The Keoladeo Ghana National Park or Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary is situated in the country’s north-western state of Rajasthan. The park is renowned as a birdwatcher’s paradise.
The Keoladeo Ghana Park is famous as one of Asia’s finest birding areas, with over 380 resident and migrant species, including the demoiselle cranes and the rare Siberian cranes. It is also an excellent place to watch mammals like golden jackal, striped hyaena, fishing cat, jungle cat, nilgai, sambar, blackbuck and wild boar. The park derives its name from the temple of Keoladeo (Shiva) and ‘ghana’ which locally means dense, implying the nature of the vegetation. During the cool winter months, it is also possible to see large Indian pythons sunning themselves.
The park occupies an area of roughly 29 sq km and features a range of man-made wetlands and micro-habitats including low lying lands completely submerged in water, grasslands and dense tree growth.