The birds of Bharatpur

Bharatpur, Wednesday 11 December 2019

The luck and the kindness continue. After a comfortable two-and-a-half hour train journey in A/C Chair class, I disembarked at Bharatpur and began walking to the exit. The young woman who’d been sitting across the aisle from my seat caught up with me and asked where I was going and where I was from. She lived in Bharatpur and had been attending a wedding in Delhi. Her uncle owned the Sunbird Hotel, close to the entrance to the bird sanctuary.
  ‘You can stay there if your guest house has no rooms,’ she said.
  I thanked her but didn’t say the Sunbird was well beyond my budget. Besides, I was keen to enjoy the atmosphere at the Kiran Guest House — the big, covered patio above street level; the parakeets arrowing across the evening sky; the sound of doves; the wild-looking free-range pigs with their scurrying piglets; palm squirrels chirruping. Maybe not the mosquitoes and macaques, but the former are inevitable and now, here at the Kiran, I’ve seen no sign of the latter so far.
  Her name was Monica and she was preparing to be a teacher.
  ‘What will you teach?’
  ‘Geography,’ she said.
 

In July she had an exam which would qualify her for government teaching jobs.
  ‘How are you getting to your guest house?’ she said.
  I told her I’d get an auto-rickshaw and asked how much I should pay.
  ‘About fifty rupees,’ she said.
  I guessed I’d be quoted at least twice that.
  ‘The tourist tax,’ I said, and she laughed politely.
  ‘I can drop you at your guest house,’ she said.
  She had a driver waiting, and they took me right to the Kiran. Ashok was outside and recognized me instantly.
  ‘Hello sir!’ he said, with his great smile.
  I shook hands with Monica and her driver and thanked them and wished her good luck for her exam. I’d had some doubts about what I’d find at Bharatpur this time, but what I found was generosity, the comfort of familiarity, and a wonderful welcome.
…
At the Kiran, Ashok took my dinner order, and I transferred to the table to write, protecting myself from the pestering mosquitoes with picaridin and the hood of my jacket. As the light faded, small bats began to hawk above the courtyard and an orange, gibbous moon hung low in the sky over the rooftops. I heard voices and, soon after, a man in a pale khaki safari shirt and shorts appeared.
  ‘You’re aware of the mosquitoes?’ I said.
  ‘Yeah,’ he said in a strong Scottish accent, ‘but they’re not too bad, actually.’
  They were bad enough for me, though. Recognising that, he turned the fan on, which discouraged the mosquitoes, but I was glad I was wearing my down jacket and hood. I was pleased to know I wasn’t the only guest and that, therefore, the Kiran was probably doing OK.

Andy had been here for a couple of weeks and had another week to go before returning to Scotland.   His partner had been here part of the time; she was a doctor, he worked in nature conservancy. They loved it here, he said, just chilling out, wandering around, eating at the canteen. Suddenly I felt almost embarrassed by the brevity of my visit to Bharatpur. Had I known the situation would be as good as I’d remembered, I’d have allowed at least another night.

Bharatpur, Thursday 12 December 2019

I was the second visitor into the park. The light was still low, and the haze, almost like a fog, made photographing almost impossible. The first few, of jackals on the road not far from the entrance, could best be described as ‘atmospheric’. As the light increased, though, the opportunities for better photographs improved. The ancient monster of a bicycle I’d rented was set up for riders five foot tall or shorter, but they all were; I had no choice. Pedalling was hard, but the seat was well sprung, the brakes worked, and the bike got me where I wanted to go far faster than walking. That being said, I began to wonder just how much more efficient it really was, because I was stopping every few minutes when yet another bird showed up and invited a portrait. I wasn’t keeping a record of what I saw — the photos would record most of the birds, and the few I didn’t photograph I’d probably remember. Even if I forgot, I wouldn’t feel I’d missed something. Collecting lists stopped being a thing for me a great many years ago, and the value of being able to point to a list and say, ‘I saw X number of species that day,’ escapes me. I suppose the twitchers and collectors can rationalise it. I, on the other hand, rationalised not keeping a list by telling myself that anything I forgot can’t have been important enough to remember.
  I entered the park around 6.30, and I returned the bike and walked back to the Kiran shortly after 2 pm. That was as much as I could handle, mostly because I’d been on the go, pedalling that old dunger, for most of those seven-and-a-half hours. I was hungry, too. I’d assumed I’d be able to get decent food at one of the canteens but was dismayed to find they sold only chips (small bags of potato crisps), a handful of types of biscuits and cakes, and small tetrapaks of mango Frooti. Tea was apparently also available, but no proper chai-making equipment was evident, and I suspected ‘tea’ would be a tea bag in hot water. At 11.30, in desperation, I bought a ‘fruit cake’, which was a small, coffin-shaped lozenge of sweet cake with tiny bits of unidentifiable dried fruit mixed throughout, and a mango Frooti. That revived me, but I began to flag a few hours later and knew my time in the park was up. It had lived up to my hopes and therefore exceeded my expectations; I’d seen and photographed many birds and had finally succeeded in making a good photograph of a hoopoe.
 

