This is the fourth post on our trip to India in 2019. We wanted a mixture of watching wildlife and cultural sites, a combination that isn’t easy to find on most commercial tour. The trip arranged by Jo Thomas at Wild About Travel was to our specifications and perfectly combined India’s wonderful temples, ancient buildings and unique way of life with watching Tigers, Blackbucks and loads of birds.
This post covers one of the most famous wildlife reserves in the world, officially called the Keoladeo National Park but universally known by the name of the adjacent city – Bharatpur.
To save me typing it here is the description of the reserve from Wikipedia: Keoladeo National Park or Keoladeo Ghana National Park formerly known as the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India is a famous avifauna sanctuary that hosts thousands of birds, especially during the winter season. Over 230 species of birds are known to be resident. It is also a major tourist centre with scores of ornithologists arriving here in the winter season. It was declared a protected sanctuary in 1971. It is also a World Heritage Site. Keoladeo Ghana National Park is a man-made and man-managed wetland and one of the national parks of India. The reserve protects Bharatpur from frequent floods, provides grazing grounds for village cattle, and earlier was primarily used as a waterfowl hunting ground. The 29 km2 reserve is locally known as Ghana, and is a mosaic of dry grasslands, woodlands, woodland swamps and wetlands. These diverse habitats are home to 366 bird species, 379 floral species, 50 species of fish, 13 species of snakes, 5 species of lizards, 7 amphibian species, 7 turtle species and a variety of other invertebrates. Every year thousands of migratory waterfowl visit the park for wintering and breeding. The sanctuary is one of the richest bird areas in the world and is known for nesting of resident birds and visiting migratory birds including water birds. The rare Siberian cranes used to winter in this park but this central population is now extinct. According to founder of the World Wildlife Fund Peter Scott, Keoladeo National Park is one of the world’s best bird areas.
Again from Wikipedia: The sanctuary was created 250 years ago and is named after a Keoladeo (Shiva) temple within its boundaries. (see photo above). Initially, it was a natural depression; and was flooded after the Ajan Bund was constructed by Maharaja Suraj Mal, then the ruler of the princely state of Bharatpur, between 1726–1763. The bund was created at the confluence of two rivers, the Gambhir and Banganga. The park was a hunting ground for the Maharajas of Bharatpur, a tradition dating back to 1850, and duck shoots were organised yearly in honour of the British viceroys. In one shoot alone in 1938, over 4,273 birds such as mallards and teals were killed by Lord Linlithgow, then Viceroy of India.[citation needed] The park was established as a national park on 10 March 1982. Previously the private duck shooting preserve of the Maharaja of Bharatpur since the 1850s, the area was designated as a bird sanctuary on 13 March 1976 and a Ramsar site under the Wetland Convention in October 1981. The last big shoot was held in 1964 but the Maharajah retained shooting rights until 1972. In 1985, the Park was declared a World Heritage Site under the World Heritage Convention. It is a reserve forest under the Rajasthan Forest Act, 1953 and therefore, is the property of the State of Rajasthan of the Indian Union. In 1982, grazing was banned in the park, leading to violent clashes between local farmers and the government.
During the days of the Raj the site was renowned as a great place for shooting wildfowl. Looking at this tally board that’s still on display it was possible to shoot many thousands of birds in a single day. Of course due to the widespread destruction of breeding sites throughout Asia there are nowhere near as many birds visiting as in the past but a visit to ‘Bharaptpur’ still remains one of the world’s top birding experiences. I don’t like the shooting of wildfowl but it would be fair to say that the reserve probably wouldn’t be in its current state without the patronage of shooters in years gone by.
I visited Bharatpur before in 1986 and at that time it was one of the best birding experiences of my life. We were there for nearly three days compared to a day and a half this time and saw a truly awesome number of birds. By the time 2019 had come around it was highly unlikely that I would get any ‘life birds’ at the site but I wanted Margaret to experience it’s avian richness and of course enjoy it myself.
