We arrived in Delhi early
morning from where we got the bus to where our mini-bus was parked with many
Black Kites floating around the city and the first new birds for me – a noisy
group of JUNGLE
BABBLERS feeding around the carpark
and a gorgeous RUFOUS
TREEPIE foraging in a bin! We then drove all morning to out first stop
of Bharatpur NP, everyone was an instant expert as we drove along with all kinds
of claims flying around but birds that I definitely saw along the journey
included a group of 6 BAR-HEADED GEESE (an
underwhelming new bird after seeing lots of escapes in the UK), a single Black-necked Stork, Cattle Egrets, Great White Egrets and
Little Egrets, plenty of Black-shouldered Kites perched up along the
roads, GREY-HEADED
SWAMP-HENS, Moorhen and Coots, Black-winged Stilts, Red-wattled Lapwings, Ruff, Spotted Redshank, Green
Sandpiper and Wood Sandpiper, Collared Doves, my first proper wild Ring-necked Parakeets and loads of White-throated
Kingfishers, Black Drongos, House Crows, Common Mynas, BANK MYNAS and Asian Pied Starlings.
After dumping our bags, we walked round Bharatpur all
afternoon, concentrating in the dry, scrub areas closest to the entrance;
raptors were very obvious with much of the time spent staring upwards as birds
included large numbers of Egyptian Vultures were seen along with
smaller counts of GREATER SPOTTED EAGLES, INDIAN SPOTTED EAGLE (1), Eastern Imperial Eagle,
Bonelli’s Eagle, Booted Eagle, Short-toed Eagle (1 – the only one of the trip that I saw) and several Shikras bombing around.
New birds in the scrub included coveys of GREY FRANCOLINS, YELLOW-FOOTED GREEN
PIGEON, a single COMMON HAWK CUCKOO, several SOUTHERN COUCALS, a roosting SPOTTED OWLET,
Little Green Bee-eaters, a single INDIAN GREY HORNBILL, BROWN-HEADED
BARBET, LESSER GOLDENBACK, INDIAN JUNGLE CROW, PLAIN MARTINS, WHITE-EARED BULBULS,
RED-VENTED
BULBULS, PLAIN PRINIA, ASHY PRINIA, Common Tailorbird, COMMON BABBLERS,
smart BRAHMINY
STARLINGS, a stunning ORANGE-HEADED THRUSH, INDIAN ROBINS, Oriental Magpie
Robins, GREY-HEADED CANARY FLYCATCHER, PURPLE SUNBIRD and RED AVADAVAT.
There was also a good selection of wintering
passerines scattered through the area including Siberian Chiffchaffs,
plenty of HUME’S
WARBLERS (the commonest wintering Phylloscopus warbler everywhere), Greenish Warblers, Lesser Whitethroats (presumably S. c.
halimodendri), Bluethroats and Grey
Wagtails. We just made it to the edge
of the wetlands – it was incredibly dry throughout India with no serious rains
for over two years, severely affecting what we saw and what was breeding (there
was nothing breeding while we were there where there should have been tens of
thousands of Herons, Egrets, Pelicans etc.) but waterbirds we caught up on
included INDIAN
SPOT-BILLED DUCK, Gadwall, Shoveler, Teal, Little Grebe, Purple Herons, Intermediate Egrets (including a colour ringed
bird from just outside the park four years ago), White-breasted
Waterhen and a WHITE-TAILED PLOVER.
Eastern Imperial Eagle
Egyptian Vulture
Short-toed Eagle
Bonelli's Eagle
Indian Spotted Eagle
Marsh Harrier
Shikra