I’d wondered whether I might see Andy in the park but the only obvious foreigners were a couple about my age or slightly older. They wore matching clothing: black jackets and off-white trousers. Later in the afternoon they turned up at the Kiran, and I had a short conversation with the man. He sounded French and said they’d visited Keoladeo once before, fifteen years ago, in 2005. He remarked on the cold, which wasn’t surprising because I was sitting at the outside table typing notes, wearing my down jacket and edging mittens, with my hood up. When they were here at roughly the same time of year in 2005, the air was warm, he said. They’d also noticed big changes in the park — far fewer birds this time, and now there were cattle where they’d been seeing much larger numbers of deer.
  The lower numbers of birds might have had something to do with the amount of water, though. On my first two visits, in 2006 and 2014, the monsoon had missed Keoladeo, and although the variety of birds had been good, it wasn’t until I visited in 2017 and found the place well flooded that I understood why the park was world famous. Huge numbers of storks and other waterbirds were nesting on the islands, and although today the main areas seemed to have plenty of water, the vast flocks had reduced to just good numbers.
  I agreed about the deer. On my previous visits, chital had been abundant; this time I saw a few individuals and groups of two or three here and there. I’d seen sambar often, too, but this time saw just one group of three and a lone stag. On the other hand, I saw several groups of wild pigs (whether they’re truly wild or are the spill-over from the semi-feral inhabitants of the surrounding town isn’t clear to me).
  At the park entrance a notice recommends visitors stay on the paths and not venture into the untracked areas. The reason: recent leopard sightings. I can believe leopards would live in the park — they live in Mumbai, after all.
  Five-thirty approaches and the mosquitoes begin to appear. Time for repellent. I sit outside and talk with Andy. He visits the sanctuary each day and loves it, and gradually he’s coming to know some of the individual birds or at least where to look for them.
  ‘I’m not much good at identifying the birds of prey,’ he says (I agree; you need to know the field marks well), ‘but I know to check in that tree over there and I’m sure to see a Marsh harrier perched there.’
  He’s noticing the interactions, too — how one species chases off another — their habits, their patterns of activity. He asks me what’s been my highlight, and I have to think hard.
  ‘The owlet was pretty special,’ I say, and he nods.
  ‘Cute wee birds.’
 

Back in Scotland, he works to fight wildlife crime, and he enlightens me about some of the practices continuing on grouse moors. I’d thought those days were long gone, but although the trend is in the right direction, it’s painfully slow, and any kind of predator, be it furred or feathered, isn’t likely to survive long on a grouse moor, even if it’s under strict legal protection. Roughly one fifth of the area of Scotland (or is it the Highlands?) is grouse moor, Andy says, managed so the uber-rich can shoot driven birds.
  ‘Why don’t they just farm them and release them?’ I ask, thinking that, despite the questionable ethics, the environmental effects might improve.
  Andy shakes his head. ‘You can’t raise grouse in captivity. Not like pheasants.’
  He tells me how the chicks are often dosed with antibiotics in the field. ‘They freeze, and the keepers can just pick them up and dose them. Sometimes after a shoot they sell some birds as “organic” meat, but it’s ridiculous — they’re full of antibiotics, not to mention lead shot. I wouldn’t eat them.’
  Neither would I.
  Ashok brings Andy’s dinner, which is a kofta of some kind. ‘Meatballs,’ Andy says, and they smell wonderful. I thought I wasn’t missing meat, but I’ve suddenly developed a craving for meatballs. I’ve seen butchering in India, though, and I can wait another six weeks or so until I’m back in New Zealand. My own meal of dal fry, rice, and chapatis turns up later, and although it’s not as delicious as the smell of Andy’s meatballs, it still does the job.

  Tomorrow I go to Bundi.

I'm back in Delhi now, and tomorrow (8 January) I leave for Nepal. My main goal in Nepal is Bardia National Park, after which I'll return to Delhi on the 19th for the last few days of this journey.

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Photos: 
1.  Darter
2.  Common babbler
3.  Rose-ringed parakeet
4.  Treepie and friend
5.  Jacana
6.  Yellow-eyed babbler

Photos and original text © 2020 Pete McGregor