Our journey from the hotel to the park and around the park itself was by bicycle rickshaw with our bird guide cycling along beside. In true Indian fashion we were taken the wrong way down a duel carriageway!
Once in the park you realise that you’re not the only one using a bicycle rickshaw. Most of the rest of this quite extensive post is a collection of bird and other wildlife photos interspersed with a few habitat shots and there is only a limited amount I can say about each.
One of the first species encountered is one I know well from home, indeed it even occurs in my garden. Originally confined to the Orient and Middle East Eurasian Collared Doves expanded its range rapidly in the 20th century spreading across Europe and reaching the UK in the late 50s. It soon became a common bird in towns and gardens. Soon afterwards some Collared Doves either escaped or were released in the Bahamas and rapidly spread to the USA where they are now common (I believe) from coast to coast.
Along the central track we saw these Grey Francolins.
I have shown a few photos of Jungle Babblers on earlier posts, here we saw their cousins Large Grey Babblers …
… which as you have probably realised are a bit larger and a bit greyer.
As with several other sites we visited Spotted Owlets were easy to see at their daytime roost.
They could be seen indulging in a bit of mutual preening, so-called allopreening.
There were several colonies of Indian Fruit Bats.
Between the various lagoons, known locally as jheels, were a series of paths were we could see …
… a variety of species such as Eurasian Hoopoe …
… here of the greyer Asian race saturatus
Also seen were Yellow-footed Green Pigeons and Bank Mynas …
… the inevitable Coppersmith Barbets …
… and the personata race of White Wagtail, sometimes known as Masked Wagtail. These breed in the Tien Shan of Kazakhstan unlike the race leucopsis that we saw on the Chambal River that breeds in China.
Also present were a few Citrine Wagtails, wintering from further north in Asia. This is probably an adult female as 1st winters lack the yellow tones.
Bharatpur is famous for its pythons and we found this individual in ditch along side the path, but it was nowhere a big as the one I saw on my 1986 visit which must have been 5m long.
Is this another snake or just a Purple Heron having a preen?
Other species included Pied Stonechat …
… White-cheeked Bulbul …
… Rufous Treepie …
… a roosting Dusky Eagle Owl …
… and a Greater Coucal.
Around the jheels we saw a wide range of waterbirds …
… from familiar ones like Common Kingfisher (the same species that occurs in the UK) …
… to the mush larger White-breasted Kingfisher which has a range from Turkey and the Levant through to SE Asia.. This species used to be known as Smyrna Kingfisher after the ancient city of the same name on the Turkish coast. More recently Symrna has been renamed Izmir.
The species once known as ‘purple gallinule’ has been renamed Swamphen to distinguish it from the bird known as Purple Gallinule in North America. Then it was split into six species with the ones in India becoming Grey-headed Swamphen.
Another inhabitant of these wet grassy meadows was Bronze-winged Jacana, which in spite of appearances is a species of shorebird/wader and not a rail! We only saw a single Pheasant-tailed Jacana which is surprising as they were as common as Bronze-winged on my last visit.
A female and two immature Knob-billed Geese …
… but only the male has the ‘knob bill’. This species has recently been split from the South American version which is now called Comb Duck.
Another species of duck that we saw regularly was the Indian Spot-bill.
We only saw a few Woolly-necked Storks, the Asian race is sometimes treated as a separate species from the one in Africa on the basis of bronze colouration on the wing coverts and paler face.
We only saw a single Saddle-billed Stork this compares to a dozen or more that I saw in 1986. In general big wetland birds; cranes, storks and wetland breeding raptors are doing badly in Asia. In 1986 we saw 37 Siberian Cranes at Bhartapur; now the western population of this species, which used to winter here, is reduced to a single individual which winters in Iran. Pallas’ Fish Eagle is another species that used to occur and we saw regularly in 86 but has now vanished.
The male of this species has a black eye whilst the female has a nice golden colour. In spite of losses in India this species has a wide range and its stronghold is probably the wetlands of northern Australia.
