Three birds, one morning, three completely different problems. This is not a guide to a place so much as a guide to what a Konkan morning actually hands you — usually a bird in the wrong light, in the wrong position, moving.
First: the hornbill you only see as a shape
The Malabar Grey Hornbill is a Western Ghats endemic, and it announces itself long before you see it. The call is a rising, cackling, slightly hysterical series that carries across a valley, and the flight is unmistakable — several flaps, then a glide, so the whole bird porpoises through the air.
And nine times in ten this is what you get: a shape against white sky, high in a fruiting tree. It is worth taking the picture anyway. A silhouette with that bill and that tail is identifiable, and it is honest about what birding in a wet Ghats forest is like.
If you want it properly lit, the answer is to find the tree rather than the bird. Hornbills return to fruiting figs repeatedly through the day. Sit where the fruit is, with the sun behind you, and wait.
- Malabar Grey Hornbill: grey-brown, long curved yellowish bill with no casque, endemic to the Western Ghats.
- Malabar Pied Hornbill: black and white, huge casque, lowland and much more localised.
- Indian Grey Hornbill: the dry-country one, greyer, with a small casque — the common hornbill of Pune and Mumbai.
Second: the pitta that will not stay in the open
The Indian Pitta is the bird everyone wants and few photograph well. It is absurdly coloured — green back, buff underparts, a scarlet vent, a blue wing patch, a striped head — and it spends its life hopping on a dark forest floor covered in leaf litter.
In the Konkan it is a monsoon breeder. Birds arrive with the rains and give away their presence with a clear two-note whistle at dawn and dusk — wheet-tieu — which is where the Marathi name and the many local names come from. Outside the breeding season they are silent and effectively invisible.
The practical method is to sit down. Find a shaded patch of litter near water, sit, and stop moving. A pitta works a patch of ground methodically and will come to you far more reliably than you will creep up on it. Then accept 1/125th at ISO 6400, because that is what the forest floor gives you.
Third: the sunbird that never stops
The Crimson-backed Sunbird is a Western Ghats endemic and one of the smallest birds in India. The male is a genuinely startling combination of crimson, maroon and metallic purple, and it holds still for roughly no time at all.
The trick with sunbirds is the same as with hornbills: forget the bird, find the flower. Sunbirds work a circuit, and a flowering hibiscus, coral tree or loranthus clump will be visited every few minutes. Set up on the flower, prefocus, and wait for the bird to come to the frame you have already composed.
- Crimson-backed Sunbird: tiny, crimson and maroon with a purple crown and throat. Western Ghats only.
- Purple-rumped Sunbird: the common one, yellow belly, white throat patch on the female.
- Purple Sunbird: male all-glossy-purple-black in breeding condition, dull olive out of it.
- Loten’s Sunbird: longer, more strongly curved bill; peninsular.
What the three have in common
Every one of them was easier once I stopped following the bird and started watching the resource — the fig, the litter patch, the flower. That is the single most useful habit for Konkan birding, and it is the opposite of what a safari teaches you.
The other thing they share: all three are best in the monsoon and the weeks either side of it, which is exactly when most visitors stay away.
A note on bird names
We identify these birds ourselves, from photographs taken in the field, and we do not always get it right. A great many Indian species are close cousins separated only by a head pattern, a leg colour or a wingbar, and several have been split or renamed in recent years — so two good field guides can genuinely disagree about the same bird.
Where we are not certain, we say so rather than guess. If you think we have named a bird wrongly here, please tell us — we are still learning this ourselves, and we would far rather correct a name than leave a wrong one standing.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the Malabar Grey Hornbill found?
The Western Ghats only, from Maharashtra south to Kerala. It is endemic to that range.
When can you see Indian Pittas in the Konkan?
They are monsoon breeders, calling at dawn and dusk from roughly June to September. They are silent and very hard to find outside that period.
What is the smallest sunbird in India?
The Crimson-backed Sunbird is among the smallest — a Western Ghats endemic, smaller than a Purple Sunbird.
How do you photograph birds in a wet forest?
Wait at a food source rather than chasing the bird, sit still and low, and accept high ISO. The light on a monsoon forest floor is far worse than it looks.
What is the best time of year for Western Ghats endemics?
The monsoon and the months on either side, when breeding birds are calling and easier to locate.
Related: Sindhudurg Monsoon Birding Guide and Wire-tailed Swallows on the Verandah.