Indian eagle owls continue to fascinate me to observe and photograph them each time in new habitats..... This time a search for it with a mere guess "it would be" since it was a perfect habitat and had evidence of its presence some few years before with owl pellets.... So started expedition with one of my good friends Vijay
We have started early morning from biduruguppe with my beast Mahindra thar 4X4 on a fine Sunday, 01.11.15, reached the fringe of the forest which makes a great home for several species of avian beauties and bosses... We were excited and challenged as it is not easy to find owls in its natural habitat inside canopy! The options were to trek trek and trek.... Started off with our bazooka at least having 6kg weight at 6:30AM. The hide and seek game was on between sun and clouds... Almost clouds won the fight making light at most challenging. A very low contrast seen making difficult to make a well coloured rose ringed parakeet to find and blacked it out against overcast sky.... Still the owl factor kept motivating us to further trek and see all possible steps to locate any pellets thrown out during last night's dinner by horned warrior eagle owls.... Our ears are then behaving extremely sensitive even for slightest call of birds absolutely In a serene beauty of forest....
We had made half way and we thought of backing off and try any other day as we had gone inside jungle to exceed safe limits, the area is gentle giants territory! But how can we give up without one more attempt... Yes took another path to further trek and see some luck saying Where are you friend please show up, this is unfair on owls part wink emoticon ... Our legs became heavy as we started to climb up with 6kg glass, metals, plastic and water...
Almost at the end of 3hrs desperation did listen to a deep booming call bu booo... Yes Vijay he is here only as I was very confident on his call watch out for each and every steps and twigs... Swaroop stop stop do not step a single move did you find? Whispered Vijay and the owl was just 30ft in front of us looking with its deadly oil red eyes... That's it efforts and the agenda of the day, just thumbs up.... Spent another two fruitful hours observing the repeated mobbing attempt failure by so called 'police bird' black drongo supported by folks of yellow billed bablers....
Through the lens we could see the parasites flying allover owls feathers, preening, dozing, alert, ignorance, laziness and all sorts of behaviour of notorious and wise eagle owl..... We both returned home with full satisfaction....
