WYKE BIRDING: INDIA Day 3

Friday 26 January 2018

INDIA Day 3 - 11th January

Made an early start and drove an hour out of town to some open agricultural fields for some different habitats; we soon connected with our main target species, a couple of stunning INDIAN COURSERS (we ended up with 30+ seen) – one of the highlights of the trip! Other birds seen in this very dry, open area included flocks of smart ASHY-CROWNED SPARROW-LARKS, many Tawny Pipits, a couple of Siberian Stonechats, Indian Silverbills, huge flocks of 300+ Short-toed Larks, a few groups of LARGE GREY BABBLERS, a few Indian Roller, several Desert Wheatears and an Isabelline Wheatear, an INDIAN BUSHLARK, several YELLOW-WATTLED LAPWINGS, 10+ INDIAN STONE-CURLEWS (a potential split from our Stone Curlews), a really distinctive STOLICZCA’S BUSHCHAT (pretty scarce!), several Daurian Shrikes, a couple of Southern Grey Shrikes and 6+ BIMACULATED LARKS.

We stopped on the way back to town at lunchtime at a smelly, polluted ditch in the middle of the town to get good views of 2 GREATER PAINTED SNIPE along with Redshank, Wood Sandpiper, Ruff, a few Citrine Wagtails and some Yellow Wagtails – probably M. f. beema.

We then went back into the park for the afternoon to explore some further bits that we hadn’t got to yet (the biggest expanses of water) where new birds included 2 COTTON PYGMY GEESE with the thousands of other ducks and geese (especially big numbers of Pintail and lots more Garganey with big flocks of Bar-headed and Greylag Geese and Knob-billed Ducks), the one wintering White-tailed Eagle in the park, a few Siberian Stonechats, 2 PHEASANT-TAILED JACANAS, a YELLOW-CROWNED WOODPECKER, a couple of GREY-HEADED LAPWINGS with more White-tailed Plovers, Greenshank and Spotted Redshank, better views of Indian Spotted Eagle and Red Avadavat, 3 female-type BAYA WEAVERS (the only ones seen on the trip – again a factor of the dry conditions), several Little Swifts and a Red Collared Dove with a big flock of Collared Doves.