Hitchy’s believe it or not!!!!

These giant sized storks are nothing else but are juvenile’s! Yes, these are babies of a Painted Stork, who will acquire the wonderful colours of a painted stork once they grow up a little bit. The one thing I have learnt after having gotten involved in watching birds and collecting information about them is that the juvenile’s of most birds grow up in size quite fast and many times look as big as the adult, however, they plummage, head size may change colours and grow all of a sudden.

Yes, guilty of thinking I discovered a new species! 😛 😛

Here is a picture of the more mature and more clearly recognisable Painted Stork! 😀 😀 Amazing how much the juvenile’s will change in a matter or weeks!!!!

Yes, thats got to be labelled Hitchy’s believe it or not!!! 😀 😀 😀

Another visitor from Europe!

Ruddy Shelduck is another one of those migratory birds that comes to India in October and leaves by April. They were in huge numbers at Vadhvana lake swimming about, flying around, strutting in the sun and enjoying the Indian winters! 🙂

I guess weary of us human’s they maintained their distance. Flying away every time I was about to reach a vicinity from where I could take a more detailed picture.

Usually found in pairs these fellows travel long distances and off they go the moment we near them!

Gloss on my feathers!

This has to go down as a new species that I have identified with the help of Shail. This fella was spotted in a marshy lake at the outskirts of Vadhvana village enroute to Vadhvana Bird Sanctuary. It is called the Glossy Ibis! This is the most widespread of all ibis species, the glossy ibis is found in North, South and Central America, the Greater Antilles, southern Europe, Africa, Asia, India, and Australia. 😀 😀 😀

Another update on the bird gyaan! 😀 😀 😀

A bench by the lake..

When I first read about Vadhvana Bird Sanctuary about 80kms from my house I learnt they were wetlands. A sight similar to Nal Sarovar was the image that came to my mind. Shallow water full of weeds, water plants and algae was what I visioned. When we reached the place at around 11.30 after driving about 80 kms and taking lots of breaks alongside shooting all birds in all marshy water bodies and lakes of villages that came on the way we were greeted by 3 earnest fellows sitting on a table. They charged us Rs. 5/- for parking and Rs 10/- for me and my wife (5each) for entry to the sanctuary. The kid went free!!

As we climbed the first few steps to reach the level of the reservoir, the above sight was what greeted us. Amazingly the small lake or wetland looked like sea! There was a strong cool breeze and the lake almost had wave’s!!!! For me and wifey sitting on this bench and just feeling the gust of breeze in our faces would have been paisa vasool! 😀 The fact that we also got to see thousands of birds here was just a small bonus.

Doesn’t this place look just superb to sit for long hours and watch the water? In these cold winter days even at 12pm it was quite pleasant and amazingly refreshing sitting here.

In the next few days I will post pictures of this sanctuary and the birds we spotted there. As far as this post is concerned, I felt the above benches themselves deserved a post of their own! 🙂

Vadhvana Bird Sanctuary timings are from 8am to 5pm. Below is a small collage of the things that you can expect to find there and the location of the place.

The Birds :

The location