Getting there
Just put "The Steve Rowland" on them". Saturday afternoon and I was in a hurry to leave the BirdFair and avoid the worst of the end of day traffic jam as thousands of my fellow birders headed home.
 |
| BirdFair raffle tickets |
The problem with a tribe gathering is that eventually it has to disperse and
when that is by hundreds of cars along a narrow lane skirting the edge of
England's largest reservoir this can be a slow process. So by 4.30pm on the
Saturday of last year's BirdFair I was keen to extricate myself from the
marquee that I was in and get back to my car and off site before the end
of day rush.
 |
| Brahminy Myna, Bharatpur |
But I had one last decision to make should I delay my departure and head back
into a hot and crowded marquee to stop at the Oriental Bird Club [OBC] stand to
buy my usual £10's worth of raffle tickets.
At this point I should say that I normally I buy raffle tickets at the BirdFair
to support the cause with little expectation of actually winning anything. The
day before I'd bought a couple of raffle tickets with a first prize of an
Antarctic cruise and had joked with my wife about what I would do if I won, in
the sure knowledge that I never win anything, could I leave her alone for two
weeks with our two small boys whilst I went off to the far end of the world
birding. Or would I gracefully decline the prize.
I
didn't visit the BirdFair on the Sunday, its my least favourite day most of the
serious birders have visited on the Friday and Saturday meaning the chances of
those accidental encounters with old friends are much reduced and the
exhibitors are a little tired and have half an eye on the nightmare which is
packing down.
 |
| Beer at Schipol Airport |
So
when after a short walk at RSPB Titchwell Marsh nature reserve I got home on
the Sunday afternoon of Birdfair weekend and my wife told me that my friend Mike
the OBC Chairman had called to tell me that I'd won a prize, I assumed that he
was calling to tell me that I'd won a book or something. When after having
spoke to Mike I told my family that I'd won a week in India, there was much
excitement with the boys [age three and six] who decided pretty rapidly that
they would like to come with me.
Fun as this sounded on sober reflection we eventually we decided that this was
not the trip to introduce the boy's to long haul travel and that I would go
with an old friend for a week of full on birding.
It had been a while since I had last organised a long haul trip and some of our
decisions about when we went were driven by factors that the younger me didn't
have to consider such as school holidays, work commitments etc. I quickly
decided that if we could, we'd avoid the hassle of the big London airports and
fly with KLM from Norwich to Delhi via Schipol. This was a good call with both
Norwich and Schipol proving great airports.
Indian bureaucracy was something I'd forgotten about, but in reality applying
for a e-visa was straightforward even if the queues at Delhi airport and the allied
finger printing and photographing of a couple of jumbo jets worth of jet lagged
tourists by an inadequate half a dozen immigration desks somewhat under mined
the modern hassle free e-visa process.
Raj Singh, the owner of the Bagh and donator of our prize to the OBC, put me in
touch with Savita at Exotic Journeys, who did very able job of organising our
ground arrangements. These included a car and driver from Delhi to Bharatpur
and back, it was quite a novelty for me to be met by someone at the airport with
my name on a sign to take me to my car.
 |
| Flowers at The Bagh at Bharatpur |
India a quarter of a century on
It might just be my imagination but I feel that Bharatpur used to have a higher
profile in western birding circles than it does today. Maybe demise of the
Siberian White Cranes that used to winter within the Park has reduced its
legendary status, if Indeed my perception of it's lower profile is correct. Maybe
there is just more competition for birding destinations today. But it's where back
in the winter of 1989/90 I first visited Asia and where I started my first big
long haul birding trip
 |
| Siberian White Cranes at Bharatpur during the winter of 1989/90 |
Looking
back I recall my youthful self's "life plan" had been to do the
"tougher" long haul destinations whilst young and then the easier
(Europe and the States) as I got older. Those early trip's were done on cheap,
this trip was easier, less hassle and more time efficient and a much more
concentrated experience lasting just a week compared to my two previous trips
to the sub-continent which lasted ten and six weeks respectively.
 |
| Frequent request on the back of an Indian truck |
In
some ways I was more excited about this short visit to India than I had been
about those long youthful trips when time wasn't in short supply and I had a
working assumption that I could always come back another time. Now the chances
of getting to places like India are limited by the usual mix of financial
constraints, family commitments and a busy job. So I guess I'm time poor but
unfortunately not cash rich.
