Sighting of an Indian Eagle owl in my Village

Some experiences are as magical as one in which we sight an owl. Sighting an Indian Eagle owl warrants a separate blog article for itself.

              Since June 2014, I have been maintaining records of birds sighted in a patch of land owned by my family in Palladam Puliampatti Village. I started this as it was a course requirement for my ornithology course in Bombay Natural History society. In the course of one year, I recorded close to 49 species in this patch. This variety of life encourage me to take this up for a long term study. After my ornithology course concluded, I kept revisiting the site to record the changes in this location. Initially, I wanted to go for planting of trees in this patch to further supplement the wildlife found here. Now, two years and 79 species later, I doubt if such a step would be disastrous for the scrubland and grassland species of birds found here. We will leave this debate for the moment and get back on track for the sighting.
               I visited this track of land on 12th July 2016 at around 7:45 am. I wanted to take a different course from my normal track and see if would yield me more species sightings. As I walked on the edges of my land, I noticed some thing peculiar. In the adjoining ravine, I saw a Red-Wattled lapwing crouching suspiciously. The position resembled a false brooding position I had witnessed in Yellow-Wattled lapwings. Suspecting that its nest might be nearby, I decided to visit the ravine.

When I stepped into the ravine (This is not a natural ravine but one formed by illegally excavating the land of soil for road constructing in a nearby school), I searched in futile for the Red-wattled lapwing and its nest but in my search, I could see a short figure moving at some distance away. Through the viewfinder I could see that it was an Indian eagle owl! I was super excited. I had seen this bird flying through my farm a few months before and was searching for its roosting location.

I knew that the scrub land was a potential locality for the eagle owl. It never crossed my mind that I should probably check the ravines adjacent to my land. I took a few quick pictures and when I approached closely, the bird flew away from me. In flight, it was wondrous to see the bird with huge wingspan in proportion to its body. Indian eagle owls are usually seen in pairs. However, I could only seen one bird in this location.

I checked the shrub in which it was roosting and I could see that the shrub also contained a few empty creamy white eggshells and couple of regurgitated pellets. These eggshells seemed to be from a recent brood of the Indian Eagle owl!. Most birds dispose of the eggshells from their nests so that the eggshells don't give away their nesting locations. Perhaps the Indian eagle owl was confident that it could fend off any possible dangers to its brood. I also doubted if the eggshells were very recent. They usually nest between November and April and chicks are dependent on its parent for nearly six months. There were no sign of its chicks or its mate. Cursory glance of the pellet also revealed that it was a leftover from a meal of rats or bandicoots. I rechecked the site and adjoining ravines for the bird for the following two days but there were no sign of the bird. The roosting site itself in which I found the bird was by itself seemed to be sparingly used. As mentioned earlier, I could only see two pellets and very few droppings. It was perhaps one of the many roosting sites of the bird. I decided to try my luck after November, at which time, I hope the nesting site would be reused by the bird.