Porbandar Bird Sanctuary

We write and share this review purely from perpective of bird lover.

Where in the world can you find a beautiful 1 sq.km lake and home to various birds right in center of a city.

En route from Sasan to Dwarka (December 2019)we stopped in city of Porbandar to visit the historic places like Kirti Mandir in the city. However, we were pleasantly surprised to hear of the Porbandar bird Sanctuary (PBS).

The PBS is lake surrounded by a 5-10 meter wide track on periphery built around 1/3 of lake. One can walk on this track to go around lake and observe birds from different points. There is also a watch/observation tower next to the entrance gate.

There were some staff sitting as we entered, but no guide. There is no entrance fee. But the staff was helpful and one of them walked us around lake and showed us some birds with names in gujarati. There are many posters, hoardings of birds but they are now fading and weathering.

There are a few man made rocky clusters or islands in the lake on which groups of birds such as 20 black headed ibis were found sitting.

In the 45 minute walk around the lake we saw close to 20 variety of birds. Some of the larger birds such as flamingo were slated to arrive by mid jan to end jan as per the staff.

We saw

1. Common crane
2. Demoiselle crane
3. Common coot
4. Black headed Ibis
5. Red naped Ibis
6. Pond Heron
7. Red walted Lapwing
8. Great Egret
9. Cattle Egret
10. Purple moorhen
11. Common sandpiper
12. Spotbilled Duck
13. Little grebe
14. Laughing dove
15. Green Bee eater
16. Asian koel
17. Black winged stilt
18. Great cormorant
19. Little cormorant
20. And we were also lucky to see female Paradise fly catcher

Another unique aspect of PBS is we saw many of the birds from a few meters away. Very close; which is rare. And since we were on foot we could choose how long to stay at a point.

We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Ou visit time was around 2:45pm to 3:30-3:45pm. And the sun was against us to get good photos. Thus suggest to visit morning hours.

PBS facilities are not in the best shape and lot of habitation/houses ver close to periphery wall; despite this nature is at its best.

We plan to visit again.