Birds of the San Francisco Bay Area

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A walk around the lake

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Henry David Thoreau, in his 1854 book, Walden , narrates his experience of living in solitude for two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst the woodland. While we didn't have the luxury of spending as much time around our neighborhood Kaikondrahalli Lake , this Saturday morning walk around the lake was a delight with the variety of birds, bird calls and nature on exhibition. We reached the lake at around 9 AM by when most of the joggers and serious bird watchers with the telescopic zoom lenses have left. We start the walk with the call and sighting of a White Cheeked Barbet.The barbet is rarely seen outside the thick green foliage of mature trees and it is a rare sighting for us to see it perched on an electric wire. A White Throated Kingfisher flies to its perch - a wall on the edge of the lake and a little egret takes flight, splashing along its liquid runway. We walk towards th...
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European Travelog: D1E1 - Winging it

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“Paris is always a good idea.”  - Audrey Hepburn On Summer Solstice day in June 2024, when the world was looking east for the International Day of Yoga, we headed west to Europe.  We had an ambitious plan of conquering Paris in three days,  swinging by the sunny coastal town of Montpellier in South of France,  hopping over to Marseille and then a flight to Rome  where we would see the legacy of the Romans and the Renaissance before heading to Florence to see some of Michelangelo's classics  such as David. We would then come back towards Asia by taking the  morning train from Florence to Rome,  the afternoon flight from Rome to Paris  and the night flight from Paris to New Delhi. The morning flight from Bangalore to Mumbai at 8:30 AM was packed with mostly people heading to Maximum City for a day of business and perhaps try to come back by a late evening flight. We reached Mumbai, crossed Immigration and reached the Vistara gate for our Paris...
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Sikkim - A State of Mind: Day 2

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Day Two We're awake at 5:30 AM and it's bright daylight. Our first sight of Sikkim in the daylight shows a land bursting with greenery and flowers.     The valley is shrouded in fog. Occasionally the fog lifts to show glimpses of the mountainside. Everything we see is in  panoramic mode - sweeping hills, rolling clouds and the fog appearing suddenly shrouding the entire landscape in grey. Before we have breakfast, we go for a quick round of birding - there are Mountain Bulbuls, Oriental White Eyes and lots of Mynas. We have a breakfast of Alu Parathas with yogurt and pickle, some toast and marmalade and the teas for which North East India is famous. Our plan for the day is to leave after breakfast for the town of Lachung, in Northern Sikkim. Lachung is the gateway to the Yumthang Valley and Zero Point in Yumesamdong beyond. While it is just 129 km (80 miles) away, the uphill ascent and the bad roads mean that it would take us close to six hours to get ther...
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