Enchanting Grassland of Tal Chapar

Tal Chapar, is a laid-back little town in the Churu district of Rajasthan , where-in lies, a wonderful grassland sanctuary, called the Tal Chapar Wildlife Sanctuary.

This place seems to have become the hotbed of nature, with some amazing diversity of animal life, turning it into one of the most preferred destinations, for a whole bunch of migratory and non-migratory birds. Even a few of them, whose migratory path doesn’t pass through Chapar at all, somehow seem to stop over from time to time… :-)

Looks like the information on the great habitat, this place has on offer, is traveling thick and fast from one species of bird to the other.!

When, I visited Tal Chapar, with Darter, in early November, was least expecting, the kind of animal diversity and sightings that I would be audience to.

Never have I seen, such a high density of raptors in one place, ranging from the huge Steppes, Tawnys , Red-headed and Egyptian Vultures, to the falcons, like Laggars and Kestrels. We were privy to a huge diversity of bird life.

One such most unexpected arrival was that of a huge and majestic raptor called the White-tailed Eagle. This is not a frequent visitor to the Indian sub-continent and there are very few records of it having been seen here. This was one sighting that will never fade out of my memory. Just seeing this raptor at such close quarters was a very satisfying experience.

There is also a great amount of mammalian and reptilian life too, like, the Blackbucks, being the major ones, there are so many, that, one could end up spending a lot of time trying out different compositions of them under different settings :) . Occasionally a Desert Fox decides to show up. Then, there are the Spiny-tailed lizards and cute little Desert Jirds.

Regarding the stay, one word, amazing…We were spoilt by the wonderful hospitality, huge and neat rooms and great food, things, that are hard to get in many of the big resorts, even after paying big bucks…….( only one nit, was that, there had to be ‘Aloo’, in every dish… :) )

Had a wonderful time and surely, intend, to visit the place again…….

Thanks to Mr Poonia ji, the senior forest officer, in charge of the sanctuary, for all his efforts in making this grassland sanctuary, a haven for birds and other animal life.

And as always, thanks to Shreeram and Sharad, for organizing this wonderful tour and for their unmitigated passion and liberal sharing of their knowledge with us mere mortals ;)

Here’s my attempt at creating a couple of postcards of Tal Chapar………

[ Laggar Falcon Sunset ]