We started from Dhaka late at night by Train and Arrived at Rajshahi early morning around sunrise. Had our Breakfast first then went straight to the place where our boats would start from. It was a Bright Sunny Day with great visibility.
Our Target was to go visit a Charland of Padma where Common Babbler is being found along with Grey Francolin, White-eyed Buzzard etc. We’d stop by on the way if we found anything interesting on the mudflats. We found a Peregrine Falcon walking on land, few Great Cormorants and flocks of Ruddy Shelducks, Gadwalls etc.
Going more, we found a large gathering of shorebirds on a newly emerged mudflat. There were loads of Small Pratincoles, Little and Temminck’s Stints, Few species of Sandpipers, Greenshanks and few Pied Avocets. We had fun photographing them. Also saw few Great Crested Grebes on the river. We arrived that Charland eventually and started walking. We found few Dunlins nearby too.
We found few White-eyed Buzzard and Eurasian Kestrels, followed by Indian Rollers, Siberian Chiffchaffs etc. There were healthy amount of Bengal Bushlarks there. We found few Grey Francolins and had fun photographing them from distance. One Booted Eagle decided to fly over and we found few Blac kRedstarts also. Seeing the Eurasian Hoopoes foraging on ground catching beetles within cow dung was fun and smelly.
We found a flock of Common Babblers towards the afternoon and took great photos, recorded calls etc. Then while returning to where Boats were parked, we found another flock of Grey Francolins and took better photos than earlier. We also saw Black-headed Ibis, Common Greenshanks, Spotted Redshanks, Marsh Sandpipers, more stints, Black-bellied Plovers etc. We witnessed a beautiful sunset over Padma River on our way back and arrived at town in darkness.
We checked in our hotels and had lovely breakfast at a famous restaurant in Rajshahi City.
On the Next Day we went to Rajshahi University looking for Jungle Owlet – a national rarity only found here and Brahminy Starling, Indian Cormorant etc. We found all three inside campus, saw a family of Grey Mongoose and Had breakfast at a famous cafe on campus. Then returned back to hotel and checked out then started for another spot in Padma Charland by boat.
Duck activity was very low in this parts, we saw few Ruddy Shelducks only and few Crested Grebes. We started walking on the Charland but there was a lot of cattle activity here along with local farmers. We saw a flock of Hume’s Larks, two more Grey Francolins and an Indian Hare which most of the group missed being behind a Corn Field. We saw few more Kestrels and few Long-legged Buzzards. We then headed back to City and Had Lunch, then hopped on to our Evening Train to Dhaka.
This marked the end of our Two Day Padma Riverine Birding in December 2023 and we managed to see 111 Species of Birds. Stork and Duck Activity was low in this Trip sadly. We all had few Lifers each, some guests got over 20.
Check the eBird Trip Report here: