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During
the nesting season the chirp of the birds, their chirpy shrills
and the buzz of insects offer competition to anything which is
loud enough, at the still wetlands of Keoladeo Ghana National
Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan.
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World
Heritage and famous birds site is the call of the nest.
Rain holds the key to the hum of life in Keoladeo. The natural
history and the ecosystem here seem to be man-made. This
land of chirping birds is the dream come true for the bird
watchers, is no arguments, one of the most unique bird habitats
on the face of earth. Most of them live amongst birds to
study and enjoy.
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Keoladeo
National Park in Bharatpur is a bird watcher's paradise. There
are ways and ways of getting around the twenty-nine square kilometres
of the Keoladeo National park, but a car is not one of them beyond
a point. So before it got too warm we went on a boat ride to catch
some water birds.
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The
Keoladeo bird sanctuary is a combination of marshy and dry
land. The marshy bit begins as a canal and widens out into
a lake. At 80 rupees an hour, a boat ride at the sanctuary
turned out to be a favourite with me, probably because there
are few visitors who opt for it. Most boatmen are old hands
at being your guide, so you don't really need to read up
on our feathered friends. The warm sun enhanced their beautiful
brown and gold patterns.
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There
aren't as many birds around the canal as on dry land, but there
are so many in the park, that it is said that some rare species
are known to exist but haven’t been spotted yet. The banks of
the canal are accessible and up to the lake you can take a short
walk in the wilderness, risking a chance meeting with a jackal.
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In
the midst of these gentle creatures, there lives yet another
creature, different and more lethal, in holes in the ground,
a big fat python. Because of the cold spell in the area
the snake had to hibernate for almost 5 days and had come
out to thaw itself. Soaking in the sun this poor creature
was a picture of complete non-violence, it looked aloof
and introverted. The lake is about a kilometre and a half
to 2 kilometers wide and inaccessible in places because
of weeds, thereby ensuring the birds' privacy.
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Besides
walking, you can either take bicycles around the park or make
a complete holiday of it and have someone else cycle you around
at 30 rupees an hour. Sunday is not a good day to be at the park
because of the crowd. The park has one main metal road, which
branches out into kuchha tracks and these are vantage points for
getting a good view. Binoculars are a must, and you can hire a
pair from the rickshaw-walas. We spotted some Chinese coots that
had travelled all the way from China, and the ducks were from
Russia.
THE SIBERIAN CRANE
From
the side of the temple, the metal road comes to an end and you
have only kuccha roads that lead you inside the sanctuary. One
particular road is supposed to lead to the elusive Siberian crane.
From a certain point onwards, all you can do is walk or bike.
One could see green rings on the crane's legs. These ringed cranes
are Indian born and bred and were to fly off with the real Sibes
2 years ago. That never happened. This year only 3 real Sibes
did arrive. There was a time when you couldn't count how many
they were.
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