I'll be emotional & philosophical in this post. Ill start off with the most common verse in bollywood - "When u want something very Bad, the whole of universe conspires u to achieve it". Jamnagar, since last 365 days has been on the back of my mind. Each time i will end up disappointed by birding in Mumbai, i would promise myself that my next trip would be to the best birding site in India i.e: Jamnagar and it should happen sooner than i think. Since i could not make it to Adesh Shivkar's Jamnagar trip due to convenience of dates, i decided to plan Jamnagar on my own. Meticulous that i am, i did my initial research and asked Jamnagar resident Mr. Manish Trivedi be my guide.
Day 1 - Dhicda Roadside (2:00 PM Onwards)
We took the only flight to Jamnagar, Indian Airlines. The shape in which airline is currently can be easily attributed to the service which it gives. After standing in the Mumbai Checkin queue for an hour we could finally managed to just sneak in the flight and reach Jamanagar at 12.00 Noon. We had high expectations w.r.t food at Jamnagar and overall i can easily say that Jamnagar food is not satisfactory. I would highly rate towns like Solapur w.r.t food, but sadly Jamnagar is rated way below on my food list. "Aaram (Gujarati Thali)" & "Madras (south Indian)" are the only two places serving good food when in Jamnagar. Coming back to Birding, we were amazed with the sites of lakes & ponds full of ducks & pelicans on the roadsides of Dichda & Century salt area. One can see ducks as far as eyes could see. Presence of ducks in Jamnagar roadside ponds can be directly proportional to presence of beer cans in Mumbai ponds. At certain places u cant see even water, as ducks and waders feed in enormous numbers.
Some Highlights -
- At the Airport approach road itself u can easily spot 10-15 painted storks close by.
- Common Teals, Pochards, Spot billed ducks, little grebes, Northern Shovelers, comb ducks, coots, Ruffs & stilts in huge numbers thriving together and easily spotted in large numbers. One need to really sit patiently for hours to ensure they come closer for photography.
- Godwits, shanks, Ibis (all types), stints, sandpipers, plovers, cormorants, darters in comparatively lesser quantities & spreaded out.
- We were shown the black necked stork nest with 1 chic by Mr. Manish Trivedi in this area.
- Flamingoes remained elusive with presence in Mumbai, but we found around 200 flamingoes here on one of the Dhicda roadsides. Wonder why they leave this beautiful region to come to dirty sewri in Mumbai.
- Dhichda as is mostly roadside birding, can be very dirty too. Roadsides of Jamnagar are not at all maintained properly due to virtually no cleanliness and non existent sanitation facilities. Also it takes lot of patience & time before ducks & other birds come close enough for photography.
Day 2 - Khijadiya Bird Sanctuary (Morning & Noon) & Lake Lakhota (Evening)
Some Highlights -
- Spotted the lone nightjar in Khijadiya entrance road. Arrive before sunlight to see nightjars.
- 1000s of pelicans, painted storks, egrets, flamingoes & herons take flight from their night rest outs in Khijadiya. Various birding towers across Khijadiya gives amazing views of the flock flights.
- The best part about Khijadiya is the presence of water bodies at virtually eye level. This aids photography and gives breathtaking infinity views.
- Pied Kingfishers are found in plenty and one will get multiple chances of viewing the kingfisher's famous hovering & dive.
- Spotted the asian paradise flycatcher in one of the nature walks across in Khijadiya.
- A Single crake (cannot identify the kind) was sighted amongst various partridges.
- If theres water, there are ducks & coots and that too in numbers
- Mallard remained elusive but Great crested Grebes can be easily found
- Amazing closeups of herds of rosy & dalmation pelicans but not close ups of black necked stork
- We went to ship breakyard (15 Kms from Khijadiya) in search of Indian Skimmer however the Skimmer was not to be found. Later on we heard news that Mandar & Adesh Shivkar (of Nature India fame) have found 5 Indian Skimmers at Balchadi area. Too late for us. We had to goto Lake Lakhota.
- The rosy starlings hovering above lake lakhota is one scene which should not be miss in evenings. They have developed likings to the "Gujarati farsans like ghatiya etc" and when fed, 100s of starlings can empty the packet in seconds.
- Local population also feed ducks bread in lake lakhota, the same can give real closeups of ducks and their beauty can be admired.
- Raptors overall remained very difficult find in Jamnagar (except Marsh Harriers which are found in plenty). We did get closeups of black shouldered kites, brahminy & black kites.
- At Lakhota Lake : Though a birders conscience does not allow to do this - but one can keep farsans like Ghatiya very close (1 feet) and various gulls will come very close and pick up the food and go (in flight). Its a treat to watch gulls this close in flight
Day 3 - Jamnagar Outskirts - Porbandar Area (Morning) & Narara (Late Noon)
Some Highlights -
- Jamnagar outskirts (places like Porbandar etc) are photographer's delight. Waders & ducks come real close and offer immense clicking opportunities.
Each & every color and feature of Common Teal, Pochard, Pintail, Crested Grebe, Coot can be admired at this close proximity at a location near porbandar.
- Atleast 400 Demosaille Cranes were sighted at a distance of around 15 feet.
So one can head to these destinations as against going all the way to Khichan in Rajasthan. Around 100 Common cranes were also sighted in flight here. This can easily be Crane capital of India.
- Narara is one of the very few places in India to see crab plovers. Because we didn't go during High Tide, Crab plovers were not to be found. Narara is waste of time, if gone during low tide.
In all around 90 species of Birds were sighted in 3 days. If i had spent another 2 days and visited areas like Charkala Salt plans, ranjit sagar dam, i could have easily hit the 150 species mark. Gujarat government, unlike most of the other Indian states is aiding birders by installing state of the art birding infrastructure at various places. Khijadiya is amazingly well maintained and clean. Jamnagar is indeed Sachin Tendulkar of Birding.
(Link to the top 10 Pictures clicked at Jamnagar will be posted soon. Follow "Manish Gadia Photography" on Facebook.com)
