If you like birding to be ridiculously easy, there may be no
better place in the world for you than the Keoladeo Ghana National Park in
northern India. Usually, known simply as Bharatpur, this site is small (only 29
sq km in area), flat, ease of access, and it simply teems with birds for most
of the year. Over 400 species have been recorded here, and it is not at all
unusual to see 150 in a single day (in the winter). Not much effort is required
to observe the masses of herons, ducks, cormorants, and storks on the flooded
lakes (jheels); they are there in front of you, and often allow a close
approach. Your only problem is to identify them all.
Keoladeo Ghana lies on the Gangetic Plain 180 km south of
Delhi and 60 km west of Agra. It is an ‘island’ in a vast flat area of
cultivation and its continued existence in such a populous region is a quirk of
history. It seems that there were always marshes in the area but in 1890 the
Maharajah of Bharatpur, who was keen on duck shooting, extended and enclosed
the local wetland by setting up a network of canals and earthen embankments,
known as bunds. He henceforth used his newly created reserve for ‘sport’,
inviting various visitors and dignitaries to join him on regular massacres of
the wildfowl. But happily, despite the persecution, the birds kept coming, and
by the 1960s they were afforded protection by the government of India.
Then, largely thanks to pressure from the great Indian
conservationist Dr Salim Ali, the national park was declared in 1982. The most
obvious inhabitants of Bharatpur are the waterbirds, which can be divided into
residents and migrants. The monsoon season lasts from July to September, and
this encourages many tree-nesting species to set up colonies in the branches of
the acacias that grow on islands within the jheels. Throughout the reserve some
50,000 pairs of large water birds nest, including Little and Indian Cormorants,
Darter, four species of egret, including Intermediate Egret, Black-crowned
Night-Heron, Grey Heron, Painted and Black-necked Storks, Asian Openbill,
Black-headed Ibis and Eurasian Spoonbill. Many colonies are mixed, allowing
superb comparisons of all the species.
They are so easy to see and so close that you have to pinch
yourself to realize you are not in a safari park or zoo. In the surrounding
marshes, there are dozens of other colorful or interesting breeding birds to
see. These include the delightful long-toed Pheasant-tailed and Bronze-winged
Jacanas, which trot energetically over the emergent vegetation, plus ubiquitous
Indian Pond Herons, White-breasted Waterhens and Purple Swamp-hens. Sarus
Cranes walk sedately over the marshes, towering over everything else, while
less obvious ‘birders’ birds’ well worth searching for include the weird
Greater Painted Snipe and the highly secretive Black Bittern.
From October onwards these resident species are joined by
many thousands of wintering Palearctic water birds. One of the commonest, the
Barheaded Goose comes here after an epic flight that takes it over the peaks
of the Himalayas; it has been recorded flying at 9,000–10,000 m altitude, and
studies have shown that it has four types of hemoglobin in its blood, each
working at different partial pressures of oxygen. Alongside it, many of the
ducks sharing the jheels in winter will be familiar to visitors from Europe or
North America, and include large numbers of Gadwalls, Northern Pintails,
Eurasian Teals and Northern Shovelers.
However, mixed in among them are good numbers of more
typically Asian species, including the resident Indian Spot-billed Duck, Lesser
Whistling Duck and Cotton Pygmy Goose. Bharatpur is also famous for its birds
of prey and, again, these can be divided into residents and winter visitors.
One of the most important of the former is the sedentary Indian Spotted Eagle,
which is now a very rare bird indeed; there is usually one pair on the reserve.
The crisis among Indian vultures has hit here as everywhere; the White-rumped
and Indian have disappeared, while the more solitary Redheaded Vulture still
hangs on. Winter is the best time for birds of prey, when dozens may come to
Bharatpur from Eurasia to spend the season harassing the water birds. One of
the most numerous, often numbering 30 or more, is the Greater Spotted Eagle, a
bird that can be extremely difficult to find in its breeding haunts: Bharatpur
is probably the best place in the world to see it.
There can also be a few Eastern Imperial, Steppe and
Bonelli’s Eagles on-site, all of which loaf about in the trees for hours on
end, causing identification headaches for visiting birders. Less tricky are the
numerous Western Marsh Harriers, and the snake-eating Short-toed Eagle, which
is found around the drier parts of the reserve.
Once you have got to grips with
the larger birds you begin to notice that there are plenty of small passerines
around as well. Not content with being fantastic for waterbirds and raptors,
Bharatpur in winter is a superb place for catching up with mouthwatering
migrants from northern and central Asia. One of the best places is known as ‘The
Nursery’, close to the barrier where you present your tickets, where there are
scattered bushes and trees.
Such
gems as Bluethroat, Siberian Rubythroat and
Red-breasted and Taiga Flycatchers can be found here, along with
Tickell’s and
Orange-headed Thrushes. If all these birds are too easy for you, a fine
range
of difficult wintering warblers will tax your skills to the full: these
include
Sykes’s, Dusky, Hume’s Leaf, Blyth’s Reed, and Paddyfield Warblers,
together
with two specialties, Smoky Warbler and Brooks’s Leaf Warbler.
In short,
there
is something for everyone here, whatever their birding ability and the
sheer number of birds can be almost overwhelming. You could easily spend
a month at
this marvelous reserve and still be seeing new species right to the end.
In
recent years Bharatpur has suffered a major water shortage, mainly
caused by
its source of water being siphoned off for other uses, leading to fears
that it
would become degraded and lose its value as a reserve. Hopefully, this
crisis
can be remedied so that Bharatpur can continue to be flushed with water
and
birds.
