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THE DEMOISELLE CRANES OF KHICHAN

A Demoiselle Crane comes in to land in a packed feeding compound at Khichan.

KHICHAN IN RAJASTHAN IS KNOWN LOCALLY AS 'THE PARADISE OF THE CRANES'. Once in position early next morning, on the rooftop of one of the houses overlooking the famous walled crane-feeding compound, masala chai and biscuits to hand, the first of several thousand cranes started to appear on the horizon. Each morning the cranes alight on open ground around the town until they are almost all assembled and then their leader of the past few years (at least) ‘broken-leg’ decides it is safe to land. This amazing creature has migrated across the Himalayas at least four times since I last saw him/her with a dangling leg creating what must be an incredible drag on an already exhausting migration. ‘Broken leg’ circles the compound several times before landing, this time despite a daring feral moggy that was trying to catch the pigeons, which are also attracted to the free meal of grain. Eventually the cranes are more or less all crammed inside the compound, jostling for position to eat the grain put down for them by the Jain villagers, a practice that has continued here for over 150 years (the grain is now put down in the evening after the cranes have departed for their roosting grounds and it is ready for them immediately in the morning). Their elongated secondary plumes forming interesting patterns as they fed. Images alone do not do justice without the whirring of wings overhead and the deafening cacophony of the excited cranes. Whilst ‘paradise’ is wide of the mark, the cranes of Khichan are certainly one of the most amazing ornithological spectacles of the world. As always it was time to leave all too soon and make our way to Jodhpur from where, following an unsuitable flight schedule change, we had a long and rather grim drive along a so-called highway to Delhi, ready to start the next stage of our Indian adventure.

Demoiselle Crane, Khichan

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TO RAJASTHAN

Jain Temple, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

NORTH OF GUJARAT LIES RAJASTHAN, HOME OF BRIGHT COLOURS and impressive moustaches. En route to the desert city of Jaisalmer, we spent some time walking the length of Shiv’s main street taking photos of the Rajasthani people in the market there. Toyota Innova MPVs have transformed road travel in India and this journey, albeit quite long at nine hours was again a pleasure compared to the 12 hours of slow-moving bus torture the first time I did it. On the other hand, Jaisalmer is sadly not the evocative desert fortress that it was on my first visit in the 1990s, now that more than 2500 wind turbines surround it. Unfortunately I am yet to see the fort there lit up by a golden sunset on this tour, in my last four visits the sun has dipped prematurely into either rain or dust clouds. In the evening we made a short visit to the desert festival and together with thousands of local people we enjoyed watching some local musicians and dance acts. It was a little bizarre to be herded into a foreign tourist pen and forced to sit down to watch the performances. Next morning we took our usual city tour of golden sandstone Jaisalmer, starting with the Jain temples in the old fort, then continuing on to a city view point, the old havelis (intricately decorated former merchants’ houses) and finally ending up at an excellent fabric shop where the ladies battered their plastic!

The streets of Jaisalmer are packed with interesting people and things at which to point the camera and a few hours hardly do it justice. Jumbled shops, ornate temples, weathered faces, huge moustaches, bright colours, fortress architecture and numerous wandering animals provide at least one million interesting subjects. Jaisalmer thrived during the height of the silk trade but with the partition of India in 1947 all cross border trade ceased and it became a sleepy backwater at the end of the line. The rise of tourism has changed its fortunes recently along with tensions between India and Pakistan, which has resulted in a large military presence here. Again as usual, we saw many Indian Gazelles (or Chinkaras) on the journey to the east through the Thar Desert, which is unsurprisingly the world’s most densely inhabited desert, on our way to the small town of Khichan. We paused for photos of these as well as a gang of vultures, crowded around the carcass of a dead cow near the town of Phalodi. Following the disaster of Diclofenac, almost all vultures in this area are now winter visitors from further north in Asia and this flock comprised Eurasian Griffons and at least ten impressive Cinereous Vultures.

Jain Temple, Jaisalmer

Leeloo, a village lady from near Zainabad comes from Rajasthan. These are her marriage bands.