What did we want
So
what did we want from the trip? We'd both been to India and Bharatpur before,
but neither for many years, both had spent many months birding the
subcontinent. So not many lifers on offer during this trip and we wondered if
we were going a little late in the season for "northern migrants". We
both wanted to see Indian Skimmers and my friend Adam wanted Indian Courser,
whilst I was particularly keen to see Gangetic River Dolphin and to do some
photography. With time tight we decided to not try and stay anywhere other than
the Bagh at Bharatpur for our seven nights in India. We wanted to
"Bird" for ourselves for the first few days and so didn't hire a
guide initially, although we did get a little help from rickshaw drivers. We
then hired a guide for a day trip to the Chambal River and for another day
in the countryside around Bharatpur looking for grassland and open country
birds. This worked well. On our way back to Delhi we had four or five hours at
Okhla on our own which was great and the site felt like a great birdy patch on
the edge of a big city. So in essence we were two middle aged blokes with busy
jobs and young families, normally short of birding time looking to maximise our
time in the field and enjoy the experience, learn a little and get occasionally
confused by our memories of the Bharatpur we had both visited separately a
quarter of a century ago.
 |
| Five Striped Ground Squirrel trying to blag some food. |
But it was not just about Birding (but it was mainly about the birds) I think
we'd both forgotten about what an assault on the senses India can be and even
with the modernisation of Delhi in particular it is still very different culturally
to the UK. During my first visit in the winter of 89/90 western brands like
Coke were still banned, on this visit global brands were much in evidence
particularly on the roads in the form of motor cars.
 |
| Indian Road user |
Other changes that impacted on us more than they would your average tourist
were the names of Indian birds and I spent many hours in my home office ahead
of the trip cross referencing the names in the old Pictorial Guide and my 25
year old field notebooks with Inskipp, Inskipp and Grimmett's modern field
guide.
The
first thing that struck us as we left the airport was the chaotic road culture
and the vast developments of high tec industries in the Gurgaon district around
Delhi. As it got light, through a jet lagged fug we started to pick out the
first birds of the trip. We experienced a surreal moment as we left a service
station and drove out through the gates back onto the highway there were two
macaques wearing dresses and lipstick which saluted us. I never did take a
picture of this to share with you, my travelling companion insisted that would
only encourage this reprehensible behaviour, but hey monkeys in dresses.
The Bagh at Bharatpur
 |
| Hibiscus at The Bagh at Bharatpur |
When
we got to the Bagh we received a warm welcome from Raj and his manager and
after a buffet lunch we had our second wind and spent our first 500 rupees a
day foreigners entrance fee [about £5] to get into the Keoladeo National Park
aka Bharatpur and spent the afternoon in the park birding and were enjoying the
delightful Little Green Bee-eaters that fed by the side of the road. You can
find out more about the Bagh here http://www.thebagh.com/
 |
| Flowers at The Bagh at Bharatpur |
Vignettes
There
are many stand out moments from our week and rather than write a chronological
account here are a few snapshots in words and pictures from our visit.
 |
| Pied Kingfisher, Bharatpur |
 |
| Smyrna, Bharatpur |
Sarus Cranes
We
had our first, fleeting, view of Sarus Cranes from our car as we drove south
from Delhi to Bharatpur. In the park initially we saw little of these
magnificent birds with our best sighting early on being of a pair in a small
Marsh beside a path which was a long walk from the busy central paved road
through the middle of the Park.
As
the week went on we had more and more sightings, a few of which etched
themselves in our memories. I stumbled upon one pair in the grassland by the
edge of a path. I was able to sit down and watch, film and photograph them from
a few tens of metres. The male bird doing a very measured and ornate display
dance to the female, whilst in the background carried the sound of another
bugling pair of Cranes.
 |
| Sarus Cranes, Bharatpur |
Shortly
after this encounter one evening as we were slowly trudging out of the Park at
dusk we came across a group of seven Sarus Cranes bugling to each other and
feeding close to the main track through the centre of the park, these had
attracted a small crowd of admirers enjoying the Cranes and the Orange ball of
the sun setting behind them. A wonderfully evocative moment.
