Desert habitat, while beautiful in its own right, looks amazingly barren upon first glance. The truth is, it is quite barren, at least relatively speaking. You can scan out into the distance and see nothing more than a blue sky above, a brown, cracked Earth below, and a mirage of what appears to be an ocean of water thanks to the incredible heat distortion reflecting off of the ground. But there are plants and animals that call this harsh habitat home if you take a closer look. And we were here to see them. We were heading to the Little Rann of Kutch and if the above description paints any kind of picture for you, that is exactly what we saw when we got there.
We had driven the 5 hours from Mt Abu (#8 on map) and arrived at “Desert Coursers,” (#9 on map) a small ecotourism lodge in the heart of Zainabad with cottages to sleep in and the means to provide guests with safari tours. The main draw for birders to come here is the Skye’s Nightjar, but throw in Macqueens Bustard, Greater Hoopoe-Lark, and Pallid Scops-Owl and you soon realize why everyone visits this place. Truthfully the accommodation is rather basic but it is well managed and the mosaic designs on the buildings add a whimsical charm. When we arrived we were shown not one, not two, but three day-roosting Pallid Scops-Owls and when darkness fell we headed out on the back of a Jeep in search of nightjars. We had already seen a day-roosting Syke’s Nightjar at Akhil Fossil Park, but the up close and personal views of the birds at night were unforgettable. (Ross even took a pretty nifty photo of Stephan WITH his 6,000th bird.) Comparing the lighter plumage of the Sykes with the darker plumage of Indian Nightjar added to the appeal. In the end we saw a total of 3 Syke’s Nightjars so it was a very successful night despite not seeing any mammals. We then went back to our cottages, ate a delicious late vegetarian dinner and headed to bed.
The following morning we headed out into The Little Rann of Kutch in search of Macqueens Bustard, our prime target bird which the owner of Desert Coursers very confidently told us we would not see (the extreme drought is taking a serious toll on them). We proved him wrong however when we had a total of five Macqueens Bustards within the Little Rann by 8:30AM. We were lucky for sure. However, no decent photos to show for it because there was an additional fee that you had to pay if you wanted to take photos — $20 per camera! Naturally we all left them back at the lodge to avoid the ridiculous overcharge! Therefore the only photos we took during our seven-hour safari ride were what we managed with cell phones, often pressed against the lens of our binoculars or scope. Luckily Julien was swift with a “digi-bin” photo of the Bustards in flight! I too managed to digi-bin the bustards in flight but both of our photos turned out the same — distant and blurry.
With our number one target in the bag we headed out into the desert to see whatever else we could pick up, our next big target being Greater Hoopoe Lark. The lodge had packed us a bit of a breakfast so we stopped in the middle of the desert and ate some hard boiled eggs and drank some tea while a young Pallid Harrier flew by offering up excellent views, certainly much better views than we had earlier in the trip. The next several hours were spent in the desert, riding around in the back of a pickup truck with row bench seats tailored for a safari ride, often travelling at speeds of 110km/hour (!!!!) as we searched for Greater Hoopoe Lark. Julien, a guide for Birdquest, had recently come back from a tour to Oman so several of the birds in this area of the world were to overlap where he had just visited! All through the trip when we were struggling to find a bird he would joke to us saying “this is common in Oman” or “you can just see it in Oman” or “an easy bird in Oman.” Guess where Greater Hoopoe Lark is found? Oman. So for the later hours of our quest to find one, he informed us it was no big deal as we could just “see it in Oman” (over and over and over again!) We had travelled quite a distance when we arrived at a known location for our target lark. It was a small oasis of low shrubs and rocky outcrops that seemed perfect for a lark to hang out in, but no such luck. In fact, our “luck,” or lack thereof, continued when our tire went completely flat while we were out in the middle of nowhere! Ross remarked that our driver should work for NASCAR because he had it changed in record time. Never go into the desert unprepared. It was at this point however that we all decided to call it quits and head back to the guest house figuring that this simply wasn’t a good time of day for the lark (and of course we could just see it in Oman some other time!). Once again we hunkered down in the open back of the pickup truck and prepared for the high winds to be blasted into our faces as we drove back at ungodly speeds. You know I don’t really believe in luck, but whatever luck we had wasn’t all bad because as we were driving home through seemingly nothingness, we came across a Greater Hoopoe Lark right on the side of the “road”! All that time travelling to known locations and here it was on the “main” road that we happened to take back. The bird ran alongside of us, not really bothered by our presence. This lark inhabits extreme desert temperatures and is unique due to its size and down-curved bill which it uses to dig prey out from under the sand. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the bird use his/her bright white legs to run around in the dirt all while attempting to capture images with a cell phone through our binoculars/scope (which was midly successful by the way!) After sufficient views we continued on our way and after only 5 km came across another!
It was a late lunch back at Desert Coursers Guesthouse and then an afternoon spent meandering around farmers fields searching for Indian Courser. We turned up empty handed regarding the courser but did have quick views of Little Button-Quail. Ross once again went out searching for Pallid Scops-owls at night but no luck there (but he did watch the one wake up from the roost and give a few calls very similar to Moluccan Scops Owl, before it took off into the night). I was mostly excited to get back and wash my wind blown, tangled hair. Let me tell you, travelling in the back of a pickup truck all day will do quite a number to long hair!
The following morning we left early with the promise that Sociable Lapwings, a critically endangered shorebird, once widespread through central Asia but now rare with a population of 12,000, had been found within driving distance. (In layman’s terms, a rarity showed up and we were going to chase it.) We coordinated with the owner of Desert Coursers to pick up Latif (or maybe Latif’s brother we aren’t really sure?) near Nalsarovar and head to the spot. I guess a lot of Indian birders had gotten wind of the news as a total of 18 birders/photographers were there to twitch the flock of birds as well. It was a rather comical experience. And as is common amongst photographers who aren’t birders, ethics towards the birds are subpar. The best photograph requires getting closer and closer and closer until all of the birds flush up into the air. You can guess what happened to the lapwings during our visit. Among the Sociable Lapwings we had the ever common Red-wattled Lapwings and our first Yellow-Wattled Lapwings of the trip. Julien then spotted another target as we were leaving in the form of a nice male Red-headed Bunting sitting on a wire amongst the Rock Pigeons. We joked that Julien kept pulling birds out of his ass because he was finding things left and right even in places we had already looked! Seriously the birds would just fly in when he was looking!
Next Latif took us to a field hoping we might spot our next target, Indian Courser. It was a fruitful outing as we had four Indian Coursers feeding in front of us. The 2000 rupees ($28USD split 4 ways) to hire Latif was money well spent. Arguably Sociable Lapwing was the second best bird of the trip and one we never expected. A nice bonus for sure.
We could have spent all morning photographing the flying larks (Greater Short-toed & Bimaculated), but we had a long drive ahead of us so we hit the road, once again piling six people and a total of 10 bags into our Toyota Innova. We were off in the direction of The Greater Rann of Kutch. We managed to find lodging at JP Resort since the Ocean and Desert Center was full.
Hey, I’ve been seeing a few of your eBird lists in Chester Co., PA, are you living there now?
Nick Pulcinella West Chester, PA
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Hey Nick, yes we moved to West Chester late last fall!