Notes from a winter birding weekend
December 25, 2025
If you drive about 90 minutes northeast from the noisy, dusty centre of Guwahati, you reach Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, a quiet stretch of grassland and wetland on the floodplains of the mighty Brahmaputra. Open terrain and shallow beels make wildlife easy to see and easy to linger over, something that excites even amateur photographers like me, especially when time at home is short and a weekend is all you can spare.
With this in mind, my father and I set out last weekend to try our luck and spot as many birds as we could. We love birding and spend most of our time watching slowly, often with the help of an app or fellow birders, trying to place what we see. The pleasure lies as much in careful looking as in naming, whether it is a familiar spotted dove or, if luck allows us such as this time, a falcated duck passing through Pobitora in winter.
Pobitora is best known for its dense population of one-horned rhinoceros, often seen grazing during early safaris or even from the highway that skirts the sanctuary. But in winter, the beels and marshes draw large numbers of migratory waterfowl alongside resident storks, raptors, kingfishers, and grassland birds, creating long, unhurried hours of watching and listening. Small enough to explore without rush, Pobitora is the kind of place where a single day can offer close encounters, good light, and the quiet satisfaction of paying attention.
Here are some of the friends I made last weekend. I will update this piece with their names as soon as I can confirm my guesses are correct!
Three is a party
The Hunt
