The Deskbound Birder: Egyptian Vulture

Thursday, 18 February 2016

Desert National Park and Little Rann of Kutch, India - 10th February (Day 3) - Part 3

We continued our drive out of Desert National Park seeing further Black-bellied Sandgrouse, a Cinereous Vulture and an Egyptian Vulture drinking from a roadside puddle and many more Variable Wheatear, Bimaculated Lark and Greater Short-toed Lark. We stopped at a site near to Damodra approximately 8km to the east of Sam, this was a small rocky outcrop where Ganesh had previously seen Red-tailed Wheatear. We climbed the rock face and came across a Striolated Bunting and then more Large-billed Pipit a and a Tawny Pipit and then I flushed a wheatear which flashed red in the tail as it flew and then landed on a rock up a small scarp – Red-tailed Wheatear! Wheatear are a fantastic group but this bird was a little sombre with the main feature being the reddish rump and tail – features largely not visible when the bird was perched, still, it was a subtle beauty. Also here were Desert Lark and Desert Lesser Whitethroat. We headed on eastwards back towards Jaisalmer and I picked up a group of 10 Cream-coloured Courser in an area of stony desert, we stopped and headed towards them but they wanted to keep a good few hundred metres between us and them. Tired, we headed back to the hotel for a much needed shower, curry and cold Kingfisher beer after a great days birding.