The Garden offers some excellent bird-watching. Two hours in the early morning before breakfast should reveal the best part of 50 species.
The region is home to the Indian pitta, paradise flycatcher, orange headed thrush, and Tickell’s blue flycatcher. It is regularly visited by roving parties consisting of woodpeckers, minivets, nuthatches, leaf birds, the black headed oriole, the coppersmith and the Southern endemic white cheeked barbet, together with a good variety of other species. Patience and a measure of luck may also reveal other flycatchers such as the Nilgiri and white bellied woodpecker. The orange headed thrush favors the small fresh water conduit near the office building and can be joined there by the blue capped rock thrush and the Eurasian blackbird. The latter surprises Europeans who are more familiar with it in temperate London.
Some of the birds found in Masinagudi
- Kingfisher
- Purple Rumped Sunbirds
- Koels
Occasionally visited by kingfishers, Masinagudi holds a large population of purple rumped sunbirds with the giant cherry tree in this garden hosting resident koels, with the Indian blue robin, emerald dove and blue bearded bee eater being occasional visitors.
Easy to find South India’s, the green billed malkoha and the white headed babblers. Other babblers are possibilities here, namely the Indian scimitar, the yellow eyed and the tawny bellied.
To the South of the coffee plantation the white browed bulbul and cuckoo shrikes frequent the bushes and are easier to find here than on the field to the North.
Adjacent areas such as the Marvakandi Dam, and the Singara Plantations with their large trees. The Dam has a resident population of spot billed duck and others such as cinnamon bittern, marsh harrier, and stork billed kingfisher can be seen. The Singara Road can add spangled and racket tailed drongos, fairy bluebird and crimson fronted barbet.
