Meet the Bar-headed Goose and Friends!

Although the mega-mammals draw most of the visitors to Kaziranga National Park in India, the birdlife is equally stellar. Let's start with the denizens of shore and water.

Bar-headed Geese at Kaziranga National Park, India

(All photos by Narca)

For years, I have wanted to see a wild Bar-headed Goose––that very beautiful, rather small goose, which is renowned for its migrations from the Indian subcontinent over the high Himalaya to its breeding grounds in Central Asia. Thus, it is one of the world's highest-flying birds. Reports, possibly apocryphal, exist of this goose flying over Mt Everest! One tagged goose was documented to reach an elevation of 23,920 feet.

Research by Hawkes et al. ("The Trans-Himalayan Flights of Bar-headed Geese Anser indicus") depicts a bird that "undertakes the greatest rates of climbing flight ever recorded for a bird, and sustains these climb rates for hours on end" (Wikipedia).

Let's meet this marathoner!

Bar-headed Geese on their wintering grounds in Kaziranga

Keeping the Bar-headed Geese company at Kaziranga is a host of other waterbirds, including these handsome ducks:

Gregarious Lesser Whistling-Ducks

Ruddy Shelduck

The nonmigratory Indian Spot-billed Duck

Bronze-winged Jacanas are abundant at Kaziranga. Like other jacanas, their long toes enable them to walk on floating vegetation without sinking. The polyandrous females are slightly larger, and keep harems of about 3 or 4 males during the nesting season. One male in a harem will incubate the eggs and raise the young. Each female needs to produce enough eggs in a season to balance the high number of eggs lost to predators like turtles.

Adult Bronze-winged Jacana

Immature Bronze-winged Jacana

You can encounter Indian Pond Herons in habitats ranging from the wilds of Kaziranga to small ponds near human habitations.

Indian Pond Heron

A special wagtail spends most of its time near water: the Citrine. In breeding plumage, the males sport very bright yellow heads with a black nape.

An adult Citrine Wagtail in nonbreeding plumage

A nocturnal bird, the Indian Thick-knee rests in daytime in drier habitat above the water's edge. 

Indian Thick-knee

The distinctive Asian Openbill is a stork that specializes in feeding on snails. The gap between their mandibles only develops with age, and may increase the force which they can apply to a snail's shell. Young birds lacking the gap are still able to eat snails.

In January, the bird's plumage is largely gray, but during the breeding season, Openbills acquire a plumage of bright white and glossy black.

Temple-trekking at Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat in the early morning (Photos by Narca)

Angkor Wat is, to my mind, one of the true wonders of the ancient world, on a par with Egypt's and Greece's antiquities and Peru's Machu Picchu. For our first three days in Cambodia, Alan, Jim, Rich and I are exploring the vast ruins of Angkor Wat and birding the temple grounds.

We begin our temple-trek before daybreak, driving out to the stunning central complex of Angkor Wat with our temple guide, Mardy, to watch dawn illuminate the ruins of Angkor. Mardy is a charming young man who knows his subject well. He tells us that the whole region is called Angkor. "Wat" means "monastery," and therefore the most well-known complex is that of the temple of Angkor Monastery. Cambodia is now a Buddhist country, but hundreds of years ago when Angkor Wat was built, the region was Hindu.

Huge faces gaze down from ruined towers

Erected in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat was conceived as a Hindu center dedicated to the god Vishnu. Vishnu represents that aspect of god which sustains and preserves the universe. Angkor was the king's capital city and the state temple. The immense towers are shaped like lotus buds. An intricate system of waterworks was one of the region's marvels.

Mardy teaches us

Bas-relief carving of a story from the Mahabarata

Hundreds of apsaras––celestial nymphs––dance over the surfaces of Angkor Wat. These two are draped in serpents.

Mardy explains the meanings of the elaborate shapes and bas-reliefs. Stories from the epic Hindu tale, the Mahabarata, are carved into the sandstone surfaces. Elaborations project from the roof and edges of all the buildings, and they represent serpents. I'm blown away. During years of marveling at depictions of the temples of Angkor Wat, I never realized that all those projections were serpents. Serpents adorn not only the angles of the buildings, but also the statues and carvings.

A King Cobra towers over this statue.

Even the balustrades of bridges are serpents ("nagas") and usually resemble King Cobras.

This balustrade is fashioned after a 7-headed cobra.

Serpent power or serpent energy is the symbol for kundalini, the powerful energy regarded in yoga as lying coiled at the base of the spine, which, when awakened, courses up the spine and leads to spiritual awakening. The whole immense, intricate, stupendous temple complex strikes me as a monument to the attainment of higher consciousness.

We roam through temple complexes for three days, yet I feel we have barely begun to explore what's here.

Trees have sprawled over many ruins. 

Marauding gangs of Long-tailed Macaques roam the ruins, ready to snatch an iPhone or a bit of someone's lunch.

And yes, even Asian Elephants stroll about, ferrying tourists.

Restoration is underway in several sites.

Fearsome demons adorn this restored panel.

At the end of a hike, we find a restful spot to scan wetlands behind one of the temples.

Here we find our first Pheasant-tailed and Bronze-winged Jacanas, our first Lesser Whistling-Ducks.

Lesser Whistling-Ducks are common in Cambodian wetlands.

Black Bazas, a small and elegant raptor, gather in family groups around the ruins. 

A lizard scurries away. Most of our Cambodian adventure still lies ahead.