For the first time since we came to India, my wife and I got to take a real vacation in a national park together. We went to Keoladeo National Park in Bharatphur, Rajastan, a tiny little spot with a lot of birds. I wanted to focus on the herps, so I've tried to shove the non-herps into the end of the post as briefly as possible.
Though the central area of the park is dominated by wetlands like this:
the rest of the park is actually quite dry, like this:
...and most of the lizard life reflects that.
Brooke's House Geckos (Hemidactylus brookii)
Oriental Garden Lizard (Calotes versicolor)
Striped Grass Skinks (Mabuya dissimilus) – lifer
The park is famous for its pythons, and having never seen an Indian Python before, I made finding one my primary herping goal of the trip. I was not disappointed. On the first day, this young juvi was hiding in an old log in a wetlands area right next to the main thoroughfare:
Indian Python (Python molurus) - lifer
On the morning of the second day, I was riding a bike through a more remote area of the park when I spotted this welcome sight in the distance:
Turned out to be about a 8' long adolescent, by far the largest snake I've ever caught in the wild:
Sadly, the third day turned up half of a DOR of a very small juvi...method of death uncertain.
After finding my pythons, my second goal was turtles – having not yet seen a wild turtle in India. Once again I was not disappointed at all. These two giants were sunning on a small island out in the marsh. The larger one of the left must have ran two feet long.
Indian Softshells (Aspideretes gangeticus) - lifer
While riding the bike alongside the marsh, I somehow looked through this stuff on the side:
And managed to spot this turtle on a small log
Indian Roofed Turtle? (Pangshura tecta) - lifer
There were two more on another log next to him.
Finally, I was quite surprised to see this one running over the main road from one side of the marsh to the other. I wasn't able to get too close before it made it across, but I believe it was quite a unique species of Indian turtle.
Indian Flapshell (Lissemys punctata) - lifer
While looking for turtles, I came across more than a few monitors. I believe that most of them were Yellow Monitors (Varanus falvescens), but I could be wrong and some/all could be Bengal Monitors (Varanus bengalensis).
Finally for the herps, despite the unfavorable weather I came across a few common species of frogs. The first were found under cover on the edge of small water bodies.
Indian Cricket Frog (Limnonectus limnocharis)
And these two were spotted trapped in an old well:
Indian Bullfrog (Hoplobatrachus tigerinus)
Skittering Frog (Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis)
On to the non-herps. The mammals on the trip were great – I saw my first Indian deer (both spotted deer and sambars), my first Asian wild dogs (dozens and dozens of jackals), and lots of beautiful nilgai. At one moment I may have seen my first Asian otter out of the corner of my eye, but it disappeared before I could be sure that it wasn't just a very large mongoose lifting its hips too high.
Spotted Deer
Sambar Deer
Nilgai
Jackal
Other mammals included House Mouse, Three-striped Palm Squirrel, Asian House Shrew, a second much smaller shrew species, Little Grey Mongoose, Wild Boar, and Hanuman Macaque.
Though the reptiles and mammals and nice, the real reason people go to this place is the birds. An incredible 394 species have been recorded within the 32 square kilometers of the park, and I easily saw over 100 species in 4 days despite not focusing on birds and not knowing anything about bird watching.
The wading birds are the most obvious representatives of the park – I don't know how many places you can see 5 species of heron and 4 species of stork in a single day, not to mention the egrets, ibises, spoonbills, etc.
Painted Storks
Eurasian Spoonbill
Little Heron
Other species seen (not all photographed) included Little Egret, Intermediate Egret, Great Egret, Grey Heron, Purple Heron, Indian Pond Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Painted Stork, Asian Openbill, Wooly-necked Stork, Black-necked Stork, and Black-headed Ibis.
Of course, there were lots of other birds in the water too. Other species included Little Grebe, Little Cormorant, Great Cormorant, Darter, Spotbill, White-breasted Waterhen, Common Moorhen, Purple Moorhen, Common Sandpiper, Black-winged Stilt, Red-wattled Lapwing, Common Kingfisher, White-throated Kingfisher, and a lot of sandpipers and ducks that I couldn't identify.
Personally for me, though, what was even more amazing than the water birds were the raptors. I have never seen such an incredible array of hawks, eagles, falcons, owls, and vultures in one place. Over 50 species of raptor, including 9 species of eagle, have been sighted within the park boundaries, and I was able to see quite a few of them in our trip.
White-shouldered Kite
Crested Serpent Eagle
Collared Scopes Owls
large eagle species?
I also saw Spotted Owlets, Laggar Falcon, Shikra, Oriental Honey Buzzards, possibly a Eurasian Marsh Harrier, Lesser Spotted Eagle, an enormous vulture species that I wasn't able to photograph, and a lot of hawks and eagles that I wasn't able to identify
A few other interesting birds showed up as well
Yellow-legged Green Pigeons
Rufous Treepie
Common Hawk Cuckoo
Hoopee
Also saw Eurasian Collared Dove, Rock Pigeon, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Pied Cuckoo, Greater Coucal, Gray Francolin, Indian Peafowl, Indian Grey Hornbill, Black Drongo, Jungle Babbler, House Crow, and Large-billed Crow, along with several more doves and groundbirds that I didn't ID.
I mostly ignored the drab little birds and didn't bother to ID or photograph them. But by my last morning I had seen so many bird species that I thought I might try to photograph more. I couldn't photograph most of what I saw or ID most of what I photographed, but at the least I saw Blue-throat, Brown-headed Barbet, White Wagtail, Southern Grey Shrike, Red-whiskered Bulbul, White-eared Bulbul, Red-vented Bulbul, Oriental Magpie-Robin, Chestnut-shouldered Petronia, Ashy Prinia, Red Avadavat, Black Redstart, Indian Silverbill, Brahming Starling, Asian Pied Starling, Common Myna, and bunch of other little birds.
For those who are interested, a few inverts to round out the trip.
I had a great time, and will probably go back on a yearly basis at different times to observe the seasonal migrations at the park. Hopefully I'll get a lot more diversity on the snake species next time (I found sheds of 3 different non-python species, so they're definitely in there!). Thanks for reading all the way through!
Statistics: Posted by jonathan — November 24th, 2013, 10:26 am