Keoladeo Ghana Nationa Park India

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.