Welcome to the blog of bird watching at Kedarnath wildlife sanctuary. Discover incredible birding spots of India with our senior birder Tarun.  Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary (KWLS), also called Kedarnath Muskdeer Sanctuary. It was established in the year 1972, is located in the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is spread across a geographical area of about 970 Km² in the two districts of Chamoli and Rudraprayag of Uttarakhand. Home to innumerable species of flora and fauna, KWLS offers every birder a haven of winged friends.

         In every bush, waterside shrubs or large trees here, there is a movement. Just watch minutely and definitely there is some tiny colourful feather inside. Similarly, look beside the thin stream, you will see birds on the mosses, on the pebbles. Moreover, even look inside the darkness of the humid undergrowth.

Scaly breasted Wren-Babbler (001) and Chestnut headed Tesia (002) are the two such birds. Where the first one calls very sweetly the later is a tiny beauty. Only 8 cm in size.Additionally, both the birds are tailless. They are examples of adaptation too. As they forages on the humid and dark ground only, their tails could be a trouble due to wetting. Therefore, they have developed such a tailless structure.

You may watch a bigger size black and white bird along the water-flow, moving all time from one stone to the other. It is Spotted Forktail (003). Moreover, this restless bird is in habit of swaying its tail up and down frequently.

One more colourful bird also follows the water flow-line is White-capped Water Redstart (004). They sit on a rock for long time for food unmoved. Therefore, it becomes difficult to locate them.

In the small bushes by the side of water flows, a bright golden colour bird suddenly comes out and quickly returns inside is Golden Bush Robin (005). Similarly, on the other side of the bushes, where it’s dry and dark too, a number of birds are the residents there. In addition, you may find some on the ground and some reside on the branches, depending on their food habits.

On the ground there are Streak-breasted Scimitar Babbler (006), White throated Fantail (007) and mostly Streaked Laughing Thrush (008). Importantly, all these birds find their food on ground, mostly small insects and mosses.

You can easily watch these two birds on the upper branches. They are Blue Whistling Thrush (009) and White Throated Laughing Thrush (010). The first bird is mostly solitary. In contrast, the later one moves in groups and very noisy too.

 

Unlike these shrub dwellers, the big trees like Rhododendron are shelters for so many colourful birds. Moreover, those birds move from place to place in search of food. Therefore, any place suddenly found in an abundance of food invites variety of birds at a time. We will be coming back here tomorrow again in search of those high flying beauties. Till then, sayo-nara! I hope this travel blog on bird watching at kedarnath wildlife sanctuary provides useful information about some endemic birds of India.