Many waterbirds breed on the jheels but at this time of year most are using the trees as roosting sites. In this photo mainly Great Cormorants, Painted Storks and Black-headed Ibis.
A closer view of a pair of Painted Storks with a couple of immatures and two Black-headed Ibis.
And an even closer view of one of the adults.
Of the most obvious feature of the site was the herons, as well as the expected Great, Little and Cattle Egrets there were good numbers of Purple Herons …
… Black-crowned Night Herons …
… and even (after a bit of searching) rarer species like Yellow Bittern …
… and Black Bittern.
Little and Large: The saw three species of cormorant, here are the eponymous Great Cormorant and Little Cormorant. The third one (not shown) breaks the naming convention and goes by the name of Indian Cormorant.
This is not a cormorant but a darter, a different Family comprising of just four species, sometimes known as ‘snake birds’, with one occurring in each of the Australasian, Afrotropical and Oriental regions and another in the Americas. This is, perhaps unsurprisingly, named Oriental Darter.
This darter has got some fishing net caught around its bill, presumably obtained outside the park as no fishing occurs within. The staff were attempting to capture it to remove the netting, I hope they succeeded.
I mentioned in the last post how vulture numbers in India have dropped to <1% of their former numbers due to poisoning with the vetinary drug that we know as Volterol or Diclofenac. One species that has survived better than the others is Egyptian Vulture, whether this is because it can metabolise the drug or feeds less on the poisoned cattle carcasses, I don’t know. This was the only vulture species we saw on the trip.
There were many raptors around the site such as this Western Marsh Harrier, a bird we are familiar with from the UK (you have to go a lot further east than India before you encounter Eastern Marsh Harrier).
Less familiar to us was Crested Serpent Eagle, this bird with the pale forehead and supercillium is an immature …
… whilst this is an adult.
We also saw Greater Spotted Eagle (seen here with two Black Drongos) and an Indian Spotted Eagle. Indian Spotted Eagle has been split from the more westerly Lesser Spotted Eagle and as my recollection of seeing it in 1986 is somewhat vague I was very pleased to catch up with it.
Greater Spotted Eagle can be identified in flight by the larger number of ‘fingers’ in the outer wing but is a bit trickier when perched, the shaggy nape and the gape extending up to but not beyond the centre of the eye are key features. All these large Palearctic eagles used to go by the scientific name of as Aquila clanga. Now for reasons I don’t understand it has been transferred to the new genus Clanga, so its now Clanga clanga! If anyone would ever reverse this decision they would be dropping a clanger!!
We were very pleased to come across a group of five Grey-headed Lapwing (three of which are pictured here), a species I’ve several times before in Asia but never as far west as this.
‘All the Birds of the World’ the single volume from Lynx Edicions which illustrates every bird in the world shows 24 species of Vanellus plover of which Grey-headed of course is one. One of the 24 is almost certainly extinct but I’m glad to say I’ve seen all but one of the others (Brown-chested, which I missed in Uganda).
Another Vanellus plover, Red-wattled Lapwing in the background and a Common Moorhen to the left but the star of this photo is the impressively named Indian Narrow-headed Softshell Turtle.
On our last morning we sort out some birds that skulked in the vegetation that fringed the jheels, these Pied Mynas were easy enough to see …
… as were Black Redstarts (here a female of one of the red-breasted Central Asia races).
Wintering birds from Siberia included Bluethroat …
… but best of all was this superb Siberian Rubythroat that entertained us for some time, recalling seeing that one at Osmington Mills in Dorset in 1997, (a sighting so remarkable that some still claim it was an escape from captivity)
Unlike Tadoba, the previous national park we visited, Bharatpur doesn’t have any dangerous wildlife (hence all the tourists travelling around on bikes or rickshaws) but we did hear there was a Leopard in one (closed off) area. However we did see a few mammals such Rhesus Macaque …
… which scanned the tourists carefully for any sign of a free meal …
… several Golden Jackals were seen …
… a female Nilgai (with Purple Heron) …
… Indian Grey Mongoose …
… the inevitable Palm Squirrel …
… and Wild Boar.
