Bird Paradise - Bhigwan, Diksal bird watching trip 2014

I visit Bhigwan at least once a year for bird watching and this year was not an exception to my activity. I and Renuka decided to visit this place on 22 Jan 2014 and our friend Amit Gujar accompanied us. To avoid crowd we decided to visit on weekdays. The plan was to spend 4-5 hours in Bhigwan (the main location is known as Diksal village) and come back home by late afternoon.

Greater Flamingo in take-off position

About Bhigwan Bird sanctuary:
             Bhigwan, a catchment area of Ujani Dam, is about 105 km from Pune on the Pune-Solapur highway (NH 9). An area of about 18000 hectares has been proposed as a sanctuary for migratory birds. It is an amazing place to see wetland migratory birds like Bar-Headed Goose, Greater Flamingo, Ruddy Shelduck, many spices of ducks and many more birds.
             To reach Diksal village (near Bhigwan), the easy way is Pune – Hadapsar – Join Solapur highway – Drive your vehicle 100km from Pune on Highway – Do not use Bhigwan flyover – Take a left at Bhigwan square on the highway – Drive 3 to 3.5km – Take right for sanctuary. How to identify correct right turn is; you can spot water tank tower (yellow coloured) on that T junction at the left-hand side of the road. Otherwise, ask local villagers about Diksal / “where can we see Rohit bird (Marathi name of Greater Flamingo bird)?”

You can spend half day or full day along with your camera and binoculars. More than 60 bird’s species can be found in this backwater.

Greater Flamingo

22nd Jan 2014: Bhigwan Bird sanctuary (Total distance travel by car: 230km):
            As we had to cover around 105-110km we decided to leave Pune by 3.30 AM and we managed to leave on time. Soon we touched Solapur highway. Road condition of the highway was excellent. Due to the wide and smooth road, we were able to reach Bhigwan in less than 2 hours. We told our boatman friend to arrange some breakfast. We all were excited to see migratory birds.

Cormorant 

Whiskered Tern

Whiskered Tern in Flight

              When we reached the village at around 5.30 AM, I was surprised by looking at the back water. It was looking like the sea. We took some rest at Bharat’s place and after some tasty breakfast, we left for bird watching in his boat. It was a tough task for him due to the high wind. Since it was an odd day, we were the only bird watchers in the catchment area. Soon we spotted a group of Flamingoes. We set our cameras and kept pin drop silence. Slowly Bharat took us close to birds. He promised me last year that if we came on an odd day he will take us close to birds. He is an expert to handle such conditions just that he doesn’t want to do it on weekends due to the crowd. Also, birds get disturbed quickly.

             Soon we were so close to birds that we were able to hear the movement as well. It was shallow water hence Bharat hid behind the boat (In the water) whereas we took a position in such way that only our head was out of the boat. It was an amazing moment for me to witness flamingo hardly at 15-18 feet distance. We spend around 1.5 hours watching their activity without disturbing them. By any chance, if they noticed us, they were just moving their position. A couple of times they flew away but again settled down close to our boat.

Check my Neck - Greater Flamingo

Portrait

Talk and walk - Greater Flamingo

           After spending a lot of time with greater flamingo, we left that place to spot other birds. Besides Flamingo, we spotted Woolly Necked Stork, Coot, ibis, painted stork, bar-headed gooses, Ruddy Shelduck (aka Brahmini Duck), Northern Shoveler, Garganey Duck, Comb Duck and many more.

Grey heron and Spoonbill (L to R) and Cormorants and egret at bottom

Looking for something? - Stilt bird

Purple Moorhen

Bar Headed Goose and Open-Bill in flight

             It was quite bright now, and we slowly made our way back to the village by boat. During our return journey, I saw a duck in the middle of the water and he was trying to run from that spot. When I asked Bharat, he told that duck was trapped in a fishing net. Either he will die or when fisherman will come they will eat him. I didn’t like that and I told him to sail the boat towards duck. It’s time to save him. Now we were in our rescue operation. The duck was a male Pochard duck. When we reach close to duck, they started struggling to get rid of fishing net. We slowly approached towards duck and started moving net from a boat. Now he realized that we were helping them. Now he sat claim which helped us to remove the net. I and my wife able to remove some part of the net from a duck but still his fins were trapped badly. Bharat came and he cut the reaming part of the net by hands. It was difficult but somehow we manage to free him. When we released him, He ran away and we were watching him with smile and satisfaction. He went away from us, settled in shallow water and looked at us. It was like he wanted to say thank you. It was a great feeling. Flamingo sighting and Pochard Duck rescue operation made our day. Our trail ends on a good note.

Our Rescue operation

            We returned to Bharat’s house and had lunch. After some rest, we went in wetland area on foot to spot more birds. We saw a lot of ducks, heron, ibis etc. After some quick photography, we returned to his place for rest. It was 3.30 and we decided to leave this beautiful place. During our return journey, we had our snacks at Kanchan Dhaba and returned home by 6 PM.

            After this trip, I had 2 more trips to Bhigwan in which I took corporate groups (from other IT company) to teach them how to identify birds, Basic photography tips and to increase awareness about nature. I am sharing some photographs from my 2-3 visits. If you want to witness the beauty of migratory birds (Our guest) then what you are waiting for.

Bird List which we saw in Bhigwan:

Greater Flamingo	Northern Shoveler	Little Cormorant
Pueple Swamphen	Ruddy Shelduck	Yellow Wagtail
Common Moorhen	Spot-billed Duck	Grey Wagtail
White-breasted Waterhen	Common Coot	Green nee eater
Osprey Western Marsh Harrier	Comb Duck	Red Avadavat
Brown headed seagulls	Garganey Duck	Spotted Munia
Black headed seagulls	Pochard Duck	Black Drango
Pallas Gull	Bar headed Duck	Oriental Ibis
Asian Open bill Stork	Black Tailed Godwit	Glossy Ibis
Painted Stork	Black Winged Stilts	Black Ibis
Woolly Necked Stork	River Tern	Common Sandpiper
Common Kingfisher	Common tern	Spotted Sandpiper
White Throated Kingfisher	Gull billed Tern	Curlew Sandpiper
Pied Kingfisher	Grey Heron
Red-Wattled Lapwing	Purple Heron
Yellow-Wattled Lapwing	Pond Heron
Purple Rumped Sunbird	Cattle Egret
Wire-tailed Swallow	Median Egret
Common Swallow	Large Egret
Red Rumped Swallow	Eurasian Spoonbill

Below are snaps were taken during my various visits to Bhigwan

SeaGull

I am too Shy - SeaGull

Spoonbill

SeaGull in Flight

Bay Backed Shrike

Black ibis

Landing is an art - Brahminy Duck a.k.a. Ruddy Shelduck

Let's Fly - Greater Flamingo

Flamingo Airline

Expenses:

• Car Petrol: INR 1500/- (Avg INR 72/Lit, Total distance cover by car was 230km) 
• Toll on NH-09: INR 30/- (Return toll) 
• Toll 2 on NH-09: INR 50/- (Return Toll) 
• Boat ride: INR 1000/- for boat (Normal chargers are INR 1200-1400/- per boat)

Contact number:
Bharat (Boatman from Diksal): 9766292989.

I will try to upload more and more travel blogs. Thanks for reading this Travel Blog.

Pritesh Kulkarni 

Pune