Birding in Sultanpur National Park

Birding in Sultanpur National Park was the last leg of a birding trip that my friends and I undertook in the month of March 2020. We had already completed Sattal and Pangoot.

The Covid-19 coronavirus scare was picking up in India with a few cases being reported around Delhi. We were transiting through Delhi on our way back to Bangalore. Well, we just had to take our chances 🙂 . We had booked an afternoon flight so that we could bird at a nearby bird sanctuary. We had finally chosen to do so at the Sultanpur National Park.

Our overnight train from Kathgodam reached Old Delhi railway station by around 4am. Soon Sanjay Sharma, the local bird guide whom we had engaged, came and picked us up. Sultanpur National Park is in the neighbouring state of Haryana. So there was a bit of travel. The park would also be open only by 6:30am. We reached 15 minutes earlier. Here is all of us waiting at the gate for it to open 🙂 .

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We finally managed to enter by 6:35am. Here is one for my record 😀 .

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My favourite bird in our visit was the Sarus Crane. What a majestic looking bird! Sarus Cranes pair for life (or till one of the pair dies). And to be able to see the pair doing their dancing ritual is something special. You can see it in the video later on in this post. I get goosebumps whenever I watch the recording. Here are some pictures I took of the pair.

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Another bird that I was keen to see was the Sind Sparrow, a bird that is not widely spread. Thankfully we saw several of them. A few of them busy gathering nesting material. Seems that the nesting season was on. We could a nest under construction on a tree.

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There was plenty of waterfowl. It was a sight very pleasing to the eyes. I had missed the migrating ducks all through the season given that I had barely been birding in the season. Well this place made up for it. The waterfowl included Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Ferruginous Duck, Tufted Duck, Eurasian Wigeon, Gadwall, Garganey, Mallard, Common Pochard and Northern Shovelers.

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I had hoped to see the Greylag Goose as well. But looks like they had departed given the topsy-turvy weather of late.

The waders included Green Sandpipers, Wood Sandpipers, Common Sandpipers, Common Redshank, Common Greenshank and Ruff. This time of the year, giving company to the local residents, the Red-wattled Lapwings, were the White-tailed Lapwings.

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Also giving company to a flock of Painted Storks were a couple of Black-necked Storks.

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I had also expected to see a lot of Common Chiffchaffs. However there was only one we managed to see. Well thank God for that! Seems they were also headed back to their summer grounds. There were however, lots of Lesser Whitethroats going busily about their morning.

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The raptors we spotted were the Oriental Honey Buzzard, Greater Spotted Eagle and a couple of Eurasian Marsh Harriers.

But the bird that surprised us, pleasantly of course, was the Brook’s Leaf Warbler. I had known that they were possible in the park. However I frankly had not expected to see one. Well, we did and we were all extremely thrilled as it gave us fantastic views! Here are some photos I managed to take:

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Video

Here is a video I made of some of the birds. Be sure to watch it, especially the bonding dance of the pair of Sarus Cranes.

Other Info

The walking trail is essentially a circular one around the waterbody. One only needs to be observant and spend enough time to see the birds. Of course several visits to the place will also help. I feel that one does not need a guide to do birding here as long as you are somewhat familiar with the birds you expect to see. Plan to spend the whole day here if you can afford the time. We were able to spend only 4 hours given that we had to head back to Delhi to catch our flight.

Explore the reeds as well. You should get to see birds like the Moustached Warbler. When we went the reeds were not in a great shape. We were also a little late into the season.

The walking trail is easily doable for any person, a bit long though.

There is plenty of space to park your car once you enter the main gate. There is also an entrance fee that once has to pay to get into the park. But all worth it.

Checklist

We saw 100 bird species in our visit. I can only imagine what it would have been had we visited a few weeks earlier when some of the other visitors were around. Below is a checklist of all the birds that we had seen in the visit:

S. No.	Species
1	Knob-billed Duck (Comb Duck)
2	Garganey
3	Northern Shoveler
4	Gadwall
5	Eurasian Wigeon
6	Indian Spot-billed Duck
7	Mallard
8	Northern Pintail
9	Green-winged Teal (Common Teal)
10	Common Pochard
11	Ferruginous Duck (Ferruginous Pochard)
12	Tufted Duck
13	Indian Peafowl
14	Grey Francolin
15	Greater Flamingo
16	Little Grebe
17	Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
18	Eurasian Collared-Dove
19	Red Collared-Dove (Red Turtle-Dove)
20	Laughing Dove (Little Brown Dove)
21	Greater Coucal
22	Eurasian Moorhen
23	Eurasian Coot
24	Grey-headed Swamphen (Purple Swamphen)
25	White-breasted Waterhen
26	Sarus Crane
27	Black-winged Stilt
28	Red-wattled Lapwing
29	White-tailed Lapwing
30	Black-tailed Godwit
31	Ruff
32	Little Stint
33	Common Snipe
34	Common Sandpiper
35	Green Sandpiper
36	Common Greenshank
37	Marsh Sandpiper
38	Wood Sandpiper
39	Common Redshank
40	Black-necked Stork
41	Painted Stork
42	Oriental Darter
43	Little Cormorant
44	Great Cormorant
45	Grey Heron
46	Purple Heron
47	Great Egret
48	Intermediate Egret
49	Little Egret
50	Cattle Egret
51	Indian Pond-Heron
52	Glossy Ibis
53	Black-headed Ibis
54	Red-naped Ibis (Indian Black Ibis)
55	Eurasian Spoonbill
56	Black-winged Kite (Black-shouldered Kite)
57	Oriental Honey-buzzard (Crested Honey Buzzard)
58	Greater Spotted Eagle
59	Eurasian Marsh-Harrier
60	Spotted Owlet
61	Eurasian Hoopoe
62	Indian Grey Hornbill
63	White-throated Kingfisher
64	Green Bee-eater
65	Eurasian Wryneck
66	Yellow-crowned Woodpecker
67	Black-rumped Flameback (Lesser Goldenbacked Woodpecker)
68	Rose-ringed Parakeet
69	Common Woodshrike
70	Black Drongo
71	Bay-backed Shrike
72	Long-tailed Shrike
73	House Crow
74	Large-billed Crow
75	Indian Bushlark (Red-winged Bushlark)
76	Common Tailorbird
77	Ashy Prinia
78	Plain Prinia
79	Sykes’s Warbler
80	Clamorous Reed Warbler (Indian Great Reed Warbler)
81	Grey-throated Martin (Plain Martin)
82	Hume’s Warbler
83	Brooks’s Leaf Warbler
84	Common Chiffchaff
85	Lesser Whitethroat
86	Lesser Whitethroat (Lesser)
87	Large Grey Babbler
88	Asian Pied Starling (Pied Myna)
89	Common Myna
90	Indian Robin
91	Oriental Magpie-Robin
92	Red-breasted Flycatcher
93	Black Redstart
94	Pied Bushchat
95	Purple Sunbird
96	Sind Sparrow
97	Western Yellow Wagtail
98	Citrine Wagtail
99	White-browed Wagtail (Large Pied Wagtail)
100	White Wagtail
101	Tawny Pipit