Enjoying a Bird Watching Holiday in India

Planning to visit India for Taj Mahal well and good but do know that the edifice is just one spectacular offering. Sightseeing is good and tourists love it but those with a special recreation or hobby in mind would like to experience more.

Birding is a special recreation and very popular all over the World. It s growing by leaps and bounds though there are many enthusiasts in India the bird watching industry is growing here as well. With fantastic thirteen percent of World’s avian species the country is a hot spot of this recreation and the tourism infrastructure is well organized. What more if you combine tiger safari with birding like at Corbett, Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench reserves the hobby fetches double pleasure.

For this holiday, you need not be a professional ornithologist or a photographer; even amateurs enjoy watching the avian on their safari tours. Not only tigers if you visit Gir National Park for watching Asiatic Lion in Gujarat or visit Assam for rhino tours you will spot exciting species of avian thus doubling your pleasure.

For pure birding Bharatpur Bird Park or Keoladeo is one of the most popular apart from Chambal River Sanctuary in that region. If you travel further you will reach Nainital district in Uttarakhand in North India also called Himalayan foothills or terai. The target destinations are Pangot, Bhimsar, Chopta and Sat Tal. Here a good pair of binoculars and bird guide will sight many species of colorful winged creatures in a short time. If you can walk a lot you will land up with a robust checklist and the sight of Himalayan Range would simple be flabbergasting.

These are the destinations where you will find high altitude pale arctic species along with low land residents. In frequent visits you can spot as many as five hundred species and more depending upon how enthusiastic you are. The number of families will be very high thus you will experience a bewildering and diverse species. The destinations in North are popular for pheasant with striking plumage, laughing thrushes, raptors, teals, goose and ducks, exotic cranes and parakeets, warblers the list is endless. Cheer pheasant, Koklass pheasant, Ibisbill, little fork tail, great hornbill, wall creeper, chestnut tesia, Nepal wren, and Monal pheasant are well known and spectacular.

If you go down South you experience will be more diverse. At Munnar, Western Ghats, Thattekad, Top Slip, Periyar, Nilgiri Hills, Ootacamund and many other scenic destination you will discover some endangered and endemic species along with the residents. Here you can come across mammalian species like Nilgiri Tahr, Lion Tailed Macaque and Nilgiri Langur to name a few.

Some of the enchanting species of avian that you will come across are Wayanad laughing thrush, Ceylon frogmouth, Malabar hornbill and lark, Nilgiri wood pigeon, black baza, Jerdon’s nightjar and so many others. Munnar and Ootacamund are hill resorts with verdant forests and tea gardens thus providing a cool place for bird watching amidst Western Ghats in Southern India.

Hence for a bird watching holiday in India there are plenty of choices. You have plenty of destinations to choose from all over the country in any direction. Be it North, North East, Himalayan Foothills, Rann of Kutch or Gir in Gujarat, Western Ghats or Bharatpur and Chambal in Rajasthan or Kanha and Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh you tour will be exciting and successful.

Uday writes often on Indian wildlife especially about the tigers. He works as a naturalist and is fond of travel. Uday also provides search engine optimization service and website contents in English.