But
trumping all these Crane encounters was what is perhaps my favourite memory of
the week. We were sitting in our boat on the Chambol River happy that we had
seen the Gangetic River Dolphins and Indian Skimmers the reasons for our visit
to this site. As the boast gently bobbed in the river a family of three Cranes
wading through the sandy dun coloured shallows on the wild Chambol River whilst
a flock of Bar Headed Geese flew in behind them and a pair of Black Winged
Stilts consummated the elaborate courtship dance that they had treated each
other and us to on the flat topped sand bank to the side of our boat.
 |
| Sarus Cranes, Chambol River |
Siberian Rubythroat
Many
of the long distance migrants had already left the park, but a male Siberian
Rubythroat was still showing well around the edge of a gloomy pool in the
bushes by a checkpoint in the Park.
 |
| Siberian Rubythroat, Bharatpur, |
The
Sibe Rubythroat shared the pool with some large frogs whose croaking filled the
silence as we waited for the bird to appear. This bird would magically reveal
itself appearing out of the tangle of vegetation in low light a plain brown
Song Thrush sized bird which would turn and in doing so hit you between the eyes
with its vivid scarlet throat. Here we came across an Indian Twitch and perhaps
a sign of how an emerging middle class has taken up enjoying nature as a
leisure pastime. Multi-coloured clothes, across ages & genders gathered to
stare at a gloomy little pool.
Macaques
One
of my aims [apart from squeezing a quart of birding, photography, travel,
banter and eating into a pint pot of seven days] was to spend time with a troop
of Rhesus Macaques and getting some decent images of them.
What
I'd forgotten about Rhesus Macaques is what lairy buggers they are and what a pain
they must be to live with. One lesson I quickly learnt was that the big males
don't like eye contact and that seemed to include the 'eye' which is a
telephoto lens. Once by the temple inside the park a male aggressively warned
me that it didn't like me taking its picture and again on the entrance drag as
I videoed a troop passing me a male made a lunge for me and was fortunately
chased off by our rickshaw driver.
 |
| Rhesus Macaques, Bharatpur |
But
having said all that, I did enjoy my time with them, their dark intelligent
eyes, comedy pink bums, social groups and all round adaptability.
We
did come across one troop of Langur's outside the park and these were certainly
on this occasion more timid than the Macaques, keeping their distance and
staying in the trees and ruins of an old
factory.
Greater Coucal
The
Bagh [which is Persian for Garden] is a complex of accommodation buildings set
in well vegetated grounds, not a garden in the European sense of flower beds
but a wonderful tranquil oasis and we would spend time at the start and end of
the day quietly wandering the paths through the trees and shrubs birding and
photographing. The highlight of these walks was a Orange Headed Ground Thrush
[the only one we saw all trip] that bounced out onto a wall one morning.
 |
| Greater Coucal in the Bagh Garden |
But
my most memorable encounter here was a Greater Coucal that I saw eating a small
snake that it had caught. It had been a long hot days birding and I had low
expectations of my walk around the garden and was in a bit of a daze when a
Coucal flew up from the path that ran alongside one of the buildings. When it
landed I noticed that it had a snake in its bill and I was able to carefully
stalk it take some pictures of it disembowelling and eating the snake whilst a
Taiga Flycatcher called in the background.
Chambol boat trip
A key species for me to see was Gangetic River Dolphin and I knew that we
could do a day trip from Bharatpur to try and see these on the Chambol River.
So on one of the two days that we hired a guide we asked him to take us to the
River and sort out a boat trip. We drove down to the jetty in the shadow of a
giant road bridge and to a car park by the jetty and reception hut that was surrounded
by brightly coloured flags. On the wall of the hut the copious rules of the river
trip were written in Hindi and English. River Lapwings fed on the edge of the
river which looked low.
 |
| River Lapwings and Gharial, Chambol River |
We
got aboard our boat, the only passengers and turned right to search first for
Dolphins. As we headed downstream we saw our first Gharial and Marsh Muggers
hauled out on the sandy river bank, more River Lapwings and some Greater
Thick-knees. I missed the first Dolphin and was starting to get a little
agitated that I might not see one when a Dorsal broke a few times in front of
us, not the greatest of views and no photos were possible but good to see this
enigmatic creature.
