Punit Van, Aranya Van, Ahmedabad revisited

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When: August 2025 Weather: 25C and rainy off and on

NikonP900

After our conference, we set off at 0630 for Punit Forest which I had visited a year ago with a relative newcomer to bird photography. I knew that the peacocks were good there and that there’d be some other birds to shoot….the skies were dark but the rain held off…

Our final morning in Gandhinagar loomed dark and ominous….here the Leela Hotel where we stayed…in the field in the foreground were many red naped Ibises
we headed to Punit Van, about 15 minutes away by car, guided by a very nice local birder ophthalmologist!
a black drongo welcomed us in the car park
as did a pair of jungle babblers
almost immediately the peacocks started calling and displaying to the drab females
the back is also striking but the pea hen wasn’t impressed
stunning blue neck
female purple sunbird
and then we came across a startled grey francolin who couldn’t run away fast enough!
male purple rumped sunbird
purple sunbird eclipse plumage
blue tailed bee eater
scaly breasted munia
scaly breasted munias
male purple rumped sunbird
a rather pretty yellow footed green pigeon

After an hour and a half at Punit Van, we went to another forest reserve called Aranya Van nearby…there was a butterfly park and a lake…

At Aranya van, we visited the butterfly park first…
glimpse of a jungle or Indian prinia
very different from the ashy prinia
a peahen posed
about 1 km from the park entrance is this lake…
lesser whistling ducks
black capped night heron
spot billed ducks
the dogs watched us bird watching
water lilies
wire tailed swallows
blue tailed bee eater and red rumped swallow
silver bill munia
indian thick knee…very reminiscent of the stone curlew in Hamilton island, Australia
thick knee
and as we left the park in the rain around 1130am, this splendid shikra bade us farewell from the road side fence
shikra

5 hours birding in these two locations was really using our time well and we got a decent number of species….if you are in Gandhinagar, I highly recommend these two birding locations…..

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