Egret Ibis and Cormorant

The most relaxed part of bird watching comes when you are not really looking for a particular bird. You just stand in the open, soaking in the atmosphere of the shoreline, or the forest, or the open scrubland, while birds go past you, or go about their lives as you watch. Some of this happened to us every day during our trip to the Rann of Kutch.

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  White-breasted Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis)

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  Pied Crested Cuckoo (Clamator jacobinus)

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  Indian robin male (Copsychus fulicatus)

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  Indian robin female (Copsychus fulicatus)

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  Barred Buttonquail (Turnix suscitator)

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  Red-naped Ibis (Pseudibis papillosa)

The first day, on the drive from Bhuj to Nakhatrana, we spotted many birds on the road. You can see some of them in the slideshow above. On this morning’s drive we also managed to sight three of the passage migrants that we had gone to see. We spent a long time trying to look for the European nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus). This is another of the passage migrants. We never spotted it, neither that day, nor the next. This was our big miss.

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  Green bee eaters (Merops orientalis)

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  Little egret (Egretta garzetta), glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) and Indian cormorant (Phalacrocorus fuscicollis)

That afternoon, our first in the Rann of Kutch, we managed to spot two more of the passage migrants. After that we spent an hour walking about spotting birds, some which I knew well, others which I’d seen less often. At times like this you can concentrate on photography, especially interesting configurations. In spite of the heat, I felt very relaxed.

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  Eurasian marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus)

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  Common Redshank (Tringa totanus)

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  Indian spot-billed duck (Anas poecilorhyncha)

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  Temminck’s Stint (Calidris temminckii)

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  Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus)

The next afternoon yielded the final passage migrant and the rare marbled duck. But apart from that we had a wonderful time watching waders and ducks. These are birds which one sees very commonly in Mumbai, but I’ve missed them in the lockdowns of the last years. It was nice to stand there and watch them foraging.

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  Painted Sandgrouse (Pterocles indicus)

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  Red-wattled lapwing (Vanellus indicus)

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  Ashy-crowned sparrow lark (Eremopterix griseus)

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  Grey-necked Bunting (Emberiza buchanani)

The morning of our second full day in the Rann of Kutch was spent in another fruitless hunt of the European nightjar. The saving grace of the morning was a sighting of a Painted Sandgrouse (Pterocles indicus). We had a really lovely time in the afternoon. The featured photo is one of the last I took on the trip. It shows a White-tailed Iora (Aegithina nigrolutea, also Marshall’s Iora). Everything we had gone to see was done, and it was time to enjoy the beauty of the landscape and its bird life.

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