Bharatpur, Deeg, Fateh pur sikri - Nov 2005

We went on this weekend trip along with Punam's sister's family. With 4 kids in the car, the journey was fun from the start. We stopped at Haryana tourism's Hodal resort for breakfast. Kids enjoyed the camel ride and had fun watching the small group of ducks and ducklings - our bird watching trip was on its way. We turned towards Deeg Palace from Mathura. The road was pretty bad but we loved the palace. It is a simple palace, not very big but yet so elegant, and has some lovely lawns. Reached Bharatpur in the evening and slept early so that we could go tot he sanctuary in the early morning. The santuary is a true bird watcher's heaven. Even for us - not avid bird watchers - it was a very enjoyable expereince. The place is teeming with birds of a huge varity. We got a lovely start to our day with a 45 minute boat ride in the marshlands. The boat trip is a must as you can go quite close to the water birds. The pictures below give just a glimpse of the place.


Double delight- a painted stork is reflected in the claer water below. The bright red tail isn't so clear in the photo as the sun wasn't bright yet at 7 oclock in the morning.



A black billed egret - lovely to watch.



The magic heron- looks like a very non descript bird when it is sitting, but it blooms into a myriad colors when it flies ( alas we itcould not capture that on camera).



A view of the water ways from the boat. Soon all the water was full of all kinds of ducks and other birds. We were surprised by a few galloping spotted deers

Can you spot the family of sunbathing turtles ? Perched on the small branch in the middle of the lake- the two turtles were a lovely sight.




A big painted sork colony on top of a tree. There are thousands of these large birds in the park and what a racket they make - you can hear them from 1/2 a mile away.