Chinkara (or Indian Gazelle), near Phalodi, Rajasthan

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LITTLE RANN OF KUTCH

Asiatic Wild Ass, Little Rann of Kutch

THE SALTFLATS AT THE LITTLE RANN OF KUTCH HAD BEEN CLOSED BY HEAVY RAIN for three days just prior to our arrival but fortunately they had a chance to dry out enough for us. A traditional camel cart welcome in the small town of Zainabad put a smile on our faces and we were delighted to see that one of the regular Pallid Scops Owls was present in the lodge gardens. This bird breeds across a wide range from Turkey to Pakistan but many of its regular haunts are now off limits to western travellers making the birds in Gujarat some of the most accessible remaining birds. This year’s experience was better than usual as I have never seen one choose such an exposed daytime roosting perch! However, the main reason we visit the Little Rann is for its lovely Asiatic Wild Asses and although not as plentiful as usual we were still able to spend time photographing a couple of groups of them. One silhouetted against a salt flat sunset and another in early morning light, feeding along the edge of the mesquite fringes of the flats. They were, as always, surprisingly delightful to folks who had not seen them before.

Our regular night drive across the hard-baked salt flats, which are basically a monsoon lake was light in variety but high in quality. We saw no fewer than 15 of the very sought-after and range-restricted Sykes’s Nightjar and managed to get very close to a couple of spot-lit birds using our well-drilled nightjar technique. During the day the wide-open spaces of the salt flats of the Little Rann present a surreal and barren landscape but they are still inhabited by few creatures. Our meanderings here included an Indian Grey Mongoose peering from its burrow, Wild Boar, Nilgai and some obliging Common Cranes, more Indian Thick-knees, Southern Grey Shrike, Desert Wheatears, Long-billed Pipits and a lovely male Steppe Merlin of the Central Asian form pallidus, as pale as a Shikra(!) but pride of place went to an endangered MacQueen’s Bustard, although it could have been a lot more obliging for the photographers! This bird has a dwindling wintering population in western India and Pakistan but it would help if Arabian falconers would stop hunting them please! Sadly our attempts to find some photogenic Indian Coursers were thwarted by the birds flying off into the distance at first sight of us. The bird-thronged wetlands south of Zainabad were thronged a bit out of range of our DSLRs but the flocks of Lesser and Great Flamingos, Common and Demoiselle Cranes and numerous ducks and shorebirds were a fine sight nevertheless. We also enjoyed an opportunity to shoot some people here, visiting a delightful local family (originating from Rajasthan), who presented some very nice fabrics and allowed a privileged insight to their village life not to mention the chance to drink some of their excellent tea!

Sykes's Nightjar, Little Rann of Kutch

'Steppe' Merlin, Little Rann of Kutch

Pallid Scops Owl, Zainabad

Pallid Scops Owl, Zainabad

MacQueen's Bustard, Little Rann of Kutch.

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BLACKBUCK NATIONAL PARK

A male Blackbuck pronking at Blackbuck National Park, Velavadar

BLACKBUCK NATIONAL PARK CONTINUES TO GROW IN POPULARITY, thanks to its wonderful nearby lodge of the same name. This place is one of our favourite lodges in India and, as well as the plush surroundings, complete with lovely open-air showers, we also enjoyed some more great encounters here. Photographically the best were the numerous Blackbuck, including some fine males, followed by Nilgai against the lovely grassland landscape, however, this is also probably the most reliable place in the world to see wolves and again we managed to see one, which as usual only allowed a brief distant opportunity. Jungle Cats also put in a couple of brief appearances in the long grass.

Blackbuck, Blackbuck National Park, Velavadar

Nilgai, Blackbuck National Park, Velavadar

The biggest avian surprise was a Sykes’s Nightjar, which flew past our jeeps in broad daylight and dropped down just ahead of us. It is rare to see one here, mostly owing to the park being closed after sunset but it may be a regular visitor? Squadrons of Common Cranes lined the horizon and a nearby wetland hosted Great White Pelicans, Greater Flamingos, spoonbills, Pied Avocets and a selection of common shorebirds. A few birds in the mesquite-lined avenues included gazillions of Black Drongos as well as Siberian Stonechats, Brown and Bay-backed Shrikes and there were still a few harriers (Pallid and Montagu’s) floating around, some of which take a short-cut through the middle of the lodge grounds on their way to and from their grassland roosting area. Unfortunately Striped Hyenas are no longer reliably seen here though, the regular male having died some time ago. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from this fabulous place and head northwest to the vast salt flats of the Little Rann of Kutch.

Sykes's Nightjar, Blackbuck National Park, Velavadar

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