When you have to wake up at 3 AM to go birding at 4, having not slept more than a couple of hours, the last thing I would be is excited, sleepy more like it, groggy definitely, forgetful - so what was I talking about? Remembering my Gauhati fiasco, I packed the night before. Seems like I was not the only forgetful one, as Wingco missed Vinod on the road waiting to be picked up! We had to drive back a bit and in the end all was well and we met up with Anandji, Kanwarjeet, Sanjay and Ajay at Amity school and set off. On the first anniversary of the discovery of Dhanauri wetland, we wondered if we would be able to improve the tally 51 Sarus seen.
-- We shouldn't have worried. The band of brothers or was it sisters or may it was the great Indian joint family, there were all there to greet us and as is naturally bound to happen at least in case of humans, the number had gone up. The tally for the day was 58 - first group of 18 followed by 30 and a couple of pairs kept dropping by.
The water is the wetland has nearly dried up but the thunderstorm kept the weather cool and tolerable. A gazillion Oriental Skylarks sang at the top of their voices, flocks of Black winged stilts dived, sat down and took off again, Red wattled lapwings guarded their nests and cattle egrets happily spent time with their bosom pals - the buffaloes - main aur meri bhains aksar aapas mein baatein karte hain..
A lone Pheasant tailed Jacana gave company to couple of Comb Ducks and Lesser Whistling Teals and 3 Painted Storks. A solitary Open Bill Stork also dropped in for a dekko.
It was also a day of parathas for breakfast - stuffed with potato, wrapped around egg bhurji, plain with two different types of subzis, achar, followed by tea, lassi, nimbu pani, basically the works. Sated we decided to do the full circle of Dhanauri and we were not disappointed. We saw not one but two peacocks vying for their respective lady's attention, who of course completely ignored them.
What is a visit to Dhanauri without samosa and jalebi, so we completed the trip under the trees by a borewell polishing off yummy samosas and sweet jalebis as Great Egret looked on.
--
Vineeta Dixit
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