Gujarat Birds and Wildlife

Arrive in Ahmedabad where you will be met and transferred to the hotel for relaxation and an overnight stay.

We initially spend some time at Nal Sarovar Bird Sanctuary, a vast shallow marshland with a super variety of birds including an enviable list of Indian rarities! We then drive to Velavadar National Park, with birding in the vicinity of the park if we have time in the late afternoon. Accommodation is at the aptly-named Blackbuck Safari Lodge.

Whilst Velavadar National Park is famous for conserving the largest population of Blackbuck remaining in India, it is also an excellent location for other mammals, including Indian Wolf, Golden Jackal and Striped Hyena. For birders the extensive grasslands are a fantastic habitat. We will have morning and afternoon safaris to explore for White-eyed Buzzard, White-rumped and Indian Vultures, Grey and Painted Francolins, Laggar and Red-necked Falcons, Indian and Singing Bush Larks. Lesser Florican breeds here in good numbers in the monsoon, but is unfortunately near impossible to find at other times of year. We will catch the amazing spectacle of the evening harrier roost, with many Montagu’s, Pallid and Marsh flying in all around us before dropping down into the grass for the night.

Leaving Velavadar in the morning we drive to Gir National Park in time for a late lunch, and afternoon birding (and hopefully mammal-ing!) outside the park.

Sasan Gir, or Gir National Park, is an area of dry deciduous forest famous as the only remaining site in the world for the Asiatic Lion. This subspecies of Lion once ranged from the edge of Europe in Turkey, all across Asia to eastern India, but was driven almost to extinction by hunting. Thankfully numbers have recovered to several hundred now, but with the entire population restricted to an area less than the size of Greater London, they are precariously vulnerable to disease, poaching, and have to share much of this land with an increasing human population and their cattle and crops. Gir also supports a large population of Leopards, as well as Chinkara and Chousingha, the Four-horned Antelope. Gir also supports a varied birdlife, including Indian Thick-knee, Brown Fish and Mottled Wood Owls, Indian Pitta, Egyptian Vulture, Changeable Hawk Eagle, Laggar Falcon, Black-headed Cuckooshrike, White-bellied Minivet, Indian Paradise Flycatcher, Marshall’s Iora, Tawny-bellied and Yellow-eyed Babblers, and Rufous-fronted Prinia. We will enjoy morning and afternoon safaris by open jeep to explore the forest and surroundings.

After enjoying a final morning jeep safari and an early lunch, we will drive north to Jamnagar.

Jamnagar on the southern shore of the Gulf of Kutch is a Marine National Park, protecting large numbers of passage and wintering gulls, terns and waders, and is the best site in India for the unique Crab Plover. We will visit the Khijadiya Bird Sanctuary on the Ruparen River, one of the prime sites here, with a combination of saline and freshwater lagoons supporting many thousands of wintering birds, including Common Cranes, Black-necked Stork, Greater and Lesser Flamingos, Great White and Dalmatian Pelicans, waders including Great Thick-knee, White-tailed Lapwing, Broad-billed and Terek Sandpipers, and Indian Skimmer. Our full day in the Jamnagar area will allow us to explore a few sites in the area. Narara Bet and Pirotan Islands support huge numbers of birds, although permits are not always available for these protected areas inside the National Park, particularly the latter which is only accessible by boat. Regardless, there is plenty to be seen in more accessible areas. Even Lakhota Lake in the heart of the city attracts large numbers of gulls with the chance of something unusual. We will see many species overall, potentially including Great Crested Grebe, Western Reef Egret, Pallas’s Gull, Caspian Tern, Greater Spotted Eagle, Rufous-tailed Shrike, Sand Lark and Rosy Starlings.

After an early breakfast we drive to Bhuj and check in to the fabulous CEDO (Centre for Desert and Ocean) Homestay. This camp has great in-house naturalists, and is directly involved in major social and conservation-related initiatives in the Kutch (or “Kachchh”) area. We will have the afternoon for birding, most likely to Fulay in the Banni grasslands or Chhari-Dhand wetlands.

We will spend three full days exploring different areas of the Greater Rann of Kutch. and the northern coast of the Gulf of Kutch. The Great Rann is one of the largest salt deserts in the world, at the southern edge of the Thar Desert which is mostly in Rajasthan. At first glance an inhospitable sun-parched habitat, it is also a landscape rich in bird and animal life. The monsoon leaves natural depressions, or chands, some of which remain filled with water through the winter and attract huge numbers of wildfowl and waters, with raptors and larks in the dry surrounding grassland. One key target is the unusual Grey Hypocolius, the only member of its family and only known from one regular wintering site in India, around the Fulay village in the Banni grasslands. Sadly the Great Indian Bustard seems doomed in this traditional area of its range, with the population at Naliya, Lala Bustard Sanctuary, now only including one male. Instead we will concentrate on other key birds in the different habitats in and around the Rann. White-naped Tit, Stoliczka’s Bushchat, Marshall’s Iora and Rock Bush-Quail are targets in the Chaduva or Fot Mahadev thorn forest, with Indian and Cream-coloured Coursers, Sandgrouse potentially including Spotted and Black-bellied, Red-tailed Wheatear and Grey-necked and Striolated Buntings other good birds of Kutch. A visit to the coastal areas of Mandvi or Pingleshwar further west should produce large flocks of gulls and waders, including Crab Plover. En route we can visit a vulture site near Poladia and Topansar Lake.

A long drive east today, as we move from Bhuj to the Little Rann of Kutch.

A full day in and around the Little Rann will also include visits to wetland areas, such as the Bajana Creek and Nawa Talao lake. Here both Demoiselle and Common Cranes can be found in large numbers, with both Greater and Lesser Flamingos, and Great White and Dalmatian Pelicans. Other birds could include the mighty Black-necked Stork, large flocks of wildfowl and waders including Knob-billed Duck and White-tailed Lapwing, Graceful Prinia, Desert and Variable Wheatears, Rufous-tailed and Bay-backed Shrikes, and Grey-necked Bunting. In the Little Rann itself the bets – elevated islands within the salt desert covered with scrub and grasslands – are a unique habitat providing excellent opportunities for birding and wildlife viewing. As well as the herds of Asiatic Wild Ass we should also see Nilgai and Chinkara and maybe Desert Fox, Jungle Cat and, at night, Pale and Long-eared Hedgehogs.

After morning birding in the Little Rann and the saline desert and surrounding grasslands near the lodge we drive back to Ahmedabad by evening where we stay overnight before departures home the following morning.

Depending on flight timings, check out and transfer to Ahmedabad airport for onward flights home. Or maybe stay in West India and look for the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard in the Desert National Park in Rajasthan? Or a change of scene and a chance to find another incredible big cat, and lots more birds, on another of our India tours…?!