Waiting for raptors: A morning of birdwatching on the golden grasslands

Suddenly, the eagle does a sideways dive off its branch, and vanishes in the undergrowth, where there is a little agitation and you do not spot it again.

The first thing you need to do in places like this is to check out the transmission wires and poles. Raptors love using these as lookout posts and sure enough, in the distance, there is a smaller, slimmer raptor, with a guardsman’s posture looking about, up and down and side to side: it is paler than the hefty eagle but impossible to tell which one — probably a hawk or a harrier or a buzzard or a falcon (alas not the Amur) — from the distance. You swivel the binoculars around and there, on yet another tree, are two eagles — one perched at the edge and the other trying to oust it from its position. The perched bird is destabilised, the two joust mid-air and then exasperatedly, fly behind you as you realise that it is not too easy to hoist yourself out of the chair in a hurry and follow them. Apart from the effort, you have to ensure the camera and bins are firmly around your neck and won’t fall on the rocks as you stand up in a hurry.

The only raptors that oblige you by wafting over are the Brahminy kites — the commonest raptors here — but always such a pleasure to behold with their rich autumn russet wings and detergent white head, throat and breast — the kind of spiffing white you see in lawyer’s collars. And then briefly, again two big eagles appear in the sky behind a soaring pair of kites but are quick to make their distance and disappear behind the trees.

The dogs brought here for their morning runs can be both a boon and a bane. Ardent birders insist they disturb the birds, preventing them from hunting and scaring them off. For ground-nesting birds, they can spell disaster. The two well-built dogs, one beige, the other liver-coloured and, which remind you of pit-bulls (but are probably some other mixed breed) are sauntering jauntily through the golden grass this morning and having the time of their lives, tails happily wagging and tongues lolling and for the most part ignoring their owners’ shouts and whistles.

Selfishly, you realise that had you been mobile, you would have resented their presence for the commotion and disturbance they cause. They even might have chased you, especially if you had been stalking a bird.

Raptors apart, there are bee-eaters, Indian robins, drongoes, doves and other zippy little birds perched on the transmission wires, including a blunt, bullet-headed silhouette that indicates a shrike, waiting with the air of an executioner. But immobile, as you are in your chair, you follow the dogs keenly through the binoculars, hoping they might flush a harrier sitting on a tussock or a covey of francolin or short-eared owl concealed in the golden grass. Alas! no such luck.

As the morning progresses, it gets warmer. This, you know, is when the thermals, (columns of warm air from the hot rocks), rise and are used by raptors for easy circling. But it is hot out in the open and difficult to have the chair dragged to under tree cover. Late afternoon and early evening would be other good times to visit this vast laterite plateau (yes, it’s Sucorro again), though staying awake at this time could prove more challenging than an early 6 am start.

In such habitats, I have sometimes found that it pays to park yourself just beside or under the shadow of a thorny bush or tree and sit quietly. Ahead lies the vast expanse of the golden grassland and sky, which you can scan from the shade. And, occasionally, you may be in for a pleasant surprise: a shrike or buzzard or even an eagle may choose the same bush as a lookout spot and fly down to pick up an incautious mantis or lizard, perhaps from the grass, and proceed bashing and consuming its meal, not more than a couple of feet away from you; every feather and windblown tuft clearly detailed without recourse to binoculars. Most likely, the bird is aware of your presence — oh yes, birdwatchers are ‘birdwatched’ by birds, more often than not. And there can be nothing more flattering than perhaps to be ‘birdwatched’ by a mighty bird of prey.