best birds: Winter India Part 1: Jaipur, Rajasthan

When the chance to go on a school trip to India first presented itself, I was hesitant to get on board. A whole holidays to spend looking at buildings and breathing in pollution? No thanks. After the information evening, I got home and looked up “birds of India”, to my surprise, finding that it was in fact extremely awesome for birds. As the planning progressed throughout 2010, and the itinerary became more solid, the trip began to take shape. As well as visiting some very cool places, and getting a feel for a completely different culture, we also happened to be travelling along the major birding route of northern India. I had my field guide, it was full of notes on identification in my terrible handwriting, and I was ready. Note that this report is mostly about the birds, but I will stray into other things we did if I feel like it!

On the 27^th of December, we said farewell to Australia, and our group boarded the flight. Wit ha stopover in Bangkok, we didn’t arrive until 11:37pm. We said farewell to the other team, and 14 of us (12 students, a maths teacher, and our leader), headed off for our first night in Delhi.

The next day, we drove to Jaipur. I spent a lot of the 4 hour drive trying to ID as much as I could through a window as the bus was doing 80km’s. House Crow, Common Myna, Bank Myna, White-throated Kingfisher, Eurasian Collared Dove, Black-winged Stilt and Red-vented Bulbul being the main birds seen. Arriving in Jaipur we found a nice hotel and luckily, they had enough room for us all. The rest of the day was spent looking around, shopping, and playing cards.

An early wake up saw us heading to the Hawa Mahal, a beautiful palace in the middle of the city, and the observatory, full of instruments designed to measure the heavens from hundreds of years ago, all on a massive scale. As well as the common Northern Palm Squirrel, Rose-ringed Parakeets were common, and a pair of Brown Rock Chats made up for the annoyance of the childrens’ kites flying all over the city, which I kept thinking were real kites…

Following our time in Jaipur, we headed to Vatsalya Udayan, a children’s village for orphans 40kms to the north. We were to spend the next week here, volunteering and playing with the kids. New Year’s Eve was full of Bollywood dancing (I’m terrible at it), and daily chores involved painting walls, fixing up the nursery, giving piggyback rides and being beaten in sports.

Some great birds were around the grounds, including Red-wattled Lapwing, Asian Pied and Brahminy Starling, Grey Francolin, Ashy Prinia, Rufous Treepie, Southern Grey Shrike, Greater Coucal, White-eared Bulbul, Indian Silverbill, Black Redstart, Indian Robin, Pied Bushchat, Large Grey Babbler, and a Eurasian Hoopoe, a long way from where it’s meant to be, in Broome.

The morning after New Year’s, we headed off on a hike with the kids. We were assured a “quick hike up a hill and back”. The hill turned out to be a mountain, and the quick hike turned out to be 6 hours. A lot of fun though! Also, the Eurasian Wryneck I saw next to the path was definitely one of the best birds of the trip. Also seen were Plum-headed Parakeets, Common Tailorbird, Blue Rock Thrush, Yellow-footed Green Pigeon and Greater Coucal.

This is getting a bit long now, so I’ll cut it short. We finished up in Vatsalya, then headed back to Jaipur for another two days, with more shopping and visiting some of the other places such as Amber Fort and the City Palace. The next day we got picked up in the afternoon and headed off to stage two of the trip, Nainital. Just before we left Jaipur, I finally spotted the bird I had been looking for for the last week – a Rosy Starling. More like a few thousand of them to be precise, roosting in trees next to the road. I’m surprised I’d missed them until then!