I always wanted to visit Bhigwan. But I didn’t know that I would get this opportunity so soon. One Saturday, when we were going out for dinner, my uncle, Bedraj asked me, “Shashwat, have you heard of this place Bhigwan and would you like to go there?” I was on cloud nine. Bhigwan…here I come.
The next day, we were going to start by 3:00am, but we got late. We started by 4:00am and reached Bhigwan by 8:45am. The drive was good. We reached Kranti Flamingo Point, where we met our guide, Mr. Sandip Nagare. He said that there were sightings of Peregrine falcon, bar-headed geese, flamingos, Brahminy duck (Ruddy Shelduck) and spotted eagle. I was overjoyed. So many migratory birds. Wow!
We started our bird watching trail. My first sighting was the Indian Hoopoe, which was grooming its feathers. Then I spotted a Long-tailed Shrike which seemed very happy posing for us. We moved on and suddenly saw a White-Breasted Kingfisher sitting on the wire. I saw a green Bee-eater looking for a catch. Then we spotted a Red-wattled Lapwing waddling in the marshes followed by a Paddyfield Pipit. As I was clicking pics of the pipit, my uncle saw a Yellow Wagtail in flight. Soon it perched itself on the tree top and began chirping. We moved on towards the lake and then we saw a flight of House Swallows sitting on the wire drying their wings. There were many going and coming. Now we were on the shores of the lake and there I saw a Purple Heron sitting on the tip of a boat. It was happily posing for us. Then there was a Grey Heron along with some Black-Winged Stilt. The stilt were in search of a catch. When we looked on the other side we found many more Stilts and cotillion of River Terns
We were so engaged in birding when our guide said that our boat was ready. Our guide sent his man along to take us to the boating point. Suddenly, our man spotted a Brahminy duck in a pond off the road. A lone one was swimming in the pond. And then there was a
second one. We moved on towards the point and there we spotted 3 Woolly-necked Stork waddling in the paddy field. We were now very close to the point when we spotted a flock of Openbill searching for food. On the same side, we came across plenty of Black Kites having an early morning sunbath.
We sat in the boat and the boat moved on. We saw another grey Heron. Last but not the least, the most beautiful and majestic pink flock came into view – the Lesser Flamingos. There were around 1000- 2000 of them. There were many Northern Shovelers, Mallards, Spot billed duck, and some black-headed Ibis too. There were a plenty of Seagulls basking in the sun. We kept clicking pics of the pink flock. Our guide said that on the other side of the lake there were sightings of Bar-Headed Geese. We began heading towards the other side of the lake, but to our luck, the flock of Bar-headed Geese came to our side. They landed near the seagulls. They sat there, had their food and then they went for their afternoon siesta.
We were there in the boat for approximately 3-4 hrs. We had a great time on the boat bird watching. It was nearly lunch time, so we were back on land. We thought before leaving let’s try our luck spotting a spotted Eagle and a peregrine Falcon. We were moving randomly. We were lucky – there it was! A Spotted Eagle. We could hardly click pics because it flew off. We were heading back when we sighted a Painted Stork crossing the road. At the same pond we spotted 5 Brahminy ducks which were very enthusiastic. That was the end of my amazing encounter with these migratory birds. I returned home with happy and sweet bird memories.
