The lake at sunset
Juvenile Painted Storks on their nest
A Grey Heron taking off
Few Spot-billed Pelicans
A lone Indian Cormorant
A Eurasian coot
A pair of Little Grebes
Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring the lakes around my home in North Bengaluru. They have blown me away with the diversity of birdlife they host. In a rapidly expanding city, these water bodies serve as vital sanctuaries. While well-known hotspots like the Jakkur lake are predictably teeming with avian activity, even smaller, unassuming spots like the Chokkanahalli lake manage to attract a vibrant range of birds to their shores.
A lake’s bird diversity comes down to its design. When a lake has gradual slopes and varied depths, it attracts both swimmers (ducks, grebes, coots) and waders (egrets, stilts, waterhens). Unfortunately, most small lakes are “restored” as steep, uniform “soup bowls”. Without shallow edges, only a few swimmers can be seen in these.
This post is a breakdown of the lakes I visited and the birds I found there. As an amateur birder, I could only manage to take mediocre photos of a small subset of the birds I spotted. You may want to open the photos in a new tab for a better view and the ability to zoom in.
This is by far the richest among the lakes I visited. Between the islands in the lake and the surrounding tree cover, I have observed 39 species of birds here.
The lake at sunset Juvenile Painted Storks on their nest A Grey Heron taking off Few Spot-billed Pelicans A lone Indian Cormorant A Eurasian coot A pair of Little Grebes
Like Jakkur, this lake too hosts a wide variety of birds. While the Jakkur lake is dominated by Painted Storks and Spot-billed Pelicans, this lake has Asian Openbills and Eurasian Spoonbills to offer. During one of my visits, I got to see a much larger flock of Indian Spot-billed Ducks than other lakes.
A group of Asian Openbills foraging at the edge of the lake A flock of Eurasian Spoonbills busy preening themselves A pair of Oriental Darters perched atop the foliage of the island A Great Cormorant A flock of Indian Spot-billed Ducks A whole lot of them!
This is a “soup bowl” lake and consequently has the usual swimmers like coots, ducks, and darters in it. However, the lake is surrounded on one side by undeveloped land. This attracts a lot of birds at dusk. Despite it being one of the tiniest lakes in my neighbourhood, I spotted 17 species of birds here! Indian Grey Hornbill is a relatively uncommon bird that visits the trees around this lake regularly.
A view of the lake on an evening Indian Cormorants in a horaltic pose An Oriental Darter in a horaltic pose Rufous Treepies are fairly common at this lake A White-throated Kingfisher chilling on a wire near the lake Coppersmith Barbets are regular visitors of the trees around this lake I could only capture the silhouette of an Indian Grey Hornbill on my phone
While this lake looks like a soup bowl at first glance, it has several shallow spots within the bowl. This allows for a more diverse birdlife in this lake than other small lakes around it.
I saw a pair of Red-wattled Lapwings with their chicks here. The parents were running around screaming at every moving object anywhere near to the chicks.
This lake has a distinct landscape from the rest. The wooded area near the lake gets flooded by North-East monsoon rains. The water then recedes as the rains stop.
I came across a few Baya Weavers and their nests, near this lake. The area surrounding this lake also has a lot of Asian Green Bee-Eaters.
The same spot on the lake, 2 weeks apart (taken in 2021). Baya Weavers and their nests Silhouette of an Asian Green Bee-Eater
Lakes like Agrahara and Kattigenahalli are soup bowls and don’t offer anything unique. They just have the swimmers found in other lakes too.
All opinions are my own. Copyright 2005 Chandra Sekar S.