As part of the 2nd annual Bird Watcher’s Conference in Gujurat, India, we had the opportunity to shoot many bird species on Nal Sarovar Bird Sanctuary. Of course, I’m referring to shooting pictures of the birds.
We arrived early in the morning and were shuttled to the boat launching area by auto-rickshaw. Getting there is always half the adventure. Arriving at the launch, a quick perusal of the skiffs we would be riding showed that more than half were leaking anywhere from a little to a lot. That didn’t seem to bother anyone, so 50 journalists piled into a half-dozen boats.
Our pushers, who would pole us about on this 4-foot deep lake all spoke no English; but hey, pointing works. We all piled in and we were off. Our previous advisers had been correct, and if you go, you’ll definitely want to get there at sunrise when the birds are feeding and most active.
Whole flocks of birds circled around as we pushed off. The sun rose in time to for us to catch a couple early morning shots of them circling above. But then activity dropped off, precipitously.
As we were pushed around for four hours on the lake, it became obvious that these were “sight-seeing” pushers, not bird hounds. We spent hours away from shore, in the middle of the lake with not a bird in sight. We tried to point to shore, but our pusher kept heading for open water???
That did however, give us time to bail out the water that kept leaking in the bottom of the boat. (There’s always a bright side.)
As we returned, we discovered that there were more than 210 known species of birds frequenting this 123 square kilometer lake during the winter months. Interpreted into language I understand, that means we missed more than 201 of them. No Rosy Pelicans, no White Storks, no Brahminy Ducks.
What we did see were plenty of herons, ducks, seagulls and an occasional sandpiper. Hmmm, same birds I see at home.
[Caution, your mileage may vary. We talked with other photogs later that saw five times as many species as we did. C’est la vie.]
