India - Part 1 - Chambal

We are now back from India and an amazing time was had, lots of culture, which much to our surprise we really enjoyed, although we were 'templed' out by the end, but the main objective of finding Tigers was well and truly achieved, but that will come in a later post.

This being a wildlife blog I won't include all the other great stuff that we have seen, so I'll start with our two nights at Chambal Safari Lodge. We only had one full day here, but we arrived at lunch time on day one so had some time to explore the grounds and do our first bit of birding, there were quite a variety of birds and other things in our lodge grounds:
Jungle Babbler (By far one of the most common birds around)

 Rose-ringed Parakeet

 Common Myna

 Flying Fox

 Long Billed Crow

 Coppersmith Barbet

 Painted Stork

 Common Hawk Cuckoo

 Indian Peafowl

 Cattle Egret

 Red-wattled Lapwing

 Spotted Owlet

 Indian Hare

Not bad for a wander around the gardens! That afternoon we went to Bateshwar to look at the Hindu Temples on the Yamuna River, it was really spectacular, I know it's not wildlife but what the heck!

There was abundant bird life around the river, so I suppose you could actually call it Urban Birding of sorts:
White-throated Kingfisher

 Green Bee-eater

 House Swift

 Rose-ringed Parakeet

This male Parakeet was really showing off to the Ladies, "look at me, no feet" and it worked! Moments later he was making out with a Young Lady Parakeet. In addition to the above we saw Indian Pond Heron, Grey Heron, Great Cormorant, distant Spoonbill, Ruddy Shelduck, Black-winged Stilt and quite a few unidentified waders, too far way for a positive id.

The next day we went in search of the elusive Blackbuck and Antelope native to the Indian Sub-continent. It's difficult to find as it's not a large animal and lives in the tall grasses and mustard fields in this part of Central India. Our guide tried very hard to find it, but of course along the way, there was always a couple of birds to find as well:
Collared Dove

 Laughing Dove

 Stonechat

 Great Grey Shrike

So did we find the Blackbuck, eventually! We had a few brief sightings as a couple of males bounded through the crops:

Then a bit later we came across a male with his Harem:

As you can see getting a good sighting of these Antelope can be really difficult, but it was a good if rather hot morning. (35c+)

After lunch a cruise on the Chambal River was planned. I could go into a long story about why the Chambal River is so good for wildlife, but...... oh go then, if you insist I will!

Unlike rivers like the Ganges and the Yamuna, the Chambal is an 'unholy' river, I won't go into why, you can google that if you really want to. But to cut a long story short, everyone in India wants to live by a Holy River and being India that means the river is full of 'crap' literally! as well as plastic bottles bags and anything else that the residents don't want. Whereas nobody lives on the Chambal it is pristine and beautiful and the area where we went is a protected nature reserve. The bird life was fantastic, plus we saw Marsh Crocodiles, Gharial (Alligator) and River Dolphin, sadly no Dolphin photos as they proved extremely difficult to photograph although we do have a few seconds video.
Marsh Crocodile

 Gharial

So to the birds:
Little Cormorant

 Intermediate Egret

Grey Francolin

 White-browed Wagtail

 Cattle Egret

Brown Crake

Egyptian Vulture

Bar-headed Geese

Ruddy Shelduck

Great Thicknee

Black-bellied Tern

River Lapwing

Stint

Pied Kingfisher

Chesnut-bellied Sandgrouse

Blue Rock Thrush

Lesser Whistling Duck

Osprey

So a great afternoon. We totaled 42 species at the river. Including the Indian Skimmer, both little & Temminick's Stint, although I'm not sure which one that is in the previous photo!

So next Wildlife post will be for Bandvargarh National Park