Most people go to Bhigwan for flamingos, get on a boat, photograph the flamingos, and leave by nine. This is a list of what the same morning contains if you stay past that.
Six birds, in the order they turned up.
1. River Tern — the one that is in trouble
River Terns look like a bird you can take for granted — grey above, white below, a bright yellow bill, and a hunting flight that is genuinely beautiful to watch. They hover, tilt, and drop into the water bill-first.
They are also listed as Vulnerable, and the reason is specific: they nest on bare sand and gravel islands in rivers, and those islands are the first thing to go when a river is dammed, sand-mined or allowed to flood at the wrong time. A tern colony can be wiped out by a single badly timed water release upstream.
So when the boatman points at them casually, it is worth looking properly. They will not always be that easy.
2. Painted Stork — the bird that fishes by touch
Painted Storks do not look for fish. They wade with the bill held open and partly submerged, sweeping it side to side, and snap shut on contact — a method that works in exactly the muddy, turbid water where a heron would fail.
The name comes from the pink flush across the tertial feathers, which is easy to miss until the bird opens its wings and then impossible to forget. Look also at the yellow bill and the pinkish bare face.
They breed in colonies in trees, often near villages, and Bhigwan birds commute in from heronries in the surrounding countryside.
3. Montagu’s Harrier — the reason to go inland
This is the bird that makes the case for leaving the water entirely. Harriers hunt the grassland and scrub away from the backwater, quartering low with wings held in a shallow V, working the ground for larks, mice and lizards.
Montagu’s Harrier breeds in Europe and Central Asia and winters in India — a journey of several thousand kilometres each way. The males are pale grey with black wingtips and a thin black bar across the wing; the females and young are brown with a pale rump.
They roost communally on the ground in grassland, and the roosts are one of the more remarkable sights in Indian birding. They are also why the grassland here matters as much as the water.
4. Brahminy Kite — the one everybody dismisses
Brahminy Kites are common, striking, and almost never photographed properly because everyone assumes they will get a better one later. Chestnut body, clean white head and breast, and a habit of patrolling low over water.
They are less hunters than opportunists — dead fish, scraps, crabs, whatever the shoreline offers. In coastal India they follow fishing boats; here they follow the same shallows the storks are working.
If you want a good flight shot of a raptor and you are still learning, start with this bird. It is slow, predictable, and it will come back.
5. Asian Openbill — the gap in the bill
The one thing people notice and misread. The two halves of the bill do not meet when closed, and that arched gap is a specialised tool for extracting apple snails from their shells.
Openbills are abundant here and in the paddy fields on the way, and piles of intact empty snail shells at the water’s edge are their signature.
6. Bluethroat — the bird in the reeds you nearly missed
The Bluethroat is a small skulking chat that winters in Indian reedbeds and wet edges, and it is the reward for standing still at a scruffy patch of vegetation that looks like nothing.
The male has a blue throat with a chestnut or white central spot and a black-and-rufous border below — spectacular, and hidden nine tenths of the time behind stems. Females and young are duller with just a hint of the pattern, and the rufous tail patches flashed in flight are often the only clue.
They breed across northern Europe and Siberia. The bird hopping about in the reeds at Bhigwan may have come from inside the Arctic Circle.
How to actually get this morning
- Do the boat early, but book the whole morning. The birds after nine are different birds, not leftovers.
- Get off the water. An hour in the grassland and scrub gives you harriers, larks, pipits and sandgrouse that the boat cannot.
- Walk the reed edges on foot, slowly, for bluethroats, warblers and crakes.
- Go between November and February. The migrants are in, and the water level is right.
- Take a local boatman-guide. They know where the birds were yesterday, which is the only information that matters.
A note on bird names
We identify these birds ourselves, from photographs taken in the field, and we do not always get it right. A great many Indian species are close cousins separated only by a head pattern, a leg colour or a wingbar, and several have been split or renamed in recent years — so two good field guides can genuinely disagree about the same bird.
Where we are not certain, we say so rather than guess. If you think we have named a bird wrongly here, please tell us — we are still learning this ourselves, and we would far rather correct a name than leave a wrong one standing.
Frequently asked questions
What birds can you see at Bhigwan besides flamingos?
River Tern, Painted Stork, Asian Openbill, Brahminy Kite, Montagu’s Harrier, Bluethroat, and a long list of waders, larks and raptors in the surrounding grassland.
When is the best time to visit Bhigwan?
November to February, when the winter migrants are present.
Is the boat ride necessary?
It gets you close to the waterbirds, but the grassland and reed edges on foot add species the boat cannot reach.
Why is the River Tern threatened?
It nests on bare river sandbars, which are lost to damming, sand mining and badly timed water releases.
Where do Bhigwan’s harriers come from?
Montagu’s Harriers breed in Europe and Central Asia and migrate several thousand kilometres to winter in India.
Related: Kadbanwadi Grassland, Asian Openbill and Spotted Owlet at Bhigwan.