Birding at Bhigwan

On a cloudy Saturday, we decided to see and explore the popular Birding heaven near Pune. It has been attracting various migratory birds from across the globe and mesmerizing bird watchers.

All my google searches to find more about the place led me to Sandip Nagare. Sandip and his family have been instrumental in creating a safe place for the Birds. Sandip is from Kumbhagaon, Bhigwan. Sandip was educated in Pune and was interested in Birds from his childhood. He and his brothers decided to talk to villagers and start activities to protect these birds. It was a difficult activity as most villagers were dependent on revenue from Bird hunting. Sandip not only managed to convince the villagers but also made Bird watching a revenue generating activity. This ensured that Man and bird can thrive together.

A lot of birders coming to Bhigwan, prefer reaching in the morning and leave by evening. We booked a home stay at Sandip’s residence to have a relaxed time with family and kids.

On reaching Bhigwan around 4 pm, we went to the backwaters of the Ujjain dam on a boat safari. The place is really beautiful and captivated us from the 1st look itself.

We had Tiger, who wanted to join us in the boat. Tiger is the name of Sandip’s Pet Dog.

Shankar, our guide was extremely knowledgeable about these birds and shared various insights on their behaviour.

Around our boat, we had Little Tern’s diving into the water and catching fish. The boat and the evening light was increasing the visibility of the fish. The water has a larger number of fresh water fishes.

We saw the Eurasian Spoon Bills walking in a pair trying to catch the fish. We could not keep our eyes off the beautiful Painted Stork and the Grey Herons. The sight of the ‘Warkari’ birds running over the water at breathtaking speeds.

We tried our hands unsuccessfully at rowing the boat and ended up going in circles.

After an hour we returned back to the home stay. Sandip arranged fresh fish for us for dinner. After a long night of board games we retired to bed.

As popularly said, the early bird gets the worm, we were hoping 7 am was early enough. We had Tiger again attempt to join us in the boat. We had a 3 hour long boat safari planned with Shankar.

Within a few minutes we spotted a large number of birds. Shankar ensured that we rowed when we saw the bird or went near them.

With the rains, the nests of the Blackwing stilts were going underwater and we could see them pick up shells and throw them towards their nest to increase its height.

The birds were sitting near fisherman’s nest, so as to easily catch the fish.

The flight of flamingoes, Ibis and Painted stork looked as we were part of the Jurassic Park movie. Each of these birds were unique and had a story to tell us. We were there to observe their beauty and educate our younger ones about the importance of these creatures of nature.

Some of the birds we saw are

Grey Heron

River Tern

Painted stork

Spoon bills

Greater Flamingo

Duck Lapwing

Red-wattled Lapwing

Little Cormorant

Indian Cormorant

Glossy Ibis

Black headed Ibis

Red-naped Ibis

Cormorant yellow

Cattle Egret 

Little Egret

Great Igret

Little Tern

Little stilt

Black Cormorant

Pond heron

Black stilt

Little gripe( small duck)Warkari..yellow beak..

Common coot or Eurasian Coot

Oriental Pratincole

Kentish Plover

How to Get there

It is a 2 hour drive from Pune towards Hadapsar/ Loni

For Flamingoes you can visit from February till June

Watch some of the videos on the links below

https://youtu.be/ViZIdjBAtfs
https://youtu.be/yCHcKhzcWZ0
https://youtu.be/E2zNGJZpoug
https://youtu.be/iLTPPrWjYQg
https://youtu.be/ZJXQPrzjCL0
https://youtu.be/JjEgQ–W5x8

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