India – The Final Leg

Let me start by saying that while the majority of our time in India was spent in the desert, not all of India can even remotely be classified as a desert. In fact, the geography of India is extremely diverse. There’s a wide-range of mountains, plains, hills, and plateaus in addition to desert. And actually, most of Southern India lies on a peninsula protruding into the Indian Ocean so there’s plenty of beaches too. India is a beautiful destination with beautiful souls boasting some of the world’s most exotic treasures and I’m excited to visit all of these different parts of India. But as you know by now, we spent the majority of our 18 days in India’s desert and while desert habitat can really start to grow on you, we were excited to see just a little bit more of what India had to offer.

So after finishing up in the Rann of Kutch, we headed off to our next birding location Pariej Lake (#15 on map), a marsh that Ross found while scouring over Indian eBird records and only a mere 5 hour drive away. After checking out the satellite imagery of the area, Ross was convinced that it would be nice spot to bird and definitely worth the drive. Of course we could have slept in and enjoyed a relaxing day in Ahmedabad before our flight to Mumbai, but no, according to Ross that would be taboo. Ross doesn’t get to go birding as much as he would like given that he spends roughly 10-16 hours a day looking at a computer screen living the corporate dream, (ha!) so he was hell-bent on maximizing his time while on this side of the world. Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong on the way to getting there did. It was missed hotels, sketchy hotels, no rooms available hotels, and a bridge being out causing us to backtrack into the city of Ahmedabad to find a hotel only to show up and be told “no foreigners allowed.” What? Yes, Seriously. The conversation went something like “do you have rooms available?” “Yes, but where are you from?” and when Julien and Killian replied “Switzerland” they said “Sorry, you can’t stay here. No foreigners allowed in our hotel.” Which was really unfortunate because it looked like a rather nice hotel. It wasn’t until super late and many additional miles of backtracking that we finally were able to rest inside of a bed. Only two rooms were available, but we didn’t care, we did as we had before and Ross, myself, Julien, and Killian took one room while Claudia and Stephan took the other. I was a bit worried that with the 4am wake up the following morning after an unreasonably late night, everyone would be upset with Ross for wanting to continue to go hard. Thankfully everyone arrived at the car at 4am as anticipated and we hit the road for the final leg of our drive to Pariej Lake and the surrounding farmland. The scenery wasn’t much to look at, but as Killian remarked after a successful morning of birding, this was his “most enjoyable morning of birding during the whole trip.”

The morning started out at a small marsh where hundreds of ducks had roosted including Garganey, Cotton Pygmy-Goose, Eurasian Wigeons, and Green-winged Teal. The reeds held Ruddy-breasted Crake and Baya Weaver while the fields had Sarus Crane and a dozen different shorebird species. Soon we moved on to a roadside pond near the main lake that was once again loaded with birds. Highlights included Graylag and Bar-headed Goose, Pied Avocet, and an amazing flock of 200 Small Pratincoles.

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From the marsh we grabbed a quick bite to eat. Another dose of masala chai and “balls” for breakfast. (We affectionately referred to them as “balls” during our trip but after a quick google search learned that suji might be a more appropriate term.)

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After eating a bit, we headed off to nearby fields and quickly found ourselves amongst thousands of more birds. A single crane flock included Demoiselle, Sarus, & Common Cranes while scores of Black-headed and Red-headed Buntings winged overhead. We found some pratincoles that we flipped flopped the IDs of for a while, but eventually determined that they all were all Collared Pratincoles and our main target of the morning, Indian Spotted Eagle put in a grand appearance by doing a close fly-by. By lunch time we had covered all the areas we wanted to check and had amassed 145 species for a morning of leisurely birding! From here is was time to head back to Ahmedabad to return the rental car and get ready for our trip to the airport.

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We weren’t headed to the airport to say goodbye to India, at least not yet. Instead we went to the airport to catch our flight to Mumbai to tick our last main target of the trip, Forest Owlet. Mumbai felt like another world when we stepped off the plane compared to the deserts we had been in during the majority of the trip. There were trees! Big, green trees. And they were all over the place! The air was warm and a bit more humid. It just seemed like a much more hospitable place! Although I really did start to appreciate the little hidden treasures one can find in the desert, I love trees so much that I was so happy to be surrounded by them again! We opted to hire a driver at the airport because we figured that the cost to rent a car coupled with the difficulty and inconveniences Julien and Killian experienced picking up our rental in New Delhi, would make this a much more practical option. Our driver skillfully maneuvered us out of the bustling metropolis of Mumbai and back into the much more rural areas as we journeyed to Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary.

Once arriving at Tansa, getting access to the area we wanted to search for the Forest Owlet turned out to be a bit trickier than originally thought, but after talking to a few people and paying some military guy a small bribe, we were on our way to find the recently re-discovered Forest Owlet. By the time we got to the spot, it was the middle of the afternoon and quite hot. Luckily the owlet didn’t seem to care and responded to the tape almost immediately. Unfortunately it only would call sporadically and it took us a few hours to finally track the little bugger down, but eventually we got nice looks at two Forest Owlets. That evening we tried for Mottled Wood Owl, but only managed to hear them.

Having only a single morning left, Ross, Julien, Killian and myself decided to leave the hotel at 0300 and try again for the Mottled Wood Owls while Stephan and Claudia stayed behind. When we arrived at the spot, multiple wood owls were calling, but seeing one proved much harder. We walked, played tape, listened to some wood-owls calling, chased after them, and walked some more, played tape some more, listened some more, chased after a calling bird some more and had all but admitted defeat as dawn approached when Julien said, just try the tape one last time (up to that point, none had been responsive). Just like that, a Mottled Wood Owl aggressively flew in and landed above our heads, and it was light enough out to not even need to use a flashlight! Having seen the owlet well the day prior, we spent an enjoyable morning tracking down our last target, Vigor’s Sunbird. Along with the sunbird we saw a number of other interesting species for the morning including Indian Gray Hornbill, White-naped Woodpecker, Tawny-bellied Babbler, and Jerdon’s Leafbird. Although it was another enjoyable morning, by 10AM we had to leave to collect our bags at the hotel and head directly to the airport. Our time in India had come to an end and it was time to head back to reality!

It was an enjoyable trip to India and overall a great success. We had not only seen our number one target, Great Indian Bustard, but had it as the first bird of the year! We had seen so many good birds, and ticked a few surprises that it’s hard to leave with any feeling other than one of satisfaction. Julien as a bird guide for BirdQuest was headed to lead a tour. Stephan and Claudia were in search of Red Panda, and Killian was staying in India for some additional time working on a survey project. Unfortunately for us it was time to say goodbye to our friends and head back to reality!