Istanbul Airport

Our transit airport was Istanbul and it was just luck that we landed there on 23rd April as it happened to be the National sovereignty and children's day for Turkey.

There was a small group moving around the airport singing and waving the national flag.

I liked the way they were singing with full gusto.

The song was catchy and it took me some time to identify the song. It was Ismir marsi or Marsi Ismir, a song from the Turkish National movement group to create the country of Turkey. It didn't take long for the spectators to join in. Some of them were in uniform and were capturing small snippets on their mobile while waving the flag.

The special stalls put up for children's day did attract some children but most of them wanted to pose with the guy on stilts.

The juice poured out from this fancy jug did taste good and his style of pouring was unique (see video) Also his attire reminded me of the Arabian night stories I read during my school days.

The next time I visit this airport, I must make it a point to visit this museum.

The mannequin in the stalls were the silent spectators to all that was going on around them.

While being there, I overheard some of them speaking Turkish and found that some of the words they spoke did sound like Hindi.  And then I saw this written on a waste bin. In Hindi the word for paper is kagaz.

Birds at Bhigwan

This is the second time that I have been to Bhigwan and being unlucky with flamingo sightings. But then the other birds made up for the loss. I am sure the one on the right is an Ibis.

This pond heron was on a tree. He did a wonderful display of sweeping down into the water to catch a fish and come back to the same spot to display his catch. Did he put on a show knowing that I was filming him or was this his daily routine of having breakfast?

The yellow wagtail was busy running after the small insects.

While witing for our boat, I was observing the birds on the far off trees.

It is interesting to see how they glide down and settle on a boulder so that thy have a better vantage point to spot the fish.

If you have the patience, you can catch these birds in action. I was trying to capture this lady to show that the daily chores around the area goes on, when I saw a bird behind her tossing a fish.

I like the black band over the eye of the green bee eater. (reminded me of Zorro)  Their breeding season is from March to June and they nest in hollows in vertical mud banks.

These little cormorants were fishing in groups. It is a wonderful sight to see them take off together and land at a different place for the next catch.

Apparently a flock of Cormorants is known as a "Gulp". . One thing I noticed about the birds is that they never squabble about the catch. There seems to be an unwritten rule among themselves "you caught it, you eat it". Spotting a Spoonbill in the crowd was easy with the spatulate shape of their beak. While reading about them the feature that struck me was that the primary cause of their brood failure was not predation but starvation.

Not sure about this bird, but I think this is the Eurasian Coot (Warkari)

The painted stork stands out pretty tall among the lot.

Here she stands with her knees bend and that gives you an idea of the length of her beak.

A closer look at the formation of her feathers and its colours.

All these birds were pretty close to our boat and they were quite comfortable about it.

Found many Waders and Stilts among the lot.

Grey Heron stands majestically.

The Pied Bushchat had a unique call of her own.  They say that a bird shot is perfect if you can see the white dot in the eye.

All these birds were found in the backwaters of Ujani Dam (Bhima Dam). A game sanctuary is not far from this place and we were lucky enough to spot two Chinkaras (Indian Gazelle) Made a 5 minute video on it.