dreams & imaginations: In Orchha, with the Long billed Vultures

Orchha is a town in Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh state, India. The town was the seat of an eponymous former princely state of central India, in the Bundelkhand region. Orchha lies on the Betwa River, 15 km. from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh.

Mom has been there before & had seen the Long billed Vultures, so during the Holi break we took off to Orchha & i could not wait to see them.

We went by the Bhopal Shatabdi train and reached Orchha by 1:00 in the afternoon. After a sumptous lunch we went to our rooms. The balcony of our rooms looked out upon the river and i couldn't resist the temptation to take a little walk outside. I saw lots of bee-eaters and also a swallow sitting on the wires.

In the evening we had a little swim in the pool there, a very nice dinner and a good night's sleep.

The next morning was finally what i was waiting for, to go to the palace and see the vultures.

At first, I thought there would be a few vultures but by the time i reached the palace it felt as if there were a million of them. Every little ruin around, had at least one vulture sitting on top.

This was seriously vulture paradise. We came to this ruin that was like a courtyard with a tower on each side. As we approached it we saw a vulture on top of one of the towers and i got an amazing view of the bird. We then went to the other side to only find ANOTHER vulture actually sitting on its nest.

But guess what !! That wasn't it, there were two more vultures sitting on that same ruin. This was truly awesome.

I spent my afternoon sitting and taking pics & watching birds in and around the river & in the evening we went down to the river. Well, that is what we did for the next two days, just hanging out around the river, going to Orchha Nature Reserve & also swimming a lot in the pool, thanks to maasi, i learnt how to do the breast stroke

The Betwa river was lovely. We spent a lot of time along the banks, watching the river, the birds, the moon rise etc