24. Trip to Keoladeo Ghana National Park, Bharatpur

This December I made a trip to Lucknow with the sole intention of accompanying my sister and Raka to Bharatpur and see the Keoladeo Ghana National Park, (named after the Keoladeo (Shiva) temple within its boundaries), once again. I had visited this most wonderful bird sanctuary long back in the year 1997 or 98, post monsoons, and suspect that is when I got infected by the ‘Birdwatching virus’. I had not seen anything like that before – there were bird hatchlings everywhere – on the trees, on the bushes, on the ground and even in the water. I could have easily touched some of them! And the sound was unbelievable! We had a Sikh Rickshawpuller cum guide who was a most colourful character and a great mimic of bird calls. I doubt though that the birds heard anything above the din and cacophony of the hatchlings.

Now after almost 15 years the park looks, by and large, the same though it faced some rough times in between, but the number of birds were nowhere close to what I had seen the last time. 
During 1726-1763 Maharaja Surajmal of Bharatpur built the Ajan Dam at the confluence of two rivers, the Gambhir and Banganga.  Later during 1850-1899 a system of dykes and canals was developed and the place modified into a duck shoot reserve. It was the hunting ground for the maharajas of Bharatpur and the British viceroys they hosted. In one shoot alone in 1938, over 4273 birds were killed by Lord Linlithgow, the then Governor General of India! It was made a National Park on 10^th March 1982 and an Heritage site in 1985. The Maharaja retained shooting rights till 1972 even though the last major shoot was in 1964.

20^th Dec 2014

We landed in Bharatpur on this bright winter morning aboard the Marudhar Express and checked into the Surya Vilaas Hotel where Raka’s Medical College Batchmates were having their ‘Batchmeet’. We did not spend too much time admiring the beautiful premises of this hotel built in the Rajasthani style, instead, right after breakfast drove down to the park (3-4kms) along with Raka’s friends. On entering the gate itself the first bird we saw was the Indian Roller called ‘Neelkanth’ in Hindi and took it as a good omen for the day ahead.

Hotel premises

The Indian Roller,'Neelkanth', harbinger of good things

Yellow footed green pigeon. 'Hariyal', the state bird of Maharashtra

Awesome twosome!

 In our excitement we proceeded on foot. We took the services of a guide. Babulal turned out to be rather knowledgeable and I learnt that he had spent 15 years as a guide and was practically born there.

I had some great sightings at the very onset of the trek when I walked ahead of my chattering group. Following a bright and handsome Greater Coucal I got distracted by these little beauties.

A lovely Bluethroat (non-breeding male), saw the female later

Blue headed canary flycatcher

Red-breasted flycatcher (female)

Babulal caught up with me and showed a couple of Collared Scop's Owls cosying up in a tree nearby.

Collared Scop's owls

Long-tailed shrike

Purple rumped sunbird

Indian Mynas

Rose ringed parakeet

White throated kingfisher

Rufous treepie

Anthocharis cardamines, an 'orange tip'

Brahminy starling

 

Neelgais prancing around

Midway down the park most of our group were tired after walking almost two kilometers. Our guide tried to perk us by saying the best was just approaching - something we would have only seen on the Discovery Channel. True to his word we soon saw the nesting painted storks and soon everybody was merrily clicking away.

Painted stork with chicks

Painted stork taking off

Spotbills

Purple heron

yellow wagtail

Lesser whistling ducks

Purple heron

A Purple moor hen with lesser whistling ducks

Cormorant drying its wings

Great Cormorant

Babulal kept our struggling group walking, telling us we will find a canteen at the end of the road. We rewarded ourselves with some tea and biscuits at lunch time after the long trek. However the trek back still remained! Some of us tried to get rickshaws but could manage only one. The rest of us braved the 4 kms back on foot again.

After a gap of a day, when we went for a visit to Fatehpur Sikri and the Taj Mahal, we returned to the park for a revisit. But that will require a second post..........
Day two of the trip