Drongo

The Drongo is sitting over the open field that is being prepared for cultivation. It is waiting for the worms to come out beneath the earth as that is being filled with water. You can see plenty of them in the villages, around the open fields and in the cities they are often found to be sitting on the overhead electric wires.


Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Location: Ruppur, a village around 70 km fromKolkata.

The Rooster

The rooster, we know him all! The Royal guard is at the side wall of a cowshed :) The wall is made of jute sticks (this is very common in the villages in Bengal). 

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata

Location: Ruppur (a village around 70 km from Kolkata)

Red Dragonfly

The red Dragonfly: we found this inside the central park of  Salt Lake city in Kolkata. One day Doro and I spent some time there and took some photos of dragonflies and squirrels. The colourful dragonflies are very common in any park or in rural areas in India. We now got to know from Wikipedia that even though they have six legs like any other insects, they can not walk! Dragonflies have multifaceted eyes and two strong and transparent wings. 
For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Assistant: Anuran (Doro)
Location: Salt Lake, Kolkata.

Butterfly

A beautiful butterfly sitting on Ixora (Rangan) flower. This photo was taken during the last rainy season. 
We don't know what kind of butterfly is this. Can anybody help?

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Location: Panskura, WB, India.

Blue throated Barbet -I ('Basanta Bauri' in Bengali)

Blue throated Barbet - locally, we call this colourful bird as  'Basanta Bauri'. This bird loves to eat fruits and insects. It was sucking delicious juice coming out of the date tree through the tube fitted on this on which it is sitting. 
(Earlier entry of this bird here was more colourful. This was taken in the late afternoon in low light.)


Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Location: Ruppur (a village around 70 km from Kolkata)

Bulbul

Red-vented Bulbul. This song bird is widely seen at our place and almost everywhere in India. Now this  is sitting on a Kadam flower tree next to our apartment.


Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-vented_Bulbul

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Location: Kolkata

Doyel (Oriental Magpie Robin)

The Doyel (this is a male) is sitting over a tube well near a cultivated land of vegetables in our village where we had a recent trip. I think the bird is aiming to eat worms and insects from the field. This long tail bird sings loudly!
Doyel is very familiar bird. We see them in cities and as well as in villages. 
Do you know this is the national bird of Bangladesh?

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Location: Ruppur (a village around 70 km from Kolkata)

Asian Pied Mynah (Pied Starling)

Asian Pied Mynah or Pied Starling: Scientific name, Gracupica contra. This is a very common bird in our locality. We can see them often on our terrace,  on our gardens, on the roadside, near garbage dumps and so on. You can see them in cities and as well as in the open fields in the rural areas. They are usually found in a small group.
They eat everything (omnivorous); insects, fruits, food grains, nectars, died animals, all sorts of scraps etc. In Bengal we call them 'Gobrey Shalik' or 'Guye Shalik' because of their food habits.
This photo is captured by Doro's friend Ujal (Subhomon).


Photo: Subhomon Supantha (Ujal), Kolkata
Location: Baguihati, Kolkata

Woodpecker -I

Woodpecker ('Kaththokra' in Bengali). Is that a black rumped flame back woodpecker? This woodpecker is almost camouflaged with the date tree. It came here to suck the delicious juice ('khejurer ros') coming out of the tree. The date trees are specially cut in order to extract juice in winter. The juice is then boiled to make tasty molasses. I think all the birds I found over there liked this juice so much!

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata

Location: Ruppur (a village around 70 km from Kolkata)

Black-hooded Oriole-I

This black-hooded Oriole was found sitting on a eucalyptus tree near the terrace of the apartment of our friend in Baguihati (Kolkata). This bird is also known as 'Holud Basanta' in Bengali.



Photo: Subhomon Supantha & Arunbha Adhikari, Kolkata
Location: Baguihati, Kolkata

Black-hooded Oriole

The black-hooded Oriole is sitting over a date tree. It wants to suck the delicious juice coming out of the tree through the pipe. The date trees are cut in a special way to extract juice ('Khejurer ros' in Bengali) in winter to produce lovely tasty molasses. What I found is that all the birds around there loved this juice. They came one by one and sat over there to quench their thirst.
The yellow bird is also known as 'Halde pakhi' or 'Benebou' in Bengal. Locally, people also call it 'Eistikutum' as it makes calls that sound like eis-ti-kutum!


Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Location: Ruppur (a village around 70 km from Kolkata), India.

Honey Bees

The honey bees on a jack fruit tree. WOW! There are a plenty of them.








Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata
Location: Panskura, East Midnapore, West Bengal, India.

Owl

Tell us about this Owl if you know. I found this bird sitting high up over a coconut tree inside a mango orchard near Barasat (North 24 parganas dist., West Bengal, India). It was huge as you can see. I zoomed from quite a distance. It flew immediately getting a hint of sound from my foot steps on dried leaves perhaps.

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata

Green bee eater - II

This Green Bee eater (know as 'Banspati' in Bengal) is found to be sitting on an electrical wire passing over the open field in a village in Nadia, West Bengal (India). Later we found it catching honey bees which were flying around.

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata

Shrike (koshai)

This is a long tailed Shrike bird. Among the shrikes, it is one of the most common in rural Bengal. This bird loves to eat insects and worms in the open field in the villages. It is also called 'butcher' bird because of its food habit. Locally it is called 'Koshai'.

Now this bird is sitting over a fine net which is used to cover the green peas plantation. I found this in my village 'Ruppur' (Dist. Nadia, West Bengal, India).

Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta, Kolkata