INDIA’S MONSOON SPECIALITIES – including Lesser Florican, Painted Spurfowl, Finn’s Weaver and Kashmir

PRICE INFORMATION

Birdquest Inclusions: Our tour prices include surface transportation, accommodations, meals and entrance fees.

We also include all tipping for local guides, drivers and accommodation/restaurant staff.

We also include this flight: Mumbai-Jaipur.

Deposit: 20% of the total tour price. Our office will let you know what deposit amount is due, in order to confirm your booking, following receipt of your online booking form.

TO BOOK THIS TOUR: Click here (you will need the tour dates)

The single supplement will not apply if you indicate on booking that you prefer to share a room and there is a room-mate of the same sex available.

This tour is priced in US Dollars. Amounts shown in other currencies are indicative.

Air Travel To & From The Tour:  Our in-house IATA ticket agency will be pleased to arrange your air travel on request, or you may arrange this yourself if you prefer.

INDIA’S MONSOON SPECIALITIES BIRDING TOUR: DETAILED ITINERARY

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Day 1  Our tour begins this morning at Mumbai in western India. From there we will take the expressway to Pune, a small city at the northern end of the Western Ghats where we will spend the night.

This afternoon we will commence our exploration of the Pune area, including the grounds of an ancient fortress of the Mahratta kingdom.

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Day 2  Broad-tailed Grassbird is definitely an Indian ‘monsoon speciality’. Active and relatively easy to see at this time of year, it is a silent, hellishly difficult skulker during the dry season and very hard to see during South India tours.

As well as the grassbird, we can also expect to see Painted Francolin, another sought-after species that is difficult outside the pre-monsoon and monsoon periods. We also have a good chance for the attractive Vigors’s Sunbird, a Western Ghats endemic that does not reach the parts of South India explored during birding tours to the region.

Other birds of the area include several endemics including both Sykes’s and Malabar Larks, Malabar Whistling Thrush and Indian Blackbird. Jungle Bush Quail is also likely.

This afternoon we will return to Mumbai airport and catch an evening flight to the famous city of Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan for an overnight stay.

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Day 3  Before leaving Jaipur we will pay a short visit to the famous Palace of the Winds, a world-famous ‘facade’ from where members of the royal court could observe processions through this storied city. Just something every visitor should see.

Afterwards, we will drive southwestwards to Ajmer for a three nights stay. This afternoon we will explore the Ajmer area and no doubt have our first encounter with the superb Lesser Florican!

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Days 4-5  The Ajmer region has become famous among birders for its population of Lesser Florican, an endangered species of bustard known in Hindi as ‘Likh’. For sure it will be our number one priority and we should soon be watching these fabulous birds leaping up out of the crop fields every few minutes!

Lesser Florican is of course the ‘mega-star’ of the Indian Monsoon specialities so we have allowed plenty of time in the area so we can enjoy their antics and get wonderful experiences with this splendid creature!

Another really key bird here, and a species that is so hard to see outside the monsoon, is Rain Quail and we have a very high chance of seeing some during our explorations. The endemic Rock Bush Quail is also quite common in this area.

Many other interesting species occur in the area including Indian Courser, Chestnut-bellied (and sometimes Painted) Sandgrouse, Indian (or Rock) Eagle-Owl,  the pretty Red-necked Falcon, White-bellied Minivet, Marshall’s Iora, Rufous-fronted Prinia and White-naped Tit. Rosy Starlings are also likely to be back on their wintering grounds, the earliest migrant passerine to reappear in the northwest Indian plains.

More widespread species include Indian Peafowl, Eurasian Collared, Red Collared and Laughing Doves, Common Hawk-Cuckoo, Pied (or Jacobin) Cuckoo, Red-wattled and Yellow-wattled Lapwings, Red-naped Ibis, Black and Black-winged Kites, Crested (or Oriental) Honey Buzzard, Shikra, White-eyed Buzzard, Black and Grey Francolins, Spotted Owlet, Savanna Nightjar, Asian Green Bee-eater, Indian Roller, Common Hoopoe, Indian Grey Hornbill, Yellow-fronted Woodpecker, Black-rumped Flameback, Rose-ringed and Plum-headed Parakeets, Small Minivet, Indian Paradise Flycatcher,Indian Golden Oriole, Ashy Woodswallow, Common Woodshrike, Red-vented and White-eared Bulbuls, Bay-backed and Great Grey Shrikes, Rufous Treepie, House and Indian Jungle Crows, Brahminy Starling, Common and Bank Mynas, Cinereous Tit, Indian and Singing Bush Larks, Rufous-tailed Lark, Ashy-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Dusky Crag Martin, Common, Jungle and Large Grey Babblers, Plain, Ashy and Grey-breasted Prinias, Indian Pied Myna, Pied Bush Chat, Brown Rock Chat, Indian Robin, Oriental Magpie-Robin, Oriental White-eye, Purple Sunbird, Yellow-throated (or Chestnut-shouldered) Sparrow, Baya Weaver, Indian Silverbill and Paddyfield Pipit.

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Day 6  From Ajmer we travel northeastwards to the Alwar region for an overnight stay. In the nearby rocky hill country, our main target will be the beautiful Painted Spurfowl, a species that only rarely features on Indian birding tours.

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Day 7  After some final birding in the Alwar region we will head for Delhi for an overnight stay. We may arrive in time for a first look for Bristled Grassbird.

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Day 8  This morning we will visit an area in the Delhi region that holds a population of the usually skulking Bristled Grassbird. During the monsoon season, however, the grassbirds perch up conspicuously while singing and we can expect to get great views. Indian Grassbird can also be seen in the area.

Other new birds we may encounter in the Delhi region include Lesser Whistling, Knob-billed and Indian Spot-billed Ducks, Cotton Pygmy Goose, Little Grebe, Spotted Dove, Yellow-footed Green Pigeon, Grey-bellied Cuckoo, Asian Koel, Greater Coucal, White-breasted Waterhen, Grey-headed Swamphen, Sarus Crane, Pheasant-tailed and Bronze-winged Jacanas, Black-winged Stilt, Oriental Pratincole, Whiskered and River Terns, Little Cormorant, Black-headed and Glossy Ibises, Painted, Woolly-necked and Black-necked Storks, Asian Openbill, Black-crowned Night Heron, Indian Pond Heron, Purple Heron, Great, Intermediate, Little and Eastern Cattle Egrets, Yellow, Cinnamon and Black Bitterns, Little Swift, White-throated, Pied and Common Kingfishers, Brown-headed and Coppersmith Barbets, Common Kingfisher, Alexandrine Parakeet, Long-tailed Shrike, Grey-throated Martin, Zitting and Golden-headed Cisticolas, Chestnut-capped Babbler, Wire-tailed and Streak-throated Swallows, Grey-throated Martin, Streaked and Black-breasted Weavers, Red Avadavat and White-browed Wagtail.

This afternoon we will drive to the Haldwani area, situated in the Terai plain not far from the base of the Himalayas in Uttarakhand state, for an overnight stay.

Indian Monsoon Specialities:  Day 9  Finn’s Weaver, or Finn’s Baya as it was originally known, has always been an uncommon bird. Even in Northeast India, in West Bengal and Assam, it is not often recorded. In recent decades the species has suffered a massive decline, perhaps over 90%, and it is currently proposed that Finn’s Weaver be reclassified as Critically Endangered! It is hoped that last-minute conservation efforts will arrest the extinction of the species, but its habitat is very vulnerable to agricultural clearance or even industrialization or urbanization in fast-developing modern India.

We will be visiting an area where the Indian-endemic Finn’s Weaver still occurs in good numbers and we should be able to watch the brightly coloured males and more sombre females attending their globular nests. An increasingly rare sight in today’s India.

As well as the weaver, the area holds a good number of bird species typical of the north Indian plains and we will have a chance to catch up on anything we missed earlier in the tour.

Likely new species include Indian Cuckoo, Common Moorhen, Cinnamon Bittern, Striated Heron, Indian Cormorant, Oriental Darter, Chestnut-headed and Blue-tailed Bee-eaters, Stork-billed Kingfisher, Red-whiskered Bulbul, Large-billed Crow, Jungle Myna, Yellow-bellied Prinia, Striated and Yellow-eyed Babblers, Bengal Bush Lark, Oriental Skylark, Scaly-breasted, White-rumped and Tricoloured Munias, and perhaps Greater Painted-snipe.

Indian Monsoon Specialities: Day 10  Today we will return to Delhi where our tour ends this evening.

KASHMIR EXTENSION

Kashmir: Day 1  We will spend the night in Delhi.

Kashmir: Day 2  Our day starts with a morning flight from Delhi to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir state, for a three-night stay

We will spend the afternoon birding in the Vale of Kashmir.

Kashmir: Days 3-4  The Vale of Kashmir is justly famous as one of the most beautiful parts of the Himalayan range. During our time in Kashmir, we will explore birding sites both in the Vale itself and in the surrounding mountains. The scenery is often magnificent.

Our major targets will be a number of species that are restricted to the Northwest Himalayas or which have a slightly wider distribution, including Kashmir Nutcracker, Kashmir and White-cheeked Nuthatches and the lovely Orange Bullfinch, all of which we should see well. We also have a very good chance of encountering Blyth’s Rosefinch and a fair chance for the impressive Black-and-yellow Grosbeak and the uncommon Spectacled Finch. We will, however, need very good fortune if we are to see White-throated Bushtit.

At this time of year, range-restricted specialities we will be wanting to see are the pretty Kashmir Flycatcher, the less flashy Rusty-tailed Flycatcher, Tickell’s Thrush, Tytler’s Leaf Warbler and White-capped Bunting.

More widespread specialities of the Northwest Himalayas or the wider region that we may well see include Scaly-bellied, Himalayan and Brown-fronted Woodpeckers, Rufous-naped Tit, Streaked and Variegated Laughingthrushes, Blue-capped Redstart and Pink-browed Rosefinch.

More widespread species are likely to include Himalayan Buzzard, Himalayan Owl, Yellow-billed Magpie, Eurasian Jackdaw, Large-billed Crow, Coal and Green-backed Tits, Black and Himalayan Bulbuls, Himalayan Bluetail, Blue Whistling Thrush, Chestnut Thrush, Goldcrest, Plain Mountain Finch and Grey-crowned Goldfinch.

Additional possibilities include Lemon-rumped Warbler, Mistle Thrush, Spotted and Little Forktails, Bar-tailed Treecreeper and Rock Bunting.

At this time of year, there are even chances for Brown Bear and Himalayan Black Bear.

Kashmir: Day 5  After some final birding in Kashmir, we will catch a late afternoon or early evening flight back to Delhi.