One of the best locations for sighting large congregations of the Sarus cranes in India, Dhanauri wetlands, off the Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida near Delhi, has become famous among bird lovers over the past few years. These magnificent birds – the state bird of Uttar Pradesh – are sighted throughout the year in their varying numbers in and around this breeding location.  Visiting Dhanauri is always an exciting day trip for birders and their families in Delhi NCR. Once you get off the expressway near the Buddh International Circuit by paying a Rs.30 toll, and cross Dankau ..read more

Crested serpent eagle It was one of those sudden decisions one takes, when a weekend dawns and one yearns to escape the concrete jungle and enjoy a day of communion with nature. I usually go on such trips with my birding group - Delhi Bird Photographers, but this was a Friday, and since I didn’t have time to organize a large trip, decided to go on an unplanned adventure with a smaller group of four friends. We started at 11 pm after dinner from New Delhi by car, and hit the highway using the GPS with coordinates marked for Haridwar, a temple town not far from the Rajaji National Park ..read more

  Mute swan This visit happened without any advance planning. During a trip to New York, I was pleasantly surprised when a birder friend, a doctor, called up asking if we could meet up and go birding somewhere. We had met a year ago during his visit to India, where I had taken him to Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary and nearby areas in Gurgaon for photographing birds. He felt it was his turn now to show me around New York's birding locations! This wasn't the first time such a thing happened. Birding as a hobby draws enthusiasts to its fold, creating a strong network of like-minded hobbyi ..read more

  Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur, is renowned for its migratory birds that descend upon the sanctuary in large numbers during the winter months. It is also known for the breeding and nesting of waterfowl during the monsoon months. However, many birding enthusiasts and visitors do not know the extent of wildlife that this park hosts during the rest of the year. This third and final blog post of the trilogy on this birding heaven tracks the period immediately after migration, when the weather starts getting hotter from March to the time when the monsoon clouds bring much-needed relief ..read more

Painted Stork Bharatpur is a birding haven for all seasons. Many of us birders start dreaming of a visit to Bharatpur when the dark monsoon clouds roll in, with the cool showers giving some respite from the scorching heat of the long Indian summer. This is the time when the cuckoos and koels make their presence felt through their melodious tunes, while waterfowl migrate to their traditional waterbodies to commence nesting and breeding at raucous heronries and grassy wetlands. The trees look greener after the rains have washed away the coating of dust from the leafy boughs, while spro ..read more

Every few months, I pack my bags and my camera and set off to the destination that every bird enthusiast in New Delhi, India, dreams of going again and again. It is Bharatpur, where 375 species of birds make it their permanent or temporary home, and where birders are welcome 365 days of the year where each season is starkly different – from local residents and summer migrants from spring to the monsoons, breeding waterbirds during the autumnal rainy season and the foreign migrants in the winters. Black-necked stork Greylag goose Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajastha ..read more

Bar-headed geese at Basai wetlands While the rainy season offers the birders of Delhi NCR a plethora of opportunities to sight birds in their mating rituals, nest building and raising their young – especially in the areas of Basai wetlands and its neighboring Sultanpur fields and Najafgarh lake, a sense of melancholy sets in soon thereafter. The nestlings fledge and the frenzy of birding activity subsides quickly. The months of September and October are the most uninteresting time for birding – in my opinion, when trips to birding locations become bereft of good sightings. Ru ..read more

Common kingfisher While most of the parks, forests, grasslands, fields and wetlands of India’s National Capital Region of Delhi turns into a birder’s paradise in winter, there are some places that truly come to life during the monsoon as a hub for those with a passion for birdwatching. Basai wetlands on the outskirts of Gurugram on the road to the famed Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary in Haryana is one such destination! Winter brings thousands of migrating birds to these wetlands, but this is a place one should visit even during the rains. Black-winged stilt I have been visiting thi ..read more

Machli (T-16), a year before she died This week, on 17th August, many wildlife enthusiasts and especially tiger lovers would have solemnly observed the 4thdeath anniversary of one of India’s best loved feline – Machli, the Queen of Ranthambore National Park. After 19 years of illustrious reign over the jungle and the hearts of her visitors, she just cannot be forgotten. She was called Machli (fish, in Hindi language) for the fish-shaped mark on the left ear of her face. Her life story and adventures have been captured on film, her pictures splashed across countless magazine spreads, j ..read more

Grey-headed canary flycatcher The Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand evokes instant mental visuals of its famed tigers, that is the stuff of folklore most of us in India grew up with. The tales of the famed tiger hunter-later-turned-conservationist Jim Corbett, playing mind games with intelligent maneaters and eventually killing them have been burned so deep into our collective consciousness that one associates nothing else with this sanctuary than these big cats. So, what is a bird lover doing in these jungles? It is true that Corbett is home to one of the largest populations of ti ..read more