Birding in the Baruipur marshland

Having spent most of the winter watching humans, I took a meeting in Kolkata as an opportunity to go watch birds. This is not easy in the crowded city with its degraded land. This year a local birder friend suggested an early morning trip to one of the marshes surrounding the city: Baruipur. There’s open water as well as reeds and grasses: a typical ecology of this part of the country. It’s become quite a hot spot, and on a Sunday in late January it was going to get crowded with birders by mid-morning. My friend picked me up well before sunrise, so I was treated to a view of the sun rising over the foggy marshland. In fifteen minutes or so, the sun had begun to burn away the fog and visibility became good enough for spotting.

Left to myself I would have gravitated to the open waters to watch the ducks and waders. But in my group there was a very opinionated Bengali who wanted to look at the reed beds and grasses. He was a very good spotter, so I didn’t mind going along with his suggestions. Moreover, I’m not good with identifying warblers and other reed and grass dwellers, so I tend to avoid them when I’m by myself. Birding with other who have different strengths and tastes is therefore something I find useful in building up my birding “muscles”.

For the first couple of hours we had the place to ourselves. We managed to spot about fifty species of birds. They were mostly species I’ve seen before, but there were a couple of lifers. Even among the ones I’ve seen often, there are slight differences in appearance between the individuals in the extreme east and west of the country. A little after eight others began to arrive in dribs and drabs and by nine the place was full of people with more equipment than experience. It was time to drive to a nearby dhaba and have a breakfast of omelettes and bread. Whenever we look at a menu in a restaurant we wonder about what is a better transliteration of the word for peas in various north Indian languages. Should one write matar or mutter? This was the first time I came across motor. But then when you travel a couple of thousand kilometers across the country some things are bound to be different.

This post appears as scheduled while I am travelling. I’ll be connected, but may be slow to look at your comments and posts. I hope you will bear with my delays.