Karthik Rangappa

My work takes me to Delhi often. You wont believe it, but overtime, I’ve templatised my Delhi travel –

1. I take the same cab to the airport
2. I take the same return flights
3. I stay at the same place
4. I eat the same dishes at the same restaurants
5. I visit the same gym and I even do the same workouts.

Pretty much everything about my travel is predictable. Predictability sometimes gets boring. For no reason, I was cribbing about my ‘template travel’ to my birding friend, and he casually mentioned about the ‘Sultanpur National Park‘, a Ramsar site, outside of Gurgaon.

The fact that a National park exists, just around the periphery of a monstrous commercial hub such as Gurgaon excited me. So on one of those trips, I decided break the monotony and to take a few hours off in the morning and visit the Sultanpur National Park.

It was in Dec 2023 that I decided to do visit Sultanpur. I remember waking up at 4AM, in freezing Delhi cold to visit the National Park. My idea was to be there at the National Park’s ticket counter at 6:45AM, finish some birding activity, and reach office around 10:30AM. I was keen to get there before the ‘crowd’, picked up. Usually when crowd gathers, the birds go hiding.

Well, I was there at 6:50AM, and I was already panicking thinking I’m late. I just dint want to be late and get stuck in the crowd. I hurried towards the counter, lugging my camera. Only to find there was no one at the counter. I looked around and at a distance, I could see an old man walk towards me. He was adjusting his monkey cap, and trying to figure what I wanted.

‘Park jana hai’ (do you want to goto the park?), he asked me in his Haryanvi accent. Clearly, he seemed a bit confused with my early morning birding enthusiasm. He quickly issued the ticket and asked me if I needed a guide. It is always a good idea to have a guide when you visit places like this, hence I dint hesitate to opt for a guide.

Within minutes, my guide came along and negotiated a price. He was an old man, perhaps in his late 60s, but he certainly looked like he knew the birds well. I dint bargain, and offered to pay him his price.

As we entered the park, it slowly dawned upon me that we were the only two people in the entire national park. I was truly delighted and was keen to explore what the park had to offer.

The first thing we saw was a pair of spotted owlets –

The Owlets were at very close proximity, and I spent sometime just adoring them. The cuteness of these owls gave me the perfect start for my birding adventure. As I got chatty with the guide, he asked me if I’d like to spend sometime outside the national park, closer to Gurgaon. He spoke about a few spots where the birding activity was high. I was a bit hesitant, but then, eventually I took the offer.

YOLO 🤷🏾

But first, I had to explore the park. We spent sometime within park looking at various water birds. As we entered the park, we saw a pair of Black Necked Stork.

The conservation status of the black necked stork in NT i.e ‘Nearly Threatened’. Apparently, the bird hunters of Bihar had this tradition where in a young man had to hunt down a black necked stork and bring it alive to get married. Luckily the tradition is no longer in practice and the poor birds aren’t tortured, just for some man to prove his might.

Anyway, notice the iris if the birds above, the one on the left has an yellow iris, that’s the female, and the one on the right has a blackish brow iris, that’s the male.

That’s another shot of the black necked stork swallowing down a fish. The black necked stork is not a regular visitor to Sultanpur, and I was fortunate enough to see these in the park during my visit.

As we moved along, we spotted a family of Norther Pintail, a fairly large duck. Of course, the Pintails are common, but I was in awe as I was seeing these for the first time 🙂

Sultanpur national park is fairly large, but you can walk around and cover most parts. The place is photographer friendly too with a few vantage points for taking photographs. You will find pretty much all the common water birds at Sultanpur.

But just because a bird is common, does not mean its not photo worthy. For example, I love this picture of the Purple Heron. The bird’s proximity gave me an opportunity to get this sharp, well focused, eye level image.

Or for that matter, this painted stork in flight. Watching the bird blaze through the sky, flashing its hues of pink and yellow against a clear blue sky was a sheer delight.

We were pretty much done with the park and my guide was itching to take me outside the park, closer to Gurgaon. I was too curious to know what the outskirts had to offer.

The first thing we spotted was a the White-throated Kingfisher, well no surprises there I guess 😊

I’ve seen the White throated many times, but never managed to get a good picture. So this was my opportunity to get that closeup.

That bird in the center, its called the Asian woolly-necked stork, again a ‘nearly threatened’ species as per the conservation status. I was fascinated to see the sheer size of the bird, and of course, the for some reason this woolly-necked stork reminds me of a 18th Century British Barrister 😁

Don’t ask me why!

And then, I saw one of the most fascinating bird – The bar headed Goose.

The bar headed goose are migratory birds, flying in all the way from Mongolia. Apparently these are the only birds to do the high altitude flight, crossing the Himalayas, and flying down all the way to the South Indian Peninsula. Of course, I caught them half way through their journey, snacking in Gurgaon 🥜

Here are few images of the other birds I got to see –

If you are a birding enthusiast, and happen to be around Gurgaon, then do make some time to visit Sultanpur, I’m sure you wont be disappointment, I certain wasn’t.

My guide was Sube Singh and you call him on +91 9813759325 for a Wild Gurgaon spin!

Happy birding!