Keoladeo National Park

The wetland at Bharatpur was engineered in the 1850s by flooding a depression to create a duck shoot for the maharaja and his guests, and the bags recorded on stone tablets ran into thousands of birds a day. Shooting stopped in the 1960s, the site became a national park in 1982 and a UNESCO world heritage site in 1985, and it is now among the best-known birding sites in Asia, with over three hundred and fifty species recorded: painted storks nesting in colonies, herons, spoonbills, cranes, raptors and large numbers of wintering waterfowl. Cycle rickshaw drivers double as trained bird guides.

What you actually see

• The nesting colonies - painted storks and herons breeding in the flooded trees.
• The wintering flocks - ducks, geese and waders through the cold months.
• The rickshaw guides - drivers trained to find and name the birds.
• The shooting tablets - stone records of the historic bag counts.

When to go

October to March for wintering birds, with the nesting season running from around July into the autumn depending on rain. Water supply has been unreliable in dry years, affecting numbers.

Honest expectations

The park depends on water released from a canal, and in dry years it has been badly depleted with few birds. Vehicles are not allowed inside; movement is on foot, cycle or rickshaw. Summer is very hot.

Nearby

Agra lies northeast; Fatehpur Sikri is between.