Keoladeo National Park, Jaipur

	Keoladeo National Park, Jaipur
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Keoladeo National Park, formerly known as Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, was for sixty years a royal hunting reserve. However, against the odds, the avian population survived and the area became a sanctuary in 1956, receiving total protection in 1981 when it was recognized as a national park.

Today, Keoladeo's 29 square kilometers of swamp and lakes constitute one of the most important breeding and migratory areas in the world.

Species include the majestic saras crane, which stands as tall as a man, and a staggering two thousand painted storks, whose nesting cries, from Bharatpur's partially submerged trees, create a constant background din to wanderings around the park.

Other residents include snake-like darters, spoonbills, pink flamingos, white ibis, grey pelicans and around thirty species of birds of prey, among them vultures, marsh harriers, peregrine falcons and ospreys. Some are vegetarian, but many feed on frogs, beetles and fish, and soon after the breeding season (July-Oct), birds of prey home in on the vulnerable fledglings to supplement their usual diet.

Between October and March, the 200 species of Indian birds who live in the park

year-round are joined by a further 130 species from as far a field as the Russian steppes and Central Asia.

The finest and rarest of these migratory birds, all of whom spend the winter in Bharatpur building up reserves of fat before the long flights back to their breeding grounds, are the five pairs of Siberian cranes who nest in the south of the park each winter.

Only 125 such cranes, pure white with crimson bills and facial patches, are estimated to survive in the entire world. This group flies over five thousand miles from its summer breeding grounds around the Ob River in Siberia, crossing the Himalayas en route.

After they failed to reappear in the winters of 1995 and 1996, it was feared the Bharatpur "sibes" had fallen foul of hunters in the mountains, but four finally showed up two years and two months late in 1996, and now the population seems stable. They're easy enough to spot, and tend to feed in pairs just off the main Ghana Canal, a short way southwest of the Keoladeo temple in the centre of the park; just look for the gaggle of khaki-clad birds potters with meter-long lenses. more...

Keoladeo National Park (daily 6am-6.30pm; Rs100 [Rs20])