The fog clung to the ground in great murky blankets when I arrived at Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary on this Friday morning. At 6 AM, traffic on NH 8 via Mehrauli and Gurgaon had been thin, but my gruff but kindly Sikh cab driver held my gaze for an astonished moment in the rear-view mirror when I said I was going looking for birds. After driving more than 50 km from Delhi in bone-numbing cold and dangerous visibility levels to do
this, he must have wondered. But he only said I could have gone to Bharatpur instead. But Sultanpur, so close to Delhi (in Haryana), is a celebrated avian paradise. And winter made it especially so.
A Bluethroat, displaying its gaily banded chest, welcomed me. As the fog lifted, peafowl scuttled, but a covey of Grey Francolins grazed unperturbed on the path ahead of me. A thudding of hooves announced Nilgai. A female followed by three young calves crossed barely a hundred metres in front of me. Sarus cranes were calling, and somewhere among the reeds a Black-necked Stork was planning breakfast. The soft quackering of several migratory ducks, the trilling of Tailorbirds and at least three species of Prinia - Ashy, Plain and Graceful - provided the background music for my morning walk.
The mist lifted gently, and the view became less ghostly. Painted storks and cormorants flew overhead. In a copse to my right, two male Black Redstarts had a mild face-off. A Rufous-tailed Shrike picked a dragonfly out of mid-air and dismembered it slowly on a thorn thicket. Red-throated Flycatchers were everywhere, some males showing off their bright throats.
The water was alive with ducks. Though I was staring right into the sun, I could tell the silhouettes of Northern Shovellers and Spotbills. There were Common Teals, Lesser Whistling Ducks, Common and Crested Pochards, Tufted Ducks, Gadwall and Garganey. But among them all, sailing like frigates in a flotilla of dhows, were the Greylag Geese. Large, beautiful birds with bills of pink, they lorded over the water. Until a Eurasian Marsh Harrier scattered the ducks and extracted a shudder out of the Greylag flock. There were other raptors too - Spotted Eagles, Oriental Honey Buzzards, Black-shouldered Kites, Kestrels...
As winter wears on, these waters will attract more migrants, among them Common Cranes, Bar-headed Geese and a host of warblers and waders. And then, by March, most of them would have returned, but for the Shovellers, who are usually the last to go.
- Alexandrine Parakeet
- Ashy Prinia
- Asian Pied Starling
- Bank Myna
- Barn Swallow
- Black Kite
- Black Redstart
- Black-shouldered Kite
- Bluethroat
- Blyth's Reed Warbler
- Booted Warbler
- Common Chiffchaff
- Common Coot
- Common Kestrel
- Common Moorhen
- Common Myna
- Common Peafowl
- Common Pochard
- Common Stone Chat
- Common Tailorbird
- Common Teal
- Common Woodshrike
- Crested Pochard
- Eurasian Collared Dove
- Gadwall
- Garganey
- Great Cormorant
- Greater Spotted Eagle
- Greenish Warbler
- Grey Francolin
- Grey Heron
- Greylag Goose
- House Crow
- Indian Cormorant
- Indian Robin
- Indian Silverbill
- Large Grey Babbler
- Laughing Dove
- Lesser Whistling Duck
- Lesser Whitethroat
- Little Cormorant
- Long-tailed Shrike
- Northern Shoveller
- Oriental Honey Buzzard
- Oriental Magpie Robin
- Oriental White-eye
- Orphean Warbler
- Paddyfield Pipit
- Painted Stork
- Pied Bushchat
- Pintail
- Plain Prinia
- Pond Heron
- Purple Heron
- Purple Sunbird
- Purple Swamphen
- Red Avadavat
- Red-throated Flycatcher
- Red-wattled Lapwing
- Rose-ringed Parakeet
- Rufous-tailed Shrike
- Sarus Crane (H)
- Shikra
- Spotbill Duck
- Spotted Dove
- Yellow-eyed Babbler
- Zitting Cisticola
Video grab: Spotted Eagle
The fog clung to the ground in great murky blankets when I arrived at Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary on this Friday morning. At 6 AM, traffic on NH 8 via Mehrauli and Gurgaon had been thin, but my gruff but kindly Sikh cab driver held my gaze for an astonished moment in the rear-view mirror when I said I was going looking for birds. After driving more than 50 km from Delhi in bone-numbing cold and dangerous visibility levels to do this, he must have wondered. But he only said I could have gone to Bharatpur instead. But Sultanpur, so close to Delhi (in Haryana), is a celebrated avian paradise. And winter made it especially so.
A Bluethroat, displaying its gaily banded chest, welcomed me. As the fog lifted, peafowl scuttled, but a covey of Grey Francolins grazed unperturbed on the path ahead of me. A thudding of hooves announced Nilgai. A female followed by three young calves crossed barely a hundred metres in front of me. Sarus cranes were calling, and somewhere among the reeds a Black-necked Stork was planning breakfast. The soft quackering of several migratory ducks, the trilling of Tailorbirds and at least three species of Prinia - Ashy, Plain and Graceful - provided the background music for my morning walk.
The mist lifted gently, and the view became less ghostly. Painted storks and cormorants flew overhead. In a copse to my right, two male Black Redstarts had a mild face-off. A Rufous-tailed Shrike picked a dragonfly out of mid-air and dismembered it slowly on a thorn thicket. Red-throated Flycatchers were everywhere, some males showing off their bright throats.
The water was alive with ducks. Though I was staring right into the sun, I could tell the silhouettes of Northern Shovellers and Spotbills. There were Common Teals, Lesser Whistling Ducks, Common and Crested Pochards, Tufted Ducks, Gadwall and Garganey. But among them all, sailing like frigates in a flotilla of dhows, were the Greylag Geese. Large, beautiful birds with bills of pink, they lorded over the water. Until a Eurasian Marsh Harrier scattered the ducks and extracted a shudder out of the Greylag flock. There were other raptors too - Spotted Eagles, Oriental Honey Buzzards, Black-shouldered Kites, Kestrels...
As winter wears on, these waters will attract more migrants, among them Common Cranes, Bar-headed Geese and a host of warblers and waders. And then, by March, most of them would have returned, but for the Shovellers, who are usually the last to go.