India 2019 - Bharatpur pt2

30^th January 2019

Change of scenery today as we headed out into the surrounding farmland to look for Indian courser. I wasn’t quite expecting our first site to be where they were building a new university but after a short wait they let us onto the building site! Certainly wouldn’t have happened in the UK.

University building site!

Mustard fields

The place was alive with birds. A very mobile and flighty flock of 500-1000 short toed larks were feeding in the grounds along with ashy-crowned lark-sparrow, desert and isabelline wheatears and a very confiding Indian roller that allowed close approach as it warmed up in the morning sun. A large lark seen in the main flock turned out to be a surprise bimaculated, a good bird for the area according to the fieldguide. Sadly it melted into the flock before we got any pics of it.

Desert wheatear

Isabelline wheatear

Indian roller

We searched the surrounding fields for a couple of hours but sadly the crop had grown. All of the mustard was now too high with very little open ground which meant we dipped on the coursers. We did manage to add a few new species to the list including red collared dove, Indian busklark, isabelline shrike, paddyfield & tawny pipits and yellow-wattled lapwing.

Indian bushlark

Isabelline shrike

A random check of some wet areas on the edge of town for painted snipe failed to locate any but we did get a bonus marsh sandpiper, pheasant-tailed jacana and superb views of a pair of displaying red-wattled lapwings.

Red-wattled lapwing

The afternoon was spent in the NE section of the park including some more of the dry grassland areas. A pair of roosting Indian stone curlews were very confiding and showed well in the long grass. Mallard, Asian openbill and Indian golden oriole were added to the trip list before we had another look at the dusky eagle owls. Although the dusk light was poor the birds were showing much better further out in the open. It was also pretty smart to hear them calling; a rather haunting sound in the half light.

Indian stone curlew

Just as we thought we’d finished for the day a male barred buttonquail crossed the track in front of us followed by another jackal a little further on. A good day taking the list onto 170 species.

31^st January 2019

Last morning in the park and we headed for the tower at the central point overlooking the large area of wetland. The light wasn’t the best, grey and hazy, but the sheer number of birds was impressive. Pintail, garganey, coot and grey-headed gallinules were everywhere and numbered into the 100’s for each species. Both Eastern imperial and greater spotted eagles were roosting in the surrounding trees and several marsh harriers kept flushing the waterfowl including 10 lesser whistling-ducks. A small group of streak throated swallows were feeding with a flock of barn swallow.

A final look for flycatchers and thrushes was well worthwhile as we had much better views of orange-headed ground-thrush out in the open. That was pretty much the end of the morning and we headed back to the hotel and said our farewells to our guide and rickshaw driver.

Bijendra was an excellent guide. His knowledge of the birds, the park, general wildlife and history was fantastic and he looked after us well at all times. The rickshaw driver was great too especially having to carry us about the park for 3 days!

The park was amazing, so many birds and such good views. Although it was busy at times it was easy to get away from people in the quieter parts of the park. Definitely recommended to any birder and/or photographer to add to their list of places to visit.

One of many the confiding bluethroats

Brahiminy starling

Dalmation pelican

Greater spotted eagle

Indian pond heron

Intermediate egret

Nilgai

Purple heron

Sarus cranes

White cheeked bulbul

White tailed plover

Yellow footed green pigeon

Ended the first leg of our trip on 173 species.

A long journey back to Delhi included a couple of stops by the taxi driver to look for birds. One included a 6-lane motorway and one added a new species in the form of a white browed wagtail. As we were early into Delhi the taxi driver showed us some of the sights in the city. We were able to walk to the India Gate and drove past the parliament buildings all lit up following a recent festival. We eventually made it through the crazy Delhi traffic and met Narendra at 7pm at the beautifully lit up Old Delhi station for our 10:30pm train to Ramnagar….

India gate

Old Delhi station

India 2019 - Bharatpur pt1

27th January 2019

Plane into Delhi 30mins early but immigration very slow and chaotic taking over an hour to get through but eventually we got through to meet our taxi driver in arrivals and onto our overnight hotel. Hotel was good and we added a few species to the list over breakfast before the taxi arrived and we set off for Bharatpur.

A stop at a random roadside pool for some black winged stilts also produced several citrine wagtails and an Indian pond heron. A better stop on the side of the motorway was great with a large flock of wildfowl, 10 greater flamingos, river tern and a family group of 5 sarus cranes. A smart oriental honey buzzard went over at our lunch stop.

Citrine wagtail

We arrived at the Birders Inn, Bharatpur mid-afternoon and spent the time relaxing after the long journey before meeting our guide Bijendra to plan out the next few days.