I’m sure if we had spent more time at Bharatpur we could have seen more species in this wonderful park but we had to move on this time to the city of Jaipur. There was a site on route where the rare Indian Spotted Creeper, a life bird for me, could be found. Wild About Travel had arranged for our guide Gaj to accompany us and see if he could find the creeper. Unfortunately the creeper wasn’t at home but we did see a few other quality birds.
The next post will be about our visit to the historic city of Jaipur.
This post covers the areas around the town/villages of Siana and Mt Abu in Rajasthan. The thorn scrub and montane woodlands held some excellent species, several of which were life birds for me.
We arrived at our lodge at Siana in the early afternoon of 19th after some birding on route.
The clearing by our chalets was dominated by this huge fig.
…. and nearby trees held some enormous bee’s nests ….
…. and a roosting Indian Scops Owl.
There were plenty of Hanuman Langurs in the area ….
…. including this mother and baby.
It was pretty cold at night so we huddled around an open fire to eat.
Transport in the Siana area was in these open-sided (and open-fronted) jeeps.
The area was composed of rocky hills and dense thorn scrub.
We spent some time around this rock outcrop ….
…. as this was the only place we were likely to see the critically endangered Indian Vulture which nests on the rock. We saw at least four, possibly six of these birds during our time here. See the previous post for an explanation of the catastrophic decline of India’s vulture population.
Between the rocky outcrops we saw a number of Sulphur-bellied Warblers, on the face of it just another hard to identify Phylloscopus warbler ….
…. but in practice quite easy to identify due to its habit of foraging on tree trucks and rock faces rather than among the leaves.
Speaking of rock faces we did a fair bit of scrambling and searching around them in an unsuccessful attempt to locate a roosting Indian Eagle Owl.
We failed to find the owl but we did hear and see one in flight in the same area at dusk.
After we had seen the eagle owl we spent some time spotlighting the escarpment and eventually picked up the eye-shine of a distant Striped Hyena. Through the scope the views weren’t bad and we could see the striped legs and flanks, powerful muzzle and huge ears. I think this was the highlight of the entire trip for me. Of course under those circumstances I couldn’t get a photo so I have included this one from the IUCN Hyena specialist group’s website which was taken using a camera trap near Tehran, Iran by Alireza Mahdavi.
On the top of one high outcrop a Short-toed Eagle peered down at us ….
…whilst from another this Hanuman Langur stared disdainfully at us.
Whether you call it Yellow-throated Sparrow or Chestnut-Shouldered Petronia, I got the best views I’ve ever had of this often elusive bird.
Syke’s Warblers were quite tricky as well. This scarce visitor from Central Asia has turned up in the UK on several occasions including Dorset.
One of the key birds in this area was the beautiful, yet elusive White-bellied Minivet which we saw only once.
Late in the day we quietly hid by this pool in the hope that Painted Sandgrouse would appear. Whilst we were waiting this herd of Wild Boar came down to drink.
Eventually a pair of Painted Sandgrouse appeared but by now it was too dark for photography. This photo from the Internet Bird Collection was taken by Jugal Tiwari in Gujarat. Painted Sandgrouse was the last of the 16 species of sandgrouse in the world for me, another family 100% under-the-belt.
On the 21st we headed from Siana to Mt Abu, a former hill station in the Avalli range which is looking quite down-at-heels these days.
However our hotel, the Connaught House, is a throwback to the days of the Raj, with its paintings of Queen Victoria and photographs of officers and gentlemen in their finery.
This is the dining room ….
…. and here is one of the bedrooms. This place complies with the unwritten law on bird tours that the quality of the accommodation is inversely proportional to the length of stay!
Back in the village we searched the fields, animal enclosures and trees for our target species ….
…. Chestnut Bunting ….
…. Bay-backed Shrike ….
…. another Brown Rock Chat ‘doing what it says on the tin’ ….
…. Blue Rock Thrush ….
…. Indian Robin ….
…. but most importantly a small flock of the very rare and localised Green Avadavat.
We left Mt Abu on the morning of 22nd after scoring with Red Spurfowl and Indian Scimitarbill. From here we headed into Gujarat, a state where both alcohol and meat are banned, not an attractive proposition for a beer-loving carnivore like me.
This post covers our time at Jaisalmer. visiting the Desert National Park (DNP), the Fossil Wood Park and the ancient citadel.
We had three nights at this very attractive hotel. We checked in during the afternoon and had time to spend a couple of hours in DNP before dark.
Much of the DNP is what you would expect, that is desert; either low desert scrub, arid grassland or, in a few places, bare sand dunes.
However there seems to be very little control over the use of the park and a large proportion has been taken over by pastoralists or is used for agriculture. The most famous inhabitant of the park is the Great Indian Bustard, a bird that once occurred over much of peninsular India but is now down to a few hundred individuals, mainly in DNP (plus one site in Gujarat where breeding has not been recorded for decades).
If any Great Indian Bustards attempt to leave the Park they will be in trouble, on one side is the Pakistan border where they are likely to be shot for sport and the other three sides are ringed with up to a thousand wind turbines and associated electric pylons, a death trap for a large, heavy flying bustard.
Another rare inhabitant of DNP is Stoliczka’s Bush-chat which we saw very well.
Naturally we saw many open country birds including flocks of Black-crowned Sparrow-larks ….
…. and the much larger Bimaculated Lark, which is showing its maculations off rather nicely in this pose. By far the commonest lark was Greater Short-toed Lark which occurred in the flocks numbering in the thousands but all remained distant and unapproachable.
Pipits were represented by the more familiar Tawny Pipit and somewhat similar Long-billed Pipit (above).
Isabelline Wheatears were if not common, at least regular. This species differs from the female of our familiar Northern Wheatear by its larger size, more upright stance, larger amount of black in the tail and the wing coverts concolourous with the mantle making the alula appear more obvious. Although I have seen many Isabellines wintering or on passage in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia and breeding in Central Asia I have always dipped when attempting to twitch vagrants in the UK.
Desert Wheatears were commoner than Isabellines and although this shot is not as sharp as I would like, it does show off the ID features quite well, including the all black tail.
Most shrikes were Southern Greys (race laharota) ….
…. but we also saw a number of ‘isabelline’ shrikes. It is claimed that the word isabelline, referring to a pale yellow-brown or creamy-brown colour arises from a vow that Isabella of Castille made in 1491 to not change her clothes until the (eight-month) siege of Grenada was accomplished. Isabelline Shrikes are usually split into two species but the vernacular names are somewhat confusing. I prefer to call the more westerly phoenicuroides Turkestan Shrike and the easterly isabellinus Daurian Shrike (above) and use the name Isabelline just for the combined species. Bizarrely it is the more easterly taxon that occurs as a vagrant to Europe. Phoenicuroides winters mainly in Africa, isabellinus in the Middle East and India
There were quite a few raptors in the park, including this Lagger Falcon ….
…. Long-legged Buzzard (here a pale morph individual) ….
…. the little Shrika, a species of sparrowhawk ….
…. and the huge Cinereous Vulture. Often described as a flying barn door, this impressive bird is often called Black Vulture in the UK but this invites confusion with the well-known and ubiquitous Black Vulture of the New World. Cinereous, meaning ash-grey, isn’t strictly correct, they are more of a dark brownish-grey colour but it is a lot better than the dreadful ‘Monk Vulture’ that was proposed by ‘Dr Shamrock’ a decade or so ago. Cinereous Vultures are one of the biggest of the Old World raptors.
Other birds seen included White-eared Bulbul which is slowly spreading westwards into the Western Palaearctic ….
…. and after much searching and at the 11th hour, a group of Cream-coloured Coursers.
But in spite of much searching it seemed like the only Great Indian Bustard we were going to see was the giant model outside the park HQ. I was in the lucky position of having seen the species well in 1986, a time when they were much commoner, but to the rest of the group this was the raison d’être of the trip. we later found out that a rival tour group had to extend their time at DNP to three days in order to find any, something that would have annoyed me as it would have meant dipping elsewhere.
Mid afternoon we had a lucky break, a local birder had found a group quite some distance from where we we searching. We got there as soon as we could but the heat haze was dreadful and the birds just walked away if we tried to approach any closer. We had acceptable views of nine females, but as you can see no quality photographs.
As a result I have posted this excellent photo from the Internet Bird Collection (taken in Gujarat the only other area to have any remaining Great Indian Bustards) by Arpit Deomurari.
The following morning we visited the neighbouring Fossil Wood Park. The structures in the photo are shelters protecting fossilised tree trunks dating from the Jurassic period, 180-130 mya.
Unfortunately in an attempt to protect them from theft or vandalism the fossil trunks are enclosed in wire cages.
Of course we were here for the birding and as the fossil wood was on rocky slopes we saw a number of species that were absent (or harder to see) in DNP, including Desert Lark – a bird that occurs as multiple subspecies, each one with plumage exactly matching the base colour of its desert habitat.
We had excellent views of ‘red-tailed wheatear’. Like Isabelline Shrike this has been recently split into two species, the westerly xanthopyrmna Kurdish Wheatear and this one, chrysopygia which sometimes retains the combined name of Red-tailed Wheatear, but I prefer the vernacular name of Persian Wheatear as it immediately identifies which is the western and which is the eastern species.
We also had some good views of Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse making good use of what little shade was on offer.
As we returned to Jaisalmer we could see the ancient fort, one of the largest fortifications in the world, rising above the plain.
We had a tour around the ancient town during the hot part of the day near the ‘Bloody Good View’ hotel ….
…. made our way past the shop selling ‘child’ beer (? chilled beer) ….
…. and made our way to the ancient citadel that dominates Jaisalmer.
Built in 1156 but damaged and rebuilt many times during its turbulent history, the fort consists of three massive concentric walls.
This young girl was showing off her acrobatic skills for the tourists.
Then we entered the ancient, narrow, medieval streets of the old town.
There were more cows and dogs in the road than vehicles ….
…. and some cows had learnt that they could go from house to house in the hope of some spare chapatis.
These ancient merchants houses or havelis have incredible stone carved facades, this one took 50 years to complete ….
Jaisalmer grew rich on the taxes imposed on passing caravans during the spice trade and this shows in the wonderful buildings …..
I took loads of photos of these architectural wonders but can only room to show a few here.
Say no more!
So I’ll end this post on the Desert National Park with a desert sunset.
India is famous for its raptors, but in recent years many species have undergone a serious decline, none more so than the resident species of vulture. This alarming loss of natures garbage disposal has meant that dead animals (roadkill etc) now lie beside the road to rot where they would have been consumed within hours in the past.
The cause of this dreadful decline which has reached 99.9% in most areas is due to the veterinary use of the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac (known as Voltorol when used in humans). The drug given prophylactically to cattle will cause renal failure in most vulture species that feed on the carcass. The four large resident species, White-rumped, Slender-billed, Indian and Red-headed are threatened with imminent extinction. Only the smaller Egyptian Vulture seems to be surviving.
In 1986 vultures (mainly White-rumped) were everywhere. Although the two trips are not directly comparable, the former trip was mainly in the east of Rajasthan and also visited the Himalayan foothills, but both involved visits to the Jaisalmer area.
Sorry this table is not aligned properly – it was pre-posting!
19862016
Black Kite 2500 160
Red-headed Vulture 54 0
Cinereous (Black) Vulture 7 4
Eurasian Griffon Vulture 67 20
Slender-billed/Indian Vulture 36 4
White-rumped Vulture 5000 1
Egyptian Vulture 2500 160
Slender-billed and Indian Vultures were not split in 1986 hence the two species could not be separated for this table. All the ones seen on this tour were Indian Vultures. The species that showed the least decline were Cinereous and Griffon Vultures which are winter visitors (and as such have not been exposed to diclofenac to the same extent). Most of the 160 Egyptian Vultures were at the one site shown below..
Early morning mists had not cleared as we arrived at the tip outside of Bikaner. As cattle are not for human consumption in most of India any carcasses are left in certain areas for scavengers to dispose of.
Although there were no fresh carcasses the area was full of Egyptian Vultures and feral dogs.
We found this litter of puppies in a shallow depression, proof that the dogs were living wild.
Surrounding trees were covered with Steppe Eagles and Egyptian Vultures.
Immature Egyptian Vulture.
Adult Egyptian Vulture
Immature Steppe Eagle – a winter visitor from Central Asia
Also in the area where small numbers of Eurasian Griffon Vultures, another winter visitor to the area, but our only White-rumped Vulture of the entire trip was one seen briefly in flight. What a change compared to my visit 30 years ago.
Although not affected by the poisoning effect of veterinary drugs, Black Kites have also shown a marked decline compared to my last visit.
This Black Drongo chose a rather unattractive perch to pose for a portrait.
Variable Wheatears come in three forms, all from different areas to the north and west; the almost all-black opistholeuca, the white-capped capistrata and the common and widespread picata (above).
The huge Nilgai (aka the Blue Bull) is the Indian equivalent of the African Eland
A mammal I really wanted to see was the elegant Blackbuck, but all the areas where they have been seen before on this itinerary have been irrigated and turned over to agriculture.
We did see the delicate Chinkara though.
Later we made our way to the little village of Khichan. On the surface it looked like any other small Indian village but it held a wonderful secret.
The Brown Rock Chat is a bird that ‘does what it says on the tin’ – its brown, it’s a chat and it perches on rocks. Nice though it is, it wasn’t the reason why we had come all this way.
Just around the corner there were a coupe of lakes absolutely packed with Demoiselle Cranes.
A rough count between those on the two lakes and those in the air came to about 8000.
As with all large gatherings of cranes their bugling calls filled the air.
I have seen spectacular large gatherings of Common, White-naped, Hooded, Red-crowned and Sandhill Cranes but these must be the most beautiful cranes of all.
The birds seemed largely undisturbed by the passing villagers.
The smallest of the 15 species of crane, Demoiselles breed in Central Asia and migrate over the Himalayas to winter in India. Small numbers turn up elsewhere and I have seen single birds in far-eastern Russia and Japan plus good numbers on their breeding grounds in Kazakhstan
The villagers of Khichan have had a long love affair with this beautiful bird. Each winter grain is put out for the birds in an enclosure within the village. This tradition persists even though Khichan is no longer as prosperous as it once was (due to end of trans-desert camel trains) and is now supported by donations from clansmen from abroad.
We didn’t see the birds in the enclosure as we were too early for ‘feeding time’ and it seemed pointless hanging round for ages when we had such wonderful views around the lakes.
Here are a few other birds we saw around the lakes – Indian Pond Heron
A wintering Green Sandpiper from Siberia
Another wintering bird, this time from Central Asia – the personata race of White Wagtail aka ‘Masked Wagtail’
Yellow Wagtails can be difficult to assign to race when not in breeding plumage but this is probably of the race thunbergi from the boreal zone of northern Europe or Siberia
Little Grebes are a resident species ….
…. as is the ubiquitous Red-wattled Lapwing.
As we left a flock of Rock Doves flew over, but high above them were more Demoiselle Cranes flying in for the afternoon feast.
With many miles to go to our next stop, we could only marvel at this wonderful sight as we headed south to the town of Jaisalmer. Definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip.
