Birding Islamabad

What a Weekend! With overnight frosts and beautifully, clear and sunny days, the conditions in Islamabad on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th January 2013 were perfect. The quality of light was phenomenal and this plays an important part of both watching and photographing birds. If this Blog has not already tempted you to watch birds in Pakistan, then the quality of photographs that my esteemed birding colleagues have produced during the past weekend will surely lure more people into the field. My apologies for the tardiness in updating this week’s Blog but the lightening quick (not) broadband took forever to download the photos. In the early morning light we made our way along the “Margalla Road” that was bordered by gassy verges white with frost. Just before the Shalimar Cricket Club huge numbers of Flying Foxes (or Fruit Bats) made up the daytime roost that is always present at this time of year. As the sun had just started to rise above the horizon we arrived at the eastern shoreline

On Saturday 12 January 2013 dawn arrived with an accompaniment of heavy rain that persisted well into the afternoon. This curtailed our birding activity until the late afternoon when there was only time for a short visit to the Margalla Hills Trail 5. We remained in the vicinity of the spring opposite the interpretive centre to see what may be attracted to the area. A fine male GREY BUSHCHAT was the first bird as it showed off on top of small nearby bushes. There were a few Warblers including three GREENISH WARBLER, three COMMON CHIFFCHAFF and a several vociferous GREY-HOODED WARBLER. A couple of ORIENTAL WHITE-EYE added some more colour. At this time of year we are always on the lookout for Buntings and we were not disappointed with a pair of ROCK BUNTING and a lone WHITE-CAPPED BUNTING (also known as CHESTNUT-BREASTED BUNTING). Both are, predominantly, winter visitors to the Islamabad area. Himalayan Bulbul Sarel van Zyl Other visitors to the streamside were some

With the dense fog that has been plaguing Islamabad recently we were lucky to be able to go birding on Saturday 5 January 2013 that turned out to be a beautifully sunny day. Following the holiday this was my first real birding outing of 2013 and a chance to begin the New Year List that currently stands at 75 species. We stayed local and visited a marshy and agricultural area to the south of Rawal Lake. We hadn’t even got out of the vehicle before the photographers were doing their stuff as can be seen from the super photograph of a Red-wattled Lapwing taken in the early morning light. Red-wattled Lapwing Sarel van Zyl We also had great views of a pair of GREY FRANCOLIN and several WHITE-BREASTED WATERHEN. We mistakenly flushed a COMMON SNIPE from a small reedbed. There were large parties of GREY-BREASTED PRINIA and one or two GREENISH WARBLER and ORIENTAL WHITE-EYE amongst them. No matter how many over-wintering SIBERIAN STONECHAT we see, the guys cannot resist this ob