Having
seen the Dolphins albeit briefly we turned around and passed under the road
bridge past some low islands on which Spoonbills and Gharials loafed and River
Lapwings fed. This area felt a little wilder but even so there were still folk
on the river bank. We came to some small low sandy islands where we counted 34
Indian Skimmers which gave great views, even if none of them flew around and
did any skimming whilst we were there.
 |
| Indian Skimmer, Chambol River |
As
we watched the Skimmers our attention was distracted by Small Pratincoles and a
pair of courting and mating Black Winged Stilts. A family party of Sarus Cranes
picked their way through the shallows whilst a flock of Bar Headed Geese
flighted in to land in the water around them. The Cranes elegant birds on a
wild river cutting through a dun brown landscape, the Geese about to head north
to Tibet over the high Himalaya, a wonderful snapshot of wild India.
Shrikes
Whilst
I don't have a favourite bird or even family of birds I do like Shrikes, a lot.
On this trip we had good prolonged views of two Species Long Tailed and Bay
Backed, although we had to wait till late in the trip to see the latter species
which prefers the drier parts of the Park. These shots were digi-scoped by hand
holding to the eyepiece of my Kowa 883 Scope my Panasonic Lumix TZ30 which I set
to max on macro zoom. This arrangement seems to work well in locations like
northern India where there is great light and birds sitting up gagging to have
their picture or video taken. It is not as sure fire a method back home in
north Norfolk when the light is so so, the wind is blowing and the birds are
less cooperative. Still in my book any day with a Shrike in it is a good one
and I don't need much of an excuse to share these pictures with you.
 |
| Bay Backed Shrike, Bharatpur |
A Flutterer
Whilst our main focus was
birds followed by mammals and the odd charismatic Herp, we did look at the more
eye catching insects that we came across including the dragonflies. Perhaps the
most striking of these was this beast which I have since found out via my
friend Phil Benstead at http://www.odonatours.com/ is a female Common Picture Wing also known as Variegated Flutterer or Rhyothemis variegata.
We spent a enjoyable half an hour trying to photograph this very active
individual as it patrolled an open area by the side of a ditch. Looking on the
web it is said to have a weak flight and to be easily mistaken for a butterfly
but my mind was more drawn to memories of Owlflies [Ascalaphidae]that I had seen in the Spanish Pyrenees. Either way it was very exciting
to have one of those what the hell is that and whatever it is doesn't it look
great moments, followed by the frustration of trying to get a picture of an
active insect for both identification and aesthetic reasons.
 |
| Female Common Picture Wing, Bharatpur |
Okhla
 |
| Bluethroat, Okhla |
The
plan all along was to maximise time in the field, so that the fact that
travelling by road at night in India is best avoided was a bit of a problem as
it meant getting to and from the airport in daylight and using up valuable
birding time. Whilst this was unavoidable the plan was on the way back to break
the journey on the outskirts of Delhi at Okhla. I felt rather at home here, a
marsh on the edge of a big city by the side of a river, it reminded me a bit of
some of the places I've birded around London and the Thames estuary over the
years. It was also pretty devoid of people compared to Bharatpur, we passed a
few folk walking along the tarmac road that runs along the side of the river
and then when we walked into the marsh proper there were just a couple of young
lads messing about with a camera. It was great to be able to bird without being
interrupted and to feel that you had the place to yourselves. It was also a
great place for birds and we had some brilliant views here of Bluethroat and added Striated Grassbird to our trip
list.
 |
| Okhla view |
Trip list?
I have an Excel file with our trip list on it, when I'll get a minute I'll work out how to add it to this blog.
End
Looking
back we probably left our visit as late as was comfortable, already the
temperature was rising and many of the northern migrants had left for their
breeding grounds, another week or two and I think we would have had to stop
birding in the middle of the day and birds like that splendid male Sibe
Rubythroat would have departed. I haven't done the maths but of the 198 species
that we recorded between us a good number were records of a single individual,
both a testament to the hard work that we put in but also to the fact that many
species were on the move and we were picking up the last odd individuals.
 |
| Indian Courser near Bharatpur |
So
I am left now with a wonderful mish-mash of memories of this short and intense
trip; the luck of buying the winning raffle ticket, the friendship and good
humour of Adam my travelling companion, the chaos of Indian roads, birding in
hot sunny weather, marshes filled with birds, aggressive macaques, that
wonderful trip along the Chambol river and of course loads of stunning birds.
As Kipling wrote "If you've heard the east a calling..." and as
Arnold Schwarzenniger said "I'll be back".
 |
| The Bagh at Bharatpur |
