In January of 2018 I went on my first overnight birding trip to Tando Adam (which made me feel like a totally hardcore birder).  Located at a drive of 4 hours from Karachi it is located right in the middle of the desert province of Sindh, Pakistan and so it came as a total surprise to see greenery rivaling that of Punjab. This beautiful little agricultural town was surrounded by fields of Wheat, Mustard, Sugarcane and Bananas which in turn led to there being a lot of wildlife. It was a birder’s paradise for sure.

Because Tando Adam has a lot of surrounding lakes and smaller water bodies it’s an ideal location to look for migratory ducks and these were primarily what we went to photograph. Here I saw them for the first time (having spent most of my life in the urban localities of Karachi) but due to the limited zoom of my lens I was not able to capture pictures as good as I would have liked (I was using a Canon D1200 and 75-300 mm lens). However, I was able to capture some amazing pictures of Prinias, Babblers, Bushchats and Stonechats at very close range.

The day ended on a perfect note with a view of the sunset which looked stunning above the mustard fields and a delicious dinner arranged by our host.

One of the factors that made our trip so worthwhile was also the presence of local guides who were extremely cooperative and took us to some very good locations for bird photography that we might otherwise not have gone to.

In short, it was a very memorable trip with enough birds to satisfy any birder’s ambition.

Happy Birding!