Bird watching at Bhigvan

This season in 2014, me and my husband have started bird watching. So after visiting places like Pashan lake, kavadi, university garden and Emprest garden, the place on our wish list was Bhigvan for migratory bird watching, mainly Flamingos.

On 25^th Dec, we visited this paradise of migratory birds, Diksal, a small village near Bhigvan . The  place is 120 km from Pune on Solapur highway near Indapur. We started early at 4.30am with our friends and reached Bhigvan around 7 am. Road condition is really good after 2^nd toll booth. In Bhigvan, we took breakfast in Hotel ‘Jyoti’ near Krishi Bajar Samiti.It was clean and food was good. After finishing we proceeded for Diksal. On Solapur highway, take left turn near Bhigvan and continue for 3-4 km and again take right turn for Diksal village. It is not a tar road, but the cars can go on this road. Now the water bodies start appearing at one side of the road and can see some birds on the way as well. After travelling for 3-4 km on this road we reach near a small bridge. This is the place. There are some houses and people here offer the boat ride to watch the birds, as the backwaters of Ujani dam provide good habitat for the migratory birds and other birds also. But the main attraction is Flamingos. We parked our car near the houses and hired one boat for Rs.800/- (5 people and 1 child).We started sailing in the boat and to our surprise and luck big flock of flamingos came flying and landed nearby. What a site was that. We will always remember the view of hundreds of Flamingos. Very beautiful birds, with baby pink colour, shades of pink, red and black on wings, dark pink legs and different beak shape. Their flight was also very beautiful to watch. We watched them and other birds like open bill, painted storks, gulls and various ducks for some time , had some photos and returned after ½ hr. Here is the photo log.

After spending some time there, we proceeded further to watch birds from close proximity. We took right turn after some distance, and continued on very small road, which took us very near to water. We spent some time there watching birds and enjoying surroundings. I will list down the birds we watched.

• ·         Painted storks
• ·         Black headed Ibis
• ·         Grey heron
• ·         Little egret
• ·         Greater Flamingo
• ·         Ruddy Shelduck
• ·         Northern Shoveler
• ·         Mallard
• ·         Pochard
• ·         Garganey
• ·         Asian openbill
• ·         Glossy Ibis
• ·         Indian Cormorate
• ·         Slender billed gull
• ·         Black winged stilt
• ·         Marsh Harrier
• ·         Black winged stilt
• ·         Ruff
• ·         Black tailed godwit
• ·         Marsh Sandpipper
• ·         River turn
• ·         Common kingfisher
• ·         River turn
• ·         Rosy starling
• ·         Red Avadavat
• ·         Scally breasted muniya
• ·         Black headed muniya
• ·         Paddy field Pipit
• ·         Spotted dove

 Overall the experience was very nice and will be cherished in memory for long time.