Dungarpur District Administration had recently organised a two day Bird fair on 21 and 22 December 2013 in order to attract birders from around the globe. The District Collector Mr. Vikram Singh, PRO Kamalesh Sharma etc were involved in organising the bird fair which was attended by many bird watchers, bird photographers from various cities of Rajasthan, Delhi etc.
There was even a foreign national Paul Collins from Ireland! I was also invited for the same and we, Vijendra Prakash Parmar – bird photogrpaher, Pradeep Joshi – wild life photogrpaher, Vinay Dhabe – avid bird watcher and Mr. Pradip Kaushik an eminent artist all based in Udaipur, went to Dungarpur on 21 December 2013 in the morning hours.
We reached Dungarpur at around 8AM and went to Birding Fair ground at the backwaters of Gaip Sagar lake in the Dungarpur city. This lake gets many migratory birds during winters apart from resident birds.
Dungarpur district is the smallest district in Rajasthan in the Southern part of the state bordering Gujarat. It is well connected by Udaipur and Ahmedabad via four lane NH 76. Nearest Airport is Udaipur which is approximately at the distance of 125KM. It takes two hours to reach Dungarpur from Udaipur airport. It has couple of good hotels including a heritage hotel UdaiVillas on Gaip Sagar lake.
There was a seminar on Bird Watching, threat to bird habitat and conservation at Collectorate which was chaired by Dr. Asad R. Rahmani. Eminent speakers included Dr. Satish Sharma, Mr. NC Jain etc.
Dr. Asad R. Rahmani, Director, BNHS ( Bombay Natural History Society) conducted workshop on how to do bird census on 22 December 2013 and also shared his 50 years of experience in birding and bird conservation in India. His talks on conserving Indian Vultures were really impressive and very informative.
Dungarpur has total 249 recorded bird species and 35 are migratory while rest are resident. Important resident birds include Red Avdavat, Scaly Breasted Munia, Red Breasted Fly Catchers, Sarus Cranes.
During our two day stay, we also visited couple of lakes/water bodies like Gaip Sagar, Mathu gamra, rang sagar, bassi talab, jalona talab dhimia talab and saw many birds. Among them are :-
Birds at Dungarpur
1. Redbreasted Flycatcher
2. Scaly Breasted Munia
3. Red Avdavat
4. Northern Pintail
5. Northern Shoveller
6. Rose Ringed parakeet
7. Bluethroat
8. Baya Weaver
9. Common Snipe
10. Spotbilled Duck
11. Little Cormorant
12. Common Kingfisher
13. Pied Kingfisher
14. River tern
15. Whiskered tern
16. White Throated Kingfisher
17. Grey Heron
18. Purple Heron
19. Common Moorhen
20. Purple Moorhen
21. Pheasant Tailed Jacana
22. Brong Winged Jacana
23. Wooly Necked Stork
24. Painted Stork
25. Asian Open bill Stork
26. Common Coot
27. Little Grebe
28. Grey lag Goose
29. Rudy Shelduck
30. Gadwall
31. Whistling Teal
32. Common Teal
33. Eurasian Wigeon
34. Laughing Dove
35. Spotted Dove
36. Eurasian Collared Dove
37. Black Winged Kite
38. Common Cestrel
39. Black Kite
40. Lesser Whitethroat
41. Indian Robin
42. Oriental White Eye
43. Common Iora
44. Plain Prinia
45. Ashy Prinia
46. Cattle Egret
47. Little Egret
48. Intermediate Egret
49. Pond Heron
50. Oriental Magpie Robin
51. Bay Backed Shrike
52. Long Tailed Shrike
53. Common Wood Shrike
54. Yellow Capped Pygmy Woodpecker
55. Purple Sunbird
56. Common Sandpiper
57. Grey Wagtail
58. Yellow Wagtail
59. White Wagtail
60. Black Winged Stilt
61. Red Naped Ibis
62. Black headed White Ibis
63. Sarus Crane
64. Wire Tailed Swallow
65. Barn Swallow
66. Pied Bushchat
67. House Sparrow
68. Common Myna
69. Bank Myna
70. Asian Pied Starling
71. Brahminy Starling
72. Common tailor Bird
73. Eurasian Stone Curlew
74. Knob Billed Duck
75. White Browed Wagtail
76. Green Bee Eater
77. Indian Silverbill
78. Jungle babbler
79. Shikra
80. Small Minivet
81. Common Chifchaf
82. Little Ringed Plover
83. Egyptian Vulture
I think, Dungarpur is an interesting bird destination with many ponds, water bodies. If district administration and local people joins hands, it can surely be a Birding Destination in India.
Nice…..excellent clicks…..
Thanks you, Kamalesh Ji!
महोदय
आपका ये प्रयास हमको बहुत अच्छा लगा। और आगे भी आपका प्रयास होता रहेगा। आपको डूंगरपुर के सोन्दर्य के लिए और पर्यटक को लुभाने के लिए आप जो भी करेगे। उसका हिस्सा हम भी बनना चाहेगे।
Thank you.
wow, in two days span you spotted and clicked so many birds, a real trained birding eyes. Snaps are very nice and thanks for your comments about Dungarpur
Thanks Gyan ji for your valuable comment.