Friday 22 April 2016

India Trip Report

This January I was lucky enough to lead a Birding Ecotours trip to Northern India. The trip was stacked full of incredible birds, such as Indian Skimmer, Indian Courser, Koklass and Cheer Pheasants, Painted Spurfowl, Bearded Vulture (Lammergeier), Collared Falconet, Sarus Crane, Ibisbill, Painted Sandgrouse, Pallid Scops Owl, Tawny and Brown Fish Owls, Blue-bearded Bee-eater, Great Hornbill, Sirkeer Malkoha, Long-billed Thrush, Spotted, Slaty-backed, and Little Forktails, Golden Bush Robin, Himalayan Bluetail, White-tailed (Himalayan) and Siberian Rubythroats, Wallcreeper, Rufous-breasted and Altai Accentors, and White-capped Bunting.

We saw Bengal Tiger, Indian Leopard, Jungle Cat, Asian Elephant, Gharial, Marsh Mugger and numerous other cool wildlife. If this wasn't enough we visited the Taj Mahal and had incredible views of the stunning Himalayas - oh and ate some beautiful food!

I've written a summary of the trip, with a few photos here: http://birdingecotours.com/birding-asia/

The trip report can be found here: http://birdingecotours.com/trip-reports/india (word only view document, or download it as a PDF).

If you're interested in the 2017 tour, please get in touch!

Tiger!

Black-headed Jay

Brown Fish Owl

Cheer Pheasant

Citrine Wagtail

Collared Falconet

Crested Kingfisher

Greater Painted-snipe

Grey-headed Woodpecker - Black-naped Woodpecker a split if you follow HBW taxonomy.

Himalayan Bluethroat

Ibisbill

Indian Courser

Indian Peafowl - National Bird of India

Indian Skimmer

Bearded Vulture (Lammergeier)

Little Forktail

Long-billed Thrush

Orange-headed Thrush - seen very well the week before the tour but I couldn't re-find it during the tour! Gutted as it was a cracker! 

Painted Sandgrouse

Painted Spurfowl

Pallid Scops Owl - the first record for Okhla Bird Sanctuary and the Delhi area - found on the first day of the tour! What a way to start! It was present until at least mid-March.

Sarus Cranes

Scaly-bellied Woodpecker

Siberian Rubythroat

Sirkeer Malkoha

Spotted Forktail

Streak-throated Woodpecker

Striated Laughingthrush

Tawny Fish Owl

Wallcreeper

White-tailed (Himalayan) Rubythroat

White-tailed Stonechat

Asian Elephant

Gharial

Indian Leopard

Indian Rock Python

Marsh Mugger

Orange Pansy

Sambar Deer

3-way fight between Spotted Deer

The Himalayas - simply breathtaking

Sunrise at Corbett NP

Sunset at Corbett NP

Corbett Safari

Group enjoying the Himalayan views

Group at the Taj Mahal