Ahmedabad – Little Rann of Kutch
05 Days / 04 Nights
The location of the Little Rann of Kutch at the crossroads of Palearctic avian migration route makes it an excellent hotspot for a Short Birding Tours. The salt marshes and wetlands of the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat host around 200 species of birds, both resident and migratory. Many of them flit and skip about in the Indian Wild Ass Sanctuary More Info
Booked as per
request.
Included except arrival and departure city.
Private guide for complete tour.
Airport to Airport.
2-8PAX
Included
The location of the Little Rann of Kutch at the crossroads of Palearctic avian migration route makes it an excellent hotspot for a Short Birding Tours.
The salt marshes and wetlands of the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat host around 200 species of birds, both resident and migratory. Many of them flit and skip about in the Indian Wild Ass Sanctuary, which was created for the conservation of Indian wild ass (locally called Khur), but has emerged as a notable wintering ground for birds such as Sarus Crane, Dalmatian Pelican, and several types of ducks, crakes, flamingos, storks, terns, and sandgrouse.
Large flocks of Greater and Lesser Flamingos breed in the Little Rann of Kutch every year. The Great Indian Bustard, who all but became the national bird of India, lopes through the grasslands here, and with the coming of the peak migratory season, the marshes, mudflats and wetlands abound with tens of thousands of birds.
Our Little Rann of Kutch Short Birding Tours taps into the birding potential of this unique landscape to give you lots of sightings in just five days. We hit the best birding trails of Little Rann and leave no hotspot untrodden. The tour is designed to tick off as many birds as possible in the long checklist of Gujarat birds. Waders, raptors, migrants and even vagrants are on our lens.
The target birds of Little Rann of Kutch include Marbled Duck, Macqueen's Bustard, Sykes's Nightjar, Greater Hoopoe-Lark, Desert Wheatear, Stoliczka's Bushchat, Pallid Scops Owl, Sociable Lapwing, Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, Ferruginous Duck, Great Indian Bustard, Macqueen's Bustard, Greylag Goose, Bar-headed Goose, Ruddy Shelduck, Cotton Pygmy Goose, Gadwall, Eurasian Wigeon, Indian Spot-billed Duck, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Garganey, Red-crested Pochard, Common Pochard, Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebe, Black-necked Grebe, Greater Flamingo, Lesser Flamingo, Painted Stork, Woolly-necked Stork, White Stork, Glossy Ibis, Eurasian Spoonbill, Eurasian Bittern, Yellow Bittern, Cinnamon Bittern, Black-crowned Night Heron, Striated Heron, Western Reef Heron, and Great White Pelican.
The checklist also includes a stunning cast of raptors such as White-rumped Vulture, Indian Vulture, Red-headed Vulture, Cinereous vulture, Short-toed Snake Eagle, Western Marsh Harrier, Pallid Harrier, Montagu's Harrier, White-eyed Buzzard, Indian Spotted Eagle, Greater Spotted Eagle, Steppe Eagle, Bonelli's Eagle, Booted Eagle, Red-necked Falcon, Eurasian Hobby, and Laggar Falcon.
Birdwatching in Little Rann of Kutch also reveals the region’s varied wildlife. It’s not unusual to chance upon a herd of Indian wild ass, or pairs of blackbucks, nilgai, or chinkara. Somewhat rare to sight are the likes of Indian wolf and fox, but there’s enough fauna – avian and otherwise – to keep you hooked for five days of our Little Rann of Kutch birding trip.
Lodging: A spike in birding tourism in the Little Rann of Kutch has led to the cropping up of several resorts and lodges with varying quality of service and budget. To ensure your comfort during the short birding trip of Little Rann, we have singled out the best of these resorts that provides three-star facilities and is quite close to many birding sites. For the entire course of the tour, we stay at this resort.
Meals: The Little Rann of Kutch is far removed from urban centres of Gujarat, and the only meal options before you are the ones at the resort that we stay in. Having said that, the options are ample to keep your taste buds satisfied for the entire course of the tour. Both Indian and continental food is on the menu and your eating habits (vegetarian or not) are taken into account. Breakfast and dinner are usually at the resort, but lunch is taken in the field to save us time for birding.
Tour Difficulty: Birding in the Little Rann of Kutch puts no special demand on your body. All the birding hotspots we visit are accessible by motorable road and the birding trails wind across a flat terrain. Some of the areas we explore are quite desolate. Birding walks along the mudflats and marshes may be long and you should be fit enough to put in the legwork while carrying your personal birding equipment. On some days, we continue birding well after sunset.
Tour Extension: Even a short time spent in the Little Rann of Kutch may leave you wanting for more. Deeper excursions into the Indian Wild Ass Sanctuary is usually on the wishlist of birders who scour the grounds of the Little Rann. For more wildlife experience, you may fancy visits to Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary or Kutch Bustard Sanctuary. On request, we can arrange these tour extensions, provided we are informed well in advance.
Climate: The Little Rann of Kutch lies at the Tropic of Cancer. The summer sun is harsh and makes outdoor excursions difficult. The weather turns pleasant in winters and that is the time we prefer to do birdwatching tours of Little Rann. From October to March, the Little Rann is aswarm with birds, especially many migratory ones. The morning and night temperature in the winters can plummet low, and you are advised to carry along appropriate clothing.
Getting There: The Little Rann of Kutch can be reached from the Gujarat city of Ahmedabad. You may arrive by plane or train. Guests from abroad who may not get a straight flight to these cities can land either in Delhi or Mumbai and then commute to Ahmedabad by plane or train. Our representative will meet you at Ahmedabad and transfer you to the Little Rann by a cab.
