Sarus, Pelicans, and a Python on the Path

Late-season Bharatpur — the imperial eagles still in the marsh, sarus cranes feeding in flooded paddy, and a python the size of a fire hose draped across a winter path.

By February, Keoladeo has the slightly tired, slightly opulent feel of a long-running house party. Most of the duck flotillas are still here — Bar-headed Geese in their thousands, Spot-billed Ducks in unhurried small parties, the marsh full of voices — but the air is warmer, the light is harder, and the imperial eagles have begun to think, vaguely, about going home.

Sarus, in flooded paddy

On the third morning we found a pair of Sarus Cranes — the world's tallest flying birds — feeding in a flooded paddy at the edge of the buffer. They worked unhurriedly: two huge grey shapes with red heads, stepping precisely between green stalks, lifting a beakful of mud and water, raising the head, swallowing, lowering again. They are one of those species that are almost impossible to photograph badly; they are also almost impossible to photograph as well as they deserve.

The pelican pool

Mid-morning, the pelican pool. Spot-billed Pelicans by the dozens, with the occasional Great White among them; an Indian Cormorant party fishing in formation through the lily-pads; a Glossy Ibis, wing-bones catching late-morning sun, doing his slow flight-test along the far bank. We worked the pool from three different angles; the third — backlit, shooting into a pale gold sky — gave us our favourite frame of the trip.

Python on the path

Keoladeo has a small population of resident Indian Rock Pythons that, in the cooler weeks, draw themselves out across the central road to bask. We came around a corner on rickshaw and there she was — perhaps fourteen feet long, body the diameter of a fire hose, head turned away from us, half in sun, half in shade. She wasn't going anywhere. We weren't either.

There is something perfect about Bharatpur in late winter. The light is harder than November but the marsh is still busy. The python on the path is a reminder that this place is not, in fact, a postcard — it is a working wetland, with all the crooked, surprising things wetlands have. Don't put your camera away too early.

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