Twitch: a British term used to mean “the pursuit of a previously-located rare bird.”
During our previous visit to Kutch, Gujarat, we had manage to photograph almost all the major bird species, however, the Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) had eluded us. Yes, we had managed to get a sighting but I was not happy with the quality of pictures that we had…
Houbara Bustard is a winter visitor to Kutch from Middle East. This bird has been extensively hunted by the falconers in Arabia. The reason being aphrodisiac qualities falsely attributed to it’s meat. The bird is now regarded as vulnerable and has seen up to 60% decline in population at places.
We arrived at Rann Riders at Dasada Village, Lesser Rann of Kutch with the announced intention of “nailing” this one and were very graciously assured that it shall indeed be so. Samad Khan our guide and driver, despite having one hand in plaster was ready to take us.
The area chosen was the Jhinjunvada scrub land. The photographs seen were the result of 10 hours of driving over 85km, slowly crisscrossing the scrubs and then being patient enough to let the bird be in the range of our camera. Total we managed to spot 10 individual and in the end the effort was well worth it I would say.
