en hectares, this spot in the Po valley counts kingfisher, stork, heron, ibis and cormorant among its delights. It also raises birds from endangered species and releases them into the wild. It is thought that nearly all storks in the southern Lombardy and southeaster Piedmont regions of Italy are direct descendants of those raised at the Oasi in the late 1970s.

In India
India may not be the first place you’d

There are over 10,000 species of birds in the world, including 1,000 in Europe, 2000 in North and Central America and the Caribbean, 2,900 in Asia, 2,300 in Africa and more than 3,200 species in the richest region of all, South America.

Try as you may, you’ll never be able to see more than a tiny fraction of this number. But, if you are willing to go a little off the beaten track, the effort to see that tiny fraction will be rewarded over and over.

In Europe
In Europe, the best place for birds is undoubtedly the Danube delta, where the river splits into numerous channels before entering the Black Sea. The Danube Delta Biospheres Reserve in Romania is 580,000 hectares of pure heaven for birdwatchers and is the largest reed surface in the world, interrupted by lakes and channels. Here you will find Europe’s largest colony of pelicans, as well as herons, ibis, warblers, and ducks in their thousands. To see the birds at close range you need to get out on the water – a boat is also the only way to reach the Monastery of St Atanasie, where the monks live in wooden houses and live almost entirely off their own produce. South of the delta is a reserve where you can see from the roadside thousands of water birds including 60 species of waders, terns, ducks, gulls, geese, cormorants, pelicans, herons and egrets. Piatra Craiului and Retezat mountains and the large Bicaz Gorges are large areas still untouched by human influence, offering spectacular birding.

On a comparatively tiny scale is the Oasi di Sant-Alessio, near Pavia, in northern Italy, a privileged habitat for birds, set in the grounds of one of the oldest castles in Europe. Covering only ten hectares, this spot in the Po valley counts kingfisher, stork, heron, ibis and cormorant among its delights. It also raises birds from endangered species and releases them into the wild. It is thought that nearly all storks in the southern Lombardy and southeaster Piedmont regions of Italy are direct descendants of those raised at the Oasi in the late 1970s.

In India
India may not be the first place you’d

ion will be rewarded over and over.

In Europe
In Europe, the best place for birds is undoubtedly the Danube delta, where the river splits into numerous channels before entering the Black Sea. The Danube Delta Biospheres Reserve in Romania is 580,000 hectares of pure heaven for birdwatchers and is the largest reed surface in the world, interrupted by lakes and channels. Here you will find Europe’s largest colony of pelicans, as well as herons, ibis, warblers, and ducks in their thousands. To see the birds at close range you need to get out on the water – a boat is also the only way to reach the Monastery of St Atanasie, where the monks live in wooden houses and live almost entirely off their own produce. South of the delta is a reserve where you can see from the roadside thousands of water birds including 60 species of waders, terns, ducks, gulls, geese, cormorants, pelicans, herons and egrets. Piatra Craiului and Retezat mountains and the large Bicaz Gorges are large areas still untouched by human influence, offering spectacular birding.

On a comparatively tiny scale is the Oasi di Sant-Alessio, near Pavia, in northern Italy, a privileged habitat for birds, set in the grounds of one of the oldest castles in Europe. Covering only ten hectares, this spot in the Po valley counts kingfisher, stork, heron, ibis and cormorant among its delights. It also raises birds from endangered species and releases them into the wild. It is thought that nearly all storks in the southern Lombardy and southeaster Piedmont regions of Italy are direct descendants of those raised at the Oasi in the late 1970s.

In India
India may not be the first place you’d

ony of pelicans, as well as herons, ibis, warblers, and ducks in their thousands. To see the birds at close range you need to get out on the water – a boat is also the only way to reach the Monastery of St Atanasie, where the monks live in wooden houses and live almost entirely off their own produce. South of the delta is a reserve where you can see from the roadside thousands of water birds including 60 species of waders, terns, ducks, gulls, geese, cormorants, pelicans, herons and egrets. Piatra Craiului and Retezat mountains and the large Bicaz Gorges are large areas still untouched by human influence, offering spectacular birding.

On a comparatively tiny scale is the Oasi di Sant-Alessio, near Pavia, in northern Italy, a privileged habitat for birds, set in the grounds of one of the oldest castles in Europe. Covering only ten hectares, this spot in the Po valley counts kingfisher, stork, heron, ibis and cormorant among its delights. It also raises birds from endangered species and releases them into the wild. It is thought that nearly all storks in the southern Lombardy and southeaster Piedmont regions of Italy are direct descendants of those raised at the Oasi in the late 1970s.

In India
India may not be the first place you’d

ers, terns, ducks, gulls, geese, cormorants, pelicans, herons and egrets. Piatra Craiului and Retezat mountains and the large Bicaz Gorges are large areas still untouched by human influence, offering spectacular birding.

On a comparatively tiny scale is the Oasi di Sant-Alessio, near Pavia, in northern Italy, a privileged habitat for birds, set in the grounds of one of the oldest castles in Europe. Covering only ten hectares, this spot in the Po valley counts kingfisher, stork, heron, ibis and cormorant among its delights. It also raises birds from endangered species and releases them into the wild. It is thought that nearly all storks in the southern Lombardy and southeaster Piedmont regions of Italy are direct descendants of those raised at the Oasi in the late 1970s.

In India
India may not be the first place you’d

en hectares, this spot in the Po valley counts kingfisher, stork, heron, ibis and cormorant among its delights. It also raises birds from endangered species and releases them into the wild. It is thought that nearly all storks in the southern Lombardy and southeaster Piedmont regions of Italy are direct descendants of those raised at the Oasi in the late 1970s.

In India
India may not be the first place you’d think of for birdwatching, unless you’re a dedicated old hand and you know that it has 2,060 species of birds, in addition to its thousands of species of mammals, reptiles and insects. India has 11 national parks and 135 wildlife sanctuaries.

Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary (near Alwar, Rajasthan) is part of Project Tiger. Its rich avifauna includes more than 200 species of birds, among them the babbler (common, jungle & large grey), black-/red-headed bunting, little brown dove, crested serpent eagle, pale harrier and dozens more.

Keoladeo Ghana Bird Sanctuary (in Rajasthan, 176 km from Delhi), better known as Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, is regarded as the best bird marsh in the world, comprising 29 square km of marsh, woodland and scrub. Here you will find 330 species of both nesting indigenous and migratory water birds inhabiting or visiting this big, shallow lake. The Sanctuary is the wintering ground for about 52 of the 350 Siberian cranes left in the world.

Corbett (near Ramnagar, about 270 km from Delhi) is another great bird park, with over 600 species/subspecies of birds, more than the total number of bird species found in Europe. Of the 69 species of raptors found in India, 49 can be seen in Corbett. Bird diversity is at its peak in winter, when the keenest European birdwatchers visit. With luck and a keen eye, you may also spot rarer species such as oriental white-eye, jungle owlet, Himalayan swiftlet, lesser fish eagle or even the stork-billed kingfisher. Birds are not the end of the story here: the park hosts tiger, Indian elephant, chital, sambhar, muntjack (barking deer), hog deer and the common langur. The historic and heritage cities of