Wrynecks in a Cold Marsh

Keoladeo just after the New Year — a Eurasian Wryneck holding court, sunbirds at the bottlebrush, and a kingfisher silhouetted against a winter sun.

Keoladeo in the first week of January is — to use the technical term — bracing. The night fog refuses to lift before nine; the rickshaw bells sound muffled; the grass at the margins of the path is silver with frost until the sun finally bothers to do its job.

We have been here three days. By the fourth morning, you are fluent in the rhythm of this strange, beautiful place: the slow, almost ceremonial movement of cycle-rickshaws on the central road; the way the light works the marshes from east to west across the morning; the moments when, between rickshaws, a Bluethroat will hop up onto a tussock and hold the entire frame for you, blue chin and rust spot, perfectly composed.

The wryneck holds court

Keoladeo's quiet stars in January are the Eurasian Wrynecks. They are unfashionable birds — woodpecker family, but unwoodpeckerlike: a soft, marbled, bark-coloured small bird with the disconcerting habit of twisting its neck at unnatural angles. We found one on a low branch, working a sunny patch of dust, indifferent to us. He stayed for forty minutes. We did, too.

Sunbirds at the bottlebrush

Mid-morning, the bottlebrush hedges along the central road begin to flower in patches, and the Purple Sunbirds arrive — small flickers of metallic violet-black against impossibly red blossom. They are restless, almost manic; they give you perhaps a quarter of a second per perch. Photographing them is a particular kind of meditation: you choose a flower, set focus, and wait for the bird to come to you.

The kingfisher and the cold sun

Late afternoon, a Common Kingfisher took up his usual stake-out on a thin stick over the canal. The light came in low and gold from the west, and for one perfect moment he turned his head, beak to camera, and the cold winter sun put a hard rim of fire down his back.

Bharatpur in January isn't loud, the way a tiger park can be loud; it's quiet, almost civic. The list of supporting characters is enormous and entirely worth your time: a Eurasian Hoopoe punctuating a lawn; a Black Drongo on a buffalo's back; a Spotted Owl peering out of a peepal hollow. Don't rush. The marsh rewards stillness.

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