For decades the Maharajas of Bharatpur kept this marshland as a duck-shooting estate, and the scale of the sport is hard to believe. On a single day in 1938 the viceroy Lord Linlithgow and his party shot more than four thousand birds, a record that still shocks people today. The shoots ended after independence, and in 1971 the area became a protected sanctuary. It is now Keoladeo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1985 and one of the finest bird sanctuaries in Asia