A trip to Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary or Keoladeo National Park. (Part 1)

Inside the bird sanctuary

Planning for the trip

Recently, my brother and his family came to Agra to attend a wedding in the family. As they live quite far away on a farm in a village near Chennai, frequently visiting our hometown, Agra, is not possible for them. Thus, they thought it would be a great idea to combine this family visit with some travel to a nearby place which the children might find interesting. After some discussion, we finally decided to visit the famous Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, also known as Keoladeo National Park, located at Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India. So, including a niece of ours, we were finally a group of 9 people.

I am not exactly an ornithophile (a bird-lover) or, for that matter, an animal-lover. So, the reason I agreed to this trip was purely for the sake of the kids, as I thought they might like it.

Arriving at the hotel

We reached Bharatpur on the evening of 11th Feb. The hotel that we had booked for our stay was located within walking distance from the bird sanctuary and, although not too flashy, was comfortable enough for a short stay. As we reached the hotel pretty late in the evening, we decided to stay indoors and go to sleep after finishing our dinner so that we could wake up early in the morning to visit the sanctuary.

At the bird sanctuary

Photographed by my son - Aditya Jain

The next day, we reached the sanctuary at around 9 am. One of their staff members told us that the bird sanctuary is spread in an area of about 29 square kilometres and, as such, it would be impossible to cover a substantial part of it in a day on foot. We could pick from the two available modes of transport - bicycles and rickshaws. So, we hired a rickshaw and some bicycles. Most of the bicycles were pretty rickety, so it took us quite some time to pick and choose them. After much deliberation and many trials, we finally made our picks.

Tour guides/agents were also available there, although their charges were pretty steep. So, we hired a guide for just a couple of hours. The guide had a spotting scope, which was very powerful and expensive (costing Rs. 3,10,000 or 4272 USD) and two pairs of binoculars. The rickshaw-puller too had undergone some sort of training about birds and was quite knowledgeable about them.

A short history

The sanctuary was created 250 years ago and has been named after the Keoladeo (Lord Shiva) temple located within its premises. Originally, it was used as hunting grounds by the rulers of Bharatpur. It is said that in 1938 a total of 4273 birds were killed by the then Governor-General of India, Lord Linlithgow! It was declared as a national park in 1982 and was declared as a world heritage site in 1985. It is a man-made wetland and is said to be home to 366 resident and migratory bird species.

Inside the sanctuary

At first, as I was looking at them with naked eyes, I did not find the experience of watching birds very interesting; they all looked pretty much the same with just some visible variations in shape and size. But as we moved a little bit ahead, the guide focused on a bird with the spotting scope. Now, that opened up a whole new world for me as the view was so beautiful with the bird up close to me with all its unique features in clear view. So, in my opinion, if you are visiting a bird sanctuary, then you must have a spotting scope or a set of good binoculars. Otherwise, it would seem like a very mundane and boring experience.

Intermediate Egret. Photographed by - Aditya Jain

Some of the birds that we were able to see are Painted stork, Darter (snakebird), Spotted owlet, Eurasian spoonbill, Jungle babbler, Laughing dove, Bar-headed goose, White-throated kingfisher, etc.

The White-throated kingfisher. Photographed by - Neeraj Jain

To be continued...