My Tour to Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary: A Fantasy of Feathers

The story starts with the dense greens of Bharatpur National Park in Rajasthan, about 56 km from Agra, when I found myself in waist deep water while attempting to file some Siberian Cranes. I put the stand and camera on my shoulders and got a hide out constructed as the birds were frightened. The hide out was like a small thatched hut, two meters high with a few peep holes for the tele-lens. That was the most exciting experience of my life when I was trying to capture some best birds in my camera.

Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary

In this bird paradise, I also spotted sambars, bluebulls, wild boars, blackbuck and nilgai waded through Bharatpur Lake. Though a guide told me that lucky tourists can also get to see jungle cat, leopard cat, fishing cat, chital, chinkara and a few reptiles in the forest – but I didn’t get that opportunity. The sun was up and the birds started moving around, and I was happy with the view. My movie camera, an Éclair, also began to whirl. Serving as one of the finest bird parks in the world, Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary (Keoladeo Ghana National Park) is a reserve that offers protection to faunal species as well.

Looking back to its origin, Keoladeo was named after an ancient Hindu temple standing at he centre of the park, devoted to Lord Shiva. On the other side, 'Ghana' means dense, which refers to the thick forest. Wildlife texts and books claim that the park serves as a home to over 400 species of birds including cranes, pelicans, geese, ducks, eagles, hawks, shanks, stints, wagtails, warblers, flycatchers, buntings, larks and pipits, etc. But I visited the park for three consecutive days just to have a glimpse of the world-famous Siberian Cranes.

I was unlucky for that glimpse, but one afternoon, a Kingfisher came near the Bharatpur Lake and starting hunting its prey. Its technique was very interesting. It hovered at a fixed point in the sky keeping a watch over the fish in the water. As soon as a shoal of fish came directly below, it would dive – its aim was unerring. It caught its prey every time. One of the twigs in my hideout was projected. The kingfisher perched itself on it to devour its catch. All this was happening so close to me that the water drops flung away by the bird fell on the tele-lens. I could observe the bird, but it could not spot me! 

I also enjoyed a trip to the forest trails, which I covered on foot. I enjoyed the best experience of bird watching there. A guide assisted me throughout the trail, who told me that the park has a total area of about 2900 hectares (29 sq km), mostly low lying land that gets inundated by rainwater. During monsoon & winter, 500 hectares of land are transformed into a vast natural lake. This 'Ornithologist's Paradise' was declared a National Park on 10^th March 1982, and later a World Heritage Site in December 1985. Flora at Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary consists of 64 families, 181 genera and 227 subspecies – of which I captured almost all the major ones, I think!

The abundance of aquatic vegetation, fish, frogs, insects, mollusk & plankton in shallow and widespread waters provide ideal conditions for nesting. More than 400,000 birds belonging to over 400 species arrive at Bharatpur every year. The Bombay Natural History Society has been studying the migration of the birds that come to Bharatpur for quite some time by putting rings on the legs of nestlings. The entire bird sanctuary becomes a vast breeding sanctuary for birds during the rainy season.