The wonderfully diverse nation of India is well-known for its verdant landscapes and the snow-capped Himalayas. It therefore surprises many people to learn that India is also blessed with some incredible deserts, and our tour showcases this much-underrated habitat by exploring some of India’s less frequented parks and reserves in the county’s dry, western parts. Desert National Park, Tal Chappar and the Great and Little Ranns of Kutch are amongst the most important of the protected areas of western India and we will visit all of them. We will also pay a visit to the more verdant Mt Abu along with an extension to the deciduous forests of Tansa Reserve.
Along the way we are going to see some of the most threatened and rare birds not only of India but of the whole world. Species we are searching for include the Great Indian Bustard which sadly teeters on the brink of extinction, the almost equally rare White-browed Bush Chat, along with Indian Spotted Creeper, Yellow-eyed Pigeon, Green Avadavat, Sociable Lapwing, Macqueen’s Bustard, White-naped Tit, Marshall’s Iora, and for those doing the extension the recently rediscovered Forest Owlet. We also stand a great chance at picking up two of the more difficult monotypic families in the world, namely Crab-Plover and Grey Hypocolius. The general birding is excellent with lots of breeding specialties supplemented by vast numbers of overwintering northern migrants including famous congregations of cranes, impressive flocks of waterfowl and waders and a number of interesting passerines. Mammals are yet another interesting feature of this trip and along the way we can expect to see Blackbuck, Indian Gazelle and Indian Wild Ass amongst others.
Grey Hypocolius, Great Indian & Macqueen’s Bustards, huge numbers of Demoiselle Cranes, Common & Sarus Cranes, Dalmation & Spot-billed Pelican, Sociable Lapwing, Crab-plover, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Indian Courser, Red-headed, Cinereous & White-rumped Vultures, Eastern Imperial Eagle, White-eyed Buzzard, Laggar Falcon, Merlin, Jungle Bush & Rock Bush Quails, Yellow-legged & Barred Buttonquails, Black Francolin, Painted, Spotted & Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse, Short-eared Owl, Sykes’s & Savanna Nightjars, White-naped & Indian Black-lored Tits, Marshall’s Iora, Brown Rock Chat, Pied & White-browed Bush Chats, Bimaculated, Rufous-tailed & Sykes’s Larks, Indian Bush Lark, Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Desert Whitethroat, Bay-backed Shrike, Graceful & Rufous-fronted Prinias, Eastern Orphean, Asian Desert Warbler and Striolated Bunting.
Asiatic Wild Ass, Asiatic Lion, Blackbuck, Nilgai, with chances for Golden Jackal, Indian and the desert subspecies of Red Fox, Striped Hyena, Grey Wolf, Jungle Cat and Wild Cat
semi-desert scrub, salt-flats, seasonal wetlands, grassland, scrubland, dry deciduous forest, coastline
warm during the day, with cooler nights and cold mornings
8 with 1 Rockjumper leader & local birding leader
mostly relaxed with some longer drives
mostly good, basic but comfortable around Zainabad
mostly unchallenging
very good
This was my first Rockjumper trip. I definitely will be a repeat customer. The booking process was easy and painless. The transport and hotel logistics during the trip were flawless. David Hoddinott and Ansar Khan were excellent guides and worked diligently to make sure we saw as many birds as possible.
David Hoddinott is simply outstanding: Calm, focused, truly excellent knowledge of the birds, their calls and habits. He has a wonderful sense of humour, too.
We really enjoyed both tours. The leader, Stephan Lorenz, was very helpful and worked hard to make the birding trips a success. We appreciated the local guides on both trips as well. They were all very good at getting the job done and making it all enjoyable and seamless. We always feel we are in good hands when we go on a Rockjumper tour.
This was the first group birding tour Ive ever taken (meaning, more than myself and either one or two other persons). Rockjumper and Nigel Redman made it a very pleasurable experience, with wonderful birds, beautiful landscapes, and good flexibility and adaptability to the various challenges and obstacles thrown our way on the trip. I heartily recommend both this tour and Nigel Redman as a tour leader! I would happily go on any tour for which Nigel was the leader; his knowledge of ornithology, history, and birding folklore is encycylopedic, and his easy humor and casual nature made for happy hours in our vehicles or over dinner tables (this, in contrast to the group next to us in some of the dining halls, where hardly a word was spoken by any tour member when the trip leader was going through the days list; that was a dictatorship; Nigels tour was a democracy in many ways.)
We had a wonderful trip with Rich Lindie and Stephan Lorenz, and we would certainly be happy to travel with either of them again. They were both excellent with the birds, had a great sense of humour, and were helpful and patient when individuals required extra assistance. In addition to the birding, we enjoyed a long list of mammals sighted in the various national parks. The accommodations and meals were also very good.
17 Feb 2025 - 01 Mar 2025 (13 days)
USD4,495 - Spaces Available
Tour Leader: André Bernon
Tour price (Per person): USD4,495 * GBP3,596 * EUR4,192 * AUD6,891
Single Supplement: USD640 * GBP512 * EUR597 * AUD981
Flight costs: USD280 * GBP224 * EUR261 * AUD429
Can be linked with: India - Forest Owlet Extension 2025
India North Summer Test Tour (Tpss) - April 2024
India - Southern: Birding & Wildlife of the Western Ghats (Small Group) 2024 - January 2024
India - Northern: Birds & Tigers 2023 - December 2023
India - Assam Birding & Big Game Extension II 2023 - April 2023
India - Northeast: Eaglenest & Beyond 2023 - April 2023
India - Assam Birding & Big Game Extension I 2023 - March 2023
India - Northern: Birds & Tigers (Small Group) 2023 - January 2023
India - Western: Forest Owlet Extension 2023 - January 2023
India - Western: Desert Specials 2023 - January 2023
India - Southern: Birding & Wildlife of the Western Ghats (Small Group) 2023 - January 2023
India - Northern: Birds & Tigers 2022 - December 2022
India - Northern: Birds & Tigers (Small Group) 2020 - February 2020
India - Southern: Birding & Wildlife of the Western Ghats (Small Group) 2020 - January 2020
India - Highlights of the North 2019 - December 2019
India - Northern: Birds & Tigers 2019 - December 2019
India - Highlights of the North 2018 - December 2018
India - Southern: Birding & Wildlife of the Western Ghats II 2018 - November 2018
India - Andaman Islands Endemics 2018 - November 2018
India - Southern: Birding & Wildlife of the Western Ghats I 2018 - January 2018