Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Birding at Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur

Dianne, here's the list for you. Much of what the park is famous for is missing because water has been diverted for irrigation for farmers. So the wetlands are mainly drylands. All the waterfowl that usually stop off here from Siberia (cranes) and from Africa are elsewhere because there are no wetlands here.

We went out the first evening from 3-6 and saw:
jungle babblers
Rufous tree pie (This was one I caught a picture of at JNU)
Lesser Golden woodpecker
Scops Owl
Coucal
Red vented Bulbul
Bromely starling
While breasted watrhen
White cheeked bulbul
spotted owlette
Rosering parakeet (they are actually all over India)
white throated kingfisher
chip-chip (need to look up the right spelling)
plain plenia (again need to check spelling)
Indian Roller (Blue Jay)
Orange headed ground thrush - well, I saw it, and the guide identified it as a Siberian visitor that is rare, but I couldn't really tell what I saw

Some animals that day were antelope, spotted deer, Indian soft shelled turtle, and a golden jackel (very cool, the last one)

The next day we went from 6:30-9:30am. We didn't see a lot of new ones, but went looking for and found:
a long tailed night jar
dusky hawk owl

Both were amazing. The owl more so because we really went chasing it. We saw a glimpse, then it flew away. We found it again and it flew away. And once more. The parakeets and crows were harrassing it. Then the guide found it again and it just sat there staring at us as we stared back in the glasses. He was incredible - those big yellow eyes.

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