Lineated Barbet

The barbets are some of the most beautiful birds I've seen, but the lineated barbet I saw in Kaziranga NP in Assam, India is the ugliest of the group I've seen so far. 

Wikipedia only has a small paragraph on it, so I picked up my information from Birds of the World. Its ugliness starts with rounded bare yellow skin around the eyes which make it look like an insomniac. It has whiskers that protrude outward over its yellowish pink bill giving it an unkempt drunkard look. Its upperparts, wings and tail are green, its head and breast have white and brown streaking and it has yellow legs and feet. It could have been created by Dr. Seuss. I think this barbet was adopted into the family, how could it have the same blood lines?

It is found in the Himalayan foothills, eastern and northeastern India,  Bangladesh and mainland Southeast Asia. 

Range from Birds of the World

I saw several of them with my guide, Boblu, near Diphlu Lodge. 

American Kestrel

American kestrels are notoriously difficult to photograph. First, they are often standing on power lines that don't provide nice photos. Second, they are very difficult to get near without them flying away. In February 2021 I did a post of a male and female with blurry photos, the best I had at that time. 

I recently got a very good photo and decided to look back and see if I've gotten any other decent photos since February 2021. 

January 16, 2023 on Walker Road near the southern end of the Salton Sea. 

November 6, 2021, a male on Young Road near the western side of the Salton Sea. 

My best photos of an American Kestrel so far. These were taken of a female on January 26, 2025 on an east-west road right before entering Niland near the Salton Sea. 

Blue-Throated Barbet

The blue-throated barbet has two subspecies: (a) one is red-crowned, the ones we saw, which are from the northeast Pakistan to the west to Northern Myanmar and southwestern Yunnan; and (b) the other is blue-crowned, found from southeastern Myanmar to southeastern Yunnan and northern Indochina. We saw a number of them in and near Kaziranga NP in Assam, (northeastern) India. 

Wikipedia notes that they frequent fruiting trees and the ones I saw were neck deep after berries with berry residue on their faces. "Sexes are similar though the female...is slightly heavier than the male... It is a stocky, green bird with a short tail. The undersides are a lighter yellow-green. The underside of the tail may have a bluish cast. 

Note underside with lighter yellow-green and blue underneath the tail. 

The head and neck are distinctive, with a bright red forehead, black stripe across the crown and red rear crown. 

Red forehead, black strip and red rear crown.

The sides of the face, chin and upper neck are pale blue. Red patches are seen on the sides of the neck at the base of the blue. The iris is reddish-brown and the eye-ring is brown, greenish-brown, orange-brown or yellow. 

Pale blue chin, neck and side of head with red patch on side of neck next to the blue and reddish-brown iris and orange-brown eye-ring. 

The feet are slate-gray to gray-green. The stout, conical bill is pale at the base with a dark upper mandible and tip. 

Gray-green feet and pale bill at base with dark tip and upper mandible. 

Juveniles are similar to the adults, with muted and dull colors. The red may be tinged with orange, the black may be blue-black or dusky."

 

Long-Beaked Hoopoe

One of my very favorite birds is the hoopoe (Upupa epops). I first saw the Eurasian hoopoe in Portugal near the Sado Estuary. There are six to nine subspecies, depending upon the source you look at. It was the nominate subspecies (U.e. epops) found in northwest Africa, Europe east to south central Russia, northwest China and northwest India. I recently saw a different subspecies in Kaziranga NP in Assam, India (U.e. longirostrus). Longirostrus means long-beaked in English. It is found in northeast India to south China, Indochina and north Malay Peninsula. It is larger (apparently including the beak) and more pale than the nominate subspecies. 

It was in the Central Range of Kaziranga on a dead tree stump which perfectly illustrated its camouflaged body. Look at this photo below. 

Hoopoe melding perfectly into the tree stump. 

I took lots of photos and the hoopoe did not move much. It is a fairly small bird and was quite far away. One of my favorite photos of the trip was the following, the hoopoe balanced between two jutting up stems of the stump. 

I believe it was a little soggy and the feathers gave the ragged look of a wet bird. 

Bar-Headed Goose

The bar-headed goose breeds in the Tibetan Plateau of Central Asia, including Tibet, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Nepal and Russia and crosses the Himalayas to winter in south Asia, from Pakistan in the west to Myanmar in the east, and from Assam in India, where I saw it at Kaziranga NP, in the north, to peninsular India in the south. 

Bar-headed goose range, from Wikipedia. Green is the summer range, blue is the winter range and yellow is where it has been introduced. 

It is one of the highest flying birds. It has been heard flying over Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world, at 27,825 feet, has been observed flying at 23,000 feet, and has been tracked by GPS or satellite at over 21,460 feet. It flies these high altitudes at night in colder, denser air which makes it the equivalent of an elevation hundreds of yards lower. 

It is distinguished from other gray geese by two black bars on its hindcrown. It is pale gray, has a white face, a dark hindneck and lower flanks, has a vertical white stripe on two sides of the neck,  yellowish legs and a black-tipped yellow bill. 

It may be my favorite goose.  

Indian Spot-Billed Duck

The Indian spot-billed duck is a dabbling duck, meaning that it mainly feeds at the surface of the water rather than diving below the surface. It gets its name from a red spot at the base of the bill (where the bill meets the head) and not from the yellow spot at the other end of the bill which is more noticeable. The red spot is not found on females or on a subspecies known as the Burmese spot-billed duck. Other noticeable features are a green speculum, which can be seen in flight, bordered by white which can be seen when it is floating on the water. The bill is black, except for the spots, the legs and feet are bright orange to coral red. It has a black stripe through the eye. The chest and belly are whitish with brownish scaly patches. The cap and wings are dark.

It is found in Pakistan and India in medium-sized freshwater wetlands with vegetation cover. They isolate themselves from other species and are found in pairs or small groups. I saw them in December 2024 in Kaziranga NP in Assam, India. Wikipedia has a photo of an Indian spot-billed duck in Kaziranga NP.

Ruddy Shelduck

This morning I read several articles about President Trump's son, Don, Jr., shooting some rare ducks in Italy. For example, Newsweek noted, "Footage published by Field Ethos—a brand co-founded by Trump Jr.—shows him shooting ducks in the Venice Lagoon. In the video, Trump Jr. points out an orange duck, remarking, 'This is actually a rather uncommon duck for the area, not even sure what it is in English, but incredible shoot.' Andrea Zanoni, a regional councilor in Veneto, said the footage shows Trump Jr. with the body of a rare ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea), a species protected by Italian law. 'This is a species protected throughout Europe by the EU Birds Directive and, of course, by Italian law, which criminally punishes its killing and possession,' he said." Donald Trump, Jr. Responds to Accusations of Killing Protected Duck, February 4, 2025. 

I saw a photo of the orange ducks and instantly recognized the ruddy shelducks I'd seen in Kaziranga NP in Assam, India in December. They were beautiful and I never tired of seeing them, although they were quite common. In fact, we saw them in each of the four ranges in Kaziranga. I'd never heard of them prior to our trip. Wikipedia notes, "The male has orange-brown body plumage and a paler, orange-brown head and neck, separated from the body by a narrow black collar. The rump, flight feathers, tail-coverts and tail feathers are black and there are iridescent green speculum feathers on the inner surfaces of the wings. Both upper and lower wing-coverts are white, this feature being particularly noticeable in flight but hardly visible when the bird is at rest. The bill is black and the legs are dark grey. The female is similar but has a rather pale, whitish head and neck and lacks the black collar, and in both sexes, the colouring is variable and fades as the feathers age. The birds moult at the end of the breeding season and the male loses the black collar, but a further partial moult between December and April restores it. Juveniles are similar to the female but are a darker shade of brown." Wikipedia also notes that it is migratory, wintering in the "Indian subcontinent" (which includes India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka) and breeds in eastern Europe and central Asia. The IUCN rates it of "Least Concern," but populations in Europe are generally in decline, but rising in central and eastern Asia. 

This appears to be a female, left, and male, right. 

Pallas's Fish-Eagle

When our guide in Kaziranga NP called our attention to a Pallas's fish-eagle, I'd surprisingly heard of it before. When we visited Botswana years before I recalled reading about sightings of this eagle which were very unusual for that area. That peaked my interest at this time. 

It is a bird of prey of Asia, including Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. It is rare and isolated throughout its range and is rated Endangered by the IUCN. 

This nesting Pallas's fish-eagle was found in the Central Range of Kaziranga. My other photos of it are very blurry. 

Wikipedia describes it as having a, "light sandy-brown hood and a whitish face. The wings are darker brown and the back rufous. The long, slender wings (particularly slender for a sea eagle) are rather dark brown underneath. The tail is black with a wide, distinctive white stripe. Juveniles are overall darker, cooler brown with no band on the tail but with several pale areas on the wing, including the underwing coverts and inner primaries. This results in underwings that have a white band in young fish eagles. It takes until the 4th year or so to obtain adult plumage."

We saw this Pallas's fish-eagle in the Western Range of Kaziranga NP. 

It primarily eats freshwater fish. 

Crested Serpent-Eagle

In 2019 we visited Sri Lanka and saw a number of crested serpent-eagles. In December 2024 we saw a different subspecies in Assam, India. In the Eastern Range of Kaziranga NP was saw at least three. 

This was kind of a different look, the whole back of the head fluffed up. 

This and the next one look much more like what we saw in Sri Lanka. 

In the Central Range of Kaziranga we saw several in trees right next to the road. One photo, in particular, showed some hints of the back crest on the whole back of the head. 

It appears that the older birds have a black top and black on the front of the beak.