Trip report to Little Rann of Kutchchh

This week has been a very happening week. I had the opportunity to visit the areas around the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. This place is very close to the Arabian sea and a natural gulf here makes the place a bio-diversity hotspot. u can see sea and a semi-desert very close to each other in a very interesting juxtaposition...

One of the places here is Surajbari...

On either side of the National highway, one would see the salt pans and dried coastal mudflats until the expanse of vision. The salt pan workers, or the Agariyas work here in the nights to avoid the scorching sun. On a moonlit night, the light reflects from the salt and it feels as if the Agariyas are working on water. I had heard a lot of talk about this place...And when I reached this place, I was dumbfounded to Spot-billed Pelicans, Black headed Ibis, Spoon bills, Sandpipers, geese, storks, Painted storks and last but not the least- the pretty Flamingoes...

And at one place, they were all together...Getting close to the flamingoes with a 70-200 mm lens was a mighy difficult task and after loads of trails I gave up...How I missed a 500 mm lens atleast...but as they say, "soon"...


Some shots from the birding at Surajbari as follows:

Painted Storks busy doing what they do best- Fishin ;-)


Lesser Flamingoes:


Some shots of the action on one of the salt pans would come here after I process them:

Some more:








Watching spoonbills feed was a treat for sure...We should name them water sweepers ;-)

After a great day, as I boarded the flight from Ahmedabad to Bangalore, Sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds...some shots from 20,000 fts above the ground...




And one last sunset from Little Rann of Kutchchh:


Hope u liked the shots...pls feel free to leave ur comments for improvement...