Birding Islamabad

I am sorry for being away so often for so many reasons.   I have been meeting people and organisations that work for the protection of wildlife in Pakistan and finally I managed to get all of them together for a full day conference on Sunday 26 April 2015. Nevertheless, I made a quick visit to the Marala Wetlands on 23 March 2015. I had heard that lot of hunting had been going on there. It was to my utter surprise and horror that I could not find a single Bar-headed Goose there.   Last year Me and Islbirder has seen them in hundreds. Being very upset about the situation I started my day with a broken heart. My friends and photographers from Sialkot were with me and we made our way, before dawn, into the middle of the Marsh. We had looked for Painted Storks as these elegant birds can be seen in the early morning, before they move to the river in the middle of the day. I waited for almost two hours to see when the Painted Storks would land but no l...

Please accept my apologies for updating the Blog so late. I may give many reasons and that won’t excuse ISLBIRDER and myself but I was waiting for new birds to show up and I could only find just one new bird during the whole month of February. Anyway I had been regularly visiting the Margalla Hills and Lake View Park in search for new subjects to photograph. I am so happy that more birds are visible in the areas surrounding Islamabad; that’s what I have noted and my fellow photographers agreed with me. ZR , my fellow photographer, is also busy with me and he is doing a wonderful job with his new toys (Camera and lens). What makes me more happy is that now , when you guys visit Lake View Park, you will see lot of Wildfowl on the lake and I share a few pictures below. Credit goes to the Himalayan Wildlife Foundation, I must say for their hard work in banning hunting at Rawal Lake.   Eurasian Teal at Rawal Lake Eurasian Teal in flight (if you l...

I have very strange feeling these days, as a few people making me embarrassed by asking the question, am I a birder or a bird photographer. My simple answer is whatever I am doesn’t matter and with smile I tell them I am a nature lover, a birder, a wildlife protector and a photographer. Anyway, the news of Golden Bush Robin was very warm and I decided to follow the bird, as it occasionally visits the Margalla hills during winter. So I didn’t want to miss the chance and took two days out in the field to find this beauty. Islamabad is wonderful place to be in winter and   many of my   new friends want to go out with me in the field. Over the weekend two of them joined ZR and me for birding on Trail 5 . We had a good chat about birds and nature and later on we let them have their climb up Maragalla Hills. Overall the weekend ending on 18 January 2015 was very fruitful. We search Trail 5 for two consecutive days and travelled almost 40 km each day deep...

BROWN CRAKE is a rare breeding species In Pakistan and for many years could only be found adjacent to damp areas around Rawalpindi. During the 1980s they were occassionally recorded around or near Rawal Lake, Islamabad.  Brown Crake is a species that is badly affected by destruction of its habitat. RMK's photographs taken on Sunday 11 January 2015 highlights the problem that this species faces as it maintains a tenuous foothold in Pakistan. A rare bird in rubbish; what a sad indictment. However, with RMK's efforts along with the Himalayan Wildlife Foundation to establish a nature reserve adjacent to Rawal Lake perhaps the Brown Crake will remain on the Pakistan List as a breeding bird. Brown Crake amongst litter dumped around Rawal Lake RMK

Hello everyone, this is RMK, I hope you had a lovely New Year with your friends and families. I enjoyed it to the best and was really happy to go birding after my vacation. I had a feeling that birds from mountains must have come down now as the temperature in Islamabad had dropped to zero so it must be very cold in mountains. On 3 January 2015, I decided to visit the famous Trail 5 into the Margalla Hills. It was freezing in the morning, my colleague ZR was waiting for me in the parking area. It was 0700 hours in the morning and I didn’t believe my eyes when I saw an ASIAN KOEL fly from a tree. I am sorry that I couldn’t take an image but it was very unusual, at this time, for Asian koel to be there. Anyway, our climb along the trail didn’t take too long and we were at our favoured spot with the water-filled the little ponds. It's so difficult to photograph birds in there at Trail 5 as light is terribly low and which makes the images grainy even using...