The bustling city of Ahmedabad is the starting point of our Short Birding Tours of Little Rann of Kutch. Upon your arrival in Ahmedabad, our representative meets you at the airport, train station or any other location of your choice. We then drive you to the Little Rann of Kutch.
The north-westerly drive from Ahmedabad cuts through several small towns and villages of Gujarat, giving you a rare glimpse into rural India. After a 4-hour ride, we arrive at a pre-booked resort in the Little Rann of Kutch. We check in, and take a short break for rest and lunch before stepping out for a birding excursion around the resort. The location of the resort is such that all it takes is a short stroll to reach the areas swarming with birds. Our schedule of the day is drawn to give you at least half a day for this preliminary birding experience of the Little Rann. If not more, we should clock in at least a few dozen bird species on this short excursion.
In the evening, we return to our resort for dinner and overnight.
After breakfast, we go out for daylong birdwatching in the Little Rann of Kutch. To cover the long checklist of about 200 bird species, we cover different birding trails on each one of the coming days.
The bird targets of our expedition include several types of geese, ducks, flamingos, bitterns and a range of raptors. Among the sought-after birds are the likes of Common Quail, Rain Quail, Rock Bush Quail, Greylag Goose, Bar-headed Goose, Ruddy Shelduck, Cotton Pygmy Goose, Gadwall, Eurasian Wigeon, Indian Spot-billed Duck, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Garganey, Marbled Duck, Red-crested Pochard, Common Pochard, Ferruginous Duck, Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebe, Black-necked Grebe, Greater Flamingo, Lesser Flamingo, Painted Stork, Woolly-necked Stork, White Stork, Glossy Ibis, Eurasian Spoonbill, Eurasian Bittern, Yellow Bittern, Cinnamon Bittern, Black-crowned Night Heron, Striated Heron, Western Reef Heron, Great White Pelican, Spot-billed Pelican, Dalmatian Pelican, White-rumped Vulture, Indian Vulture, Red-headed Vulture, Cinereous vulture, Short-toed Snake Eagle, Western Marsh Harrier, Pallid Harrier, Montagu's Harrier, White-eyed Buzzard, Indian Spotted Eagle, Greater Spotted Eagle, Steppe Eagle, Bonelli's Eagle, Booted Eagle, Red-necked Falcon, Eurasian Hobby, Laggar Falcon, Macqueen's Bustard, Brown Crake, Baillon's Crake, and Spotted Crake, besides many others.
In the evening, we return to our resort for dinner and overnight.
The wetlands and marshes of the Little Rann of Kutch yield an interesting variety of cranes, gulls, lapwings, and terns. The scrubs and woods host several kinds of kingfishers, shrikes and bee-eaters. At night, we also look out for nightjars and owls.
We expand the checklist with sightings of birds such as Sarus Crane, Demoiselle Crane, Yellow-legged Buttonquail, Pied Avocet, Yellow-wattled Lapwing, Sociable Lapwing, White-tailed Lapwing, Pacific Golden Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover, Lesser Sand Plover, Greater Sand Plover, Caspian Plover, Black-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Marsh Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Sanderling, Temminck's Stint, Dunlin, Ruff, Cream-colored Courser, Indian Courser, Slender-billed Gull, Black-headed Gull, Pallas's Gull, Caspian Gull, Gull-billed Tern, Black-bellied Tern, Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse, Painted Sandgrouse, Yellow-footed Green Pigeon, Greater Coucal, Sirkeer Malkoha, Barn Owl, Rock Eagle-Owl, Short-eared Owl, Grey Nightjar, European Nightjar, Sykes's Nightjar, Indian Nightjar, Savanna Nightjar, Black-capped Kingfisher, Pied Kingfisher, Green Bee-eater, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Yellow-crowned Woodpecker, Brown Shrike, Red-backed Shrike, Isabelline Shrike, Bay-backed Shrike, Long-tailed Shrike, Great Grey Shrike, Indian Golden Oriole, White-browed Fantail, and Asian Paradise Flycatcher.
In the evening, we return to our resort for dinner and overnight.
The birdwatching adventure of Little Rann of Kutch is never complete without the sightings of its many larks, swallows, warblers, prinias, wheatears, and buntings.
The stellar cast in this category includes Singing Bush Lark, Indian Bush Lark, Greater Hoopoe-Lark, Bimaculated Lark, Rufous-tailed Lark, Greater Short-toed Lark, Crested Lark, Sykes's Lark, Oriental Skylark, Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Ashy-crowned Sparrow-Lark, White-eared Bulbul, Grey-throated Martin, Barn Swallow, Wire-tailed Swallow, Plain Leaf Warbler, Sulphur-bellied Warbler, Paddyfield Warbler, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Moustached Warbler, Clamorous Reed Warbler, Sykes' Warbler, Booted Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Rufous-fronted Prinia, Grey-breasted Prinia, Graceful Prinia, Jungle Prinia, Ashy Prinia, Plain Prinia, Lesser Whitethroat, Eastern Orphean Warbler, Desert Warbler, Brahminy Starling, Rosy Starling, Bluethroat, Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, Stoliczka's Bushchat, Isabelline Wheatear, Pied Wheatear, Desert Wheatear, Variable Wheatear, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Yellow-throated Sparrow, Streaked Weaver, Tawny Pipit, Long-billed Pipit, Tree Pipit, Chestnut-breasted Bunting, Striolated Bunting, Red-headed Bunting, Black-headed Bunting, and Grey-hooded Bunting.
In the evening, we return to our resort for dinner and overnight.
If you wish, we may squeeze in an early morning tour of nearby birding trails of Little Rann of Kutch, before packing up and leaving for Ahmedabad. We go back the way we came in. The drive takes about 4 hours. In Ahmedabad, we drop you at the airport, railway station or any other location of your choice. The Little Rann of Kutch birding adventure comes to an end.
