India GO
Yellow-throated bulbul
A bulbul found nowhere outside peninsular India, and only on rocky, boulder-strewn hills with thin scrub. Grey above, with a clean lemon-yellow throat and undertail.
👀 How to recognise it
Work the boulder slopes in the first two hours after sunrise. Pairs move along fixed circuits, perching openly on rock tops; the song is a sweet, rolling warble unlike the harsh red-whiskered bulbul.
Where to see it
Bengaluru
Its habitat is exactly the granite the region quarries, so the bird has become a shorthand in Karnataka for what boulder hills lose when they are blasted.
Savandurga (often) · Nandi Hills (in season)
Hampi
The same granite that makes Hampi a World Heritage Site is what the bird needs; outside the protected zone these boulder hills are quarried, which is why the species is threatened.
Hemakuta Hill (in season) · Matanga Hill (in season) · Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary (often)
Tirumala
Its range runs through Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana in isolated pockets of boulder scrub, and quarrying of exactly that rock is the main pressure on it.
Silathoranam · Kalyani Dam (in season)