28th January 2019

Main track leading into Bharatpur reserve

First morning in the park after a rather chilly rickshaw ride from the hotel. Birding started straightaway with a mixed flock of babblers (yellow eyed & jungle) moving the bushes and a wryneck was a nice surprise. Most of the morning was spent walking up the main central track and making detours into the bush either side and then heading out the east side of the park in search for flycatchers and thrushes. A search around the edge of a pond produced good views of red breasted flycatcher, bluethroat, grey headed canary-flycatcher and several oriental magpie robins and the first of many Blyth’s reed warblers. The smell from two dead cows wasn’t quite so nice!

Grey headed canary flycatcher

Oriental magpie robin (female top, male below)

Red breasted flycatcher

Bijendra picked up a Tickell’s thrush (I never heard it) and after a bit of searching we had decent views of a female feeding in the dense undergrowth. Walking around the tracks was good and we eventually caught up with an orange headed ground-thrush, a species that I really wanted to see as these were the nominate race that have the all-orange head. I had seen the species before in Goa but they didn’t have orange head just two dark stripes. I was happy J

We also several more bluethroats, citrine wagtail, a nice black-rumped flameback woodpecker and confiding views of both Rhesus macaque and spotted deer.

Black rumped flameback

Rhesus macaque

The highlight of the morning though was six golden jackal crossing the road while we were stopped for a cup of tea.

Golden jackal

Species added in the morning included chestnut shouldered petronia, grey francolin, spotted owlet, shikra and purple sunbird

After lunch we headed deeper into the park and towards the wetter areas but stopped of briefly to see if any Indian rock pythons had come out of the burrows now the temperature has warmed up. One was present but thankfully docile and at arm’s length!

The sheer variety of waterbirds was impressive with large numbers of duck, geese, herons and egrets everywhere.

We walked along the main track then headed out the east of the park where there were less people. The afternoon highlights included several Eastern imperial eagles including superb views of one sub-adult bird perched up close and then doing a nice flyby. 

Eastern imperial eagle

A greater spotted eagle on a grey heron kill (we don’t actually know if it killed it but we did see it hunting the area) was an impressive sight and we ended our first day with a black bittern at dusk on the way back to the hotel.

Other highlights included 50+ white tailed plover, spot billed duck, wire tailed swallow, great white & Dalmatian pelicans, booted eagle, bronzed winged jacana, plain martin, pigmy cotton goose and bay backed shrike

Spot billed duck

White pelican


29th January 2019

Morning spent around the western side of the park after trying for the Siberian rubythroat that had been seen the day before but had no luck. Most species were the same as we’d already seen but we did manage to add 11 new ones for the trip including knob-billed duck, pochard, moustached warbler and sparrowhawk mainly around the wet pools along with another pair of spotted owlets. The damp edges to the path on our walk round were excellent for bluethroats with at least 16 seen. Many of them were very mobile but with a bit of stalking they did show well.

Bluethroat

The dry forest habitat looked very similar to the parks in Sri Lanka with lots of dry grassland with patches of trees and scrub but no leopards. A small flock of Indian silverbill and a male yellow-crowned woodpecker were seen along with a very manky looking jackal.
Raptors were good with 6 species of eagle including a close steppe eagle overhead.

Other morning highlights included 5 red avadavat, Bonelli’s eagle, OBP and large grey babbler.

Steppe eagle

We managed to get to the middle of the reserve this afternoon, 6km from the entrance gates, and it was well worth it. Started off with a crested serpent eagle and then the guide put the scope onto a tree where a dusky eagle owl was sat on a nest! A very impressive bird indeed. He then proceeded to find its off duty mate close buy and a further 2 adults further up the track. Completely not the habitat I was expecting to see them in and never that well. 

Dusky eagle owl

We had good views of smoky warbler which our guide was intent on me getting a photo of but it was far too dark and skulking to get anything at all. A lovely juv black winged kite was further up the path along with a couple of siberian stonechats and a black necked stork out on the marsh. We ended the day with a couple of roosting Indian scops owls. Trip list up to 147 species

You Beauty

With the rather unseasonably mild weather for mid-February I dusted off the moth trap and put it out for the first time this year over the last couple of evenings.

Despite the weather conditions seeming good, only one moth was trapped over the two sessions. Having said that, the only moth was this rather fine oak beauty 😊

Was also a good excuse to give the macro lens its first run out of the year too. Weather permitting I'm going to try and put the trap out at least once a week

Watch this space...

With over 4000 images to process from the trip it is going to take me a little while before I can share some of them here.

I kept a bit of a daily diary while I was away with the intention of repeating here on the blog once I was back.

The original plan was to go on the Northern India birding trip run by Chris Mills from Norfolk Birding but unfortunately we didn't have enough leave to go in 2018 so after a few conversations with Chris, we decided to do a bespoke trip in early 2019 but following his trip itinerary. All the ground work was organised by the excellent Rural Traveller team of Sumantha and Narendra out in India.

On January 26th we headed out to India from Heathrow for an action-packed 14 days of birds, mammals, travelling and food.

Indian Egyptian vulture 

More to come over the coming weeks....