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
Here is the list of some of the birds we saw
Long Billed Vultures…. Lots of them
Egyptian Vultures
Red Headed Vulture
Booted Eagle
Crested Serpent Eagle was always near by
Shikras
Common Kestrel (Female)
Green Bee eater active as ever & catching bees in flight
Cormorants fishing Black headed Gulls & Swifts
Red Wattled Lapwings with chicks
Olive Backed Pipits
Rufous Tailed Larks
Tailor birds
Three different types of Tits
Blue Rock Thrush
Grey backed Shrikes, though never got it in the classic pose of sitting with its meal nailed in to a tree
Citrine Wagtail
Wagtail
Prinias
Grey Breasted Prinia
Chestnut Shouldered Petronia A different type of Babbler
Lots of Sunbirds
Grey Hornbills
Pea hens & fowls
Flower peckers
Woolly necked Storks
Night Herons
Egrets
Spotted Owlets on a moon lit night !!
Finally as always all good things in life have to come to an end, so reluctantly we all headed back & me back to school !!
