned by laughing children covered with colored powders and demanding Holi treats (much in the spirit of Halloween). We forked over small sums of money and were quite pleased that nobody got up the courage to throw any of the powders on us, all of us being short of clean clothing at this stage of our journey. We noted that water bottles had been cleverly converted for use in spraying colored water on people and were even more happy to have bought their grins rather than their tricks. (I’d have loved to take some photos of the children but feared that it might be offensive.)

Hamlet near the Baagh Resort (Image courtesy of the Baagh Resort)

Black Drongo

There were many birds in the fields and the waste areas at their borders. (This style of farming leaves some room for the wildlife, unlike the farming practices at home.) We got close enough to a Black Drongo to see the white rictal spot (at the base of its bill). Goat-proof elevated haystack

We drove on across a local river, hoping for kingfishers, and around through more of the dry rice paddies and small villages. It was pleasant and interesting to see the farm villages up close. I was impressed with the spaciousness of the houses and their bright colors. I watched a woman bent double sweeping the dirt in her courtyard to clear away the colored powders. In another village, a young woman brought her infant over for us to admire. Everywhere the children waved and called “Goodbye”, their one English word. These more rural kids looked as though they wanted to work up the courage to demand Holi treats but didn’t.

We didn’t get back to the hotel until shortly after sunset, by which time we had added several new birds to our list.

Common Evening Brown Butterfly (dry season form) (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

We joined the others for dinner at 7, early because they were going out to look for nighthawks. We declined to join them and returned to our room for an early bed time, as we have to be ready to leave for the park before 5:30 tomorrow. I was very pleased during dinner when Gajendra pointed out the evening butterflies (I think they were the Common Evening Brown Butterfly) that had begun flitting around inside and outside. They are unusual in that they become active at dusk and in that they have two different forms. The dry season form mimics a dead leaf very effectively, both in appearance and behavior.

My birds for the day: