Lunchtime in G5 Islamabad


On Tuesday 29 May 2012 I decided to eat my lunch whilst sitting in a quiet garden in the G5 area of Islamabad. I had to smile at the comments in many bird books about avoiding the heat of the day as you will see no birds; oh really? It was 1.30pm and probably more than 40 degs C but the garden was full of birds. I gave up trying to count the number of PURPLE SUNBIRD, when I got to 60, feeding on the nectar of a tree sporting beautiful orange flowers. Amongst them were about 10 ORIENTAL WHITE-EYE.

Oriental White-eye Lynne Newton
As I mentioned in my last blog water will attract birds and a number of species came down to drink. The first of these was a pair of BRAHIMNY STARLING closely followed by a BROWN ROCK CHAT. The noise from the PURPLE SUNBIRD flock was incessant but was itself drowned out by a calling COMMON TAILORBIRD. HIMALAYAN BULBUL and RED-VENTED BULBUL were lured in by the chance to quench their thirst and two, infrequently seen, BLYTH’S REED WARBLER also visited the large tubs of water containing lily pads.

Brahimny Starling Lynne Newton
LAUGHING DOVES wandered about the lawn and in the trees overhead EURASIAN COLLARED DOVE called out their monotonous chant of “united, united, united.”  A male PIED BUSHCHAT came to drink as did a pair of ORIENTAL MAGPIE ROBIN.

However, the star of the show was a bird that I noticed under a hedge that gradually got closer and as it emerged from the shadows into the sunlight on the lawn no more than four feet away I watched the intricate plumage of a EURASIAN WRYNECK. After several minutes, presumably anting, it flicked up into a tree and emulated its bigger woodpecker cousins. The EURASIAN WRYNECK is reportedly a winter visitor to northern Punjab and the Federal Capital Area. It is a double passage migrant through Baluchistan and is a very rare breeder in parts of the Northern Areas. So what was this bird doing in Islamabad on 29 May? The only other EURASIAN WRYNECK I have seen in Pakistan was a single bird at Taxila on Christmas Eve 2011.

In the time it took me to eat my sandwich I had recorded 17 species that included HOUSE CROW, BLACK KITE, HOUSE SPARROW and COMMON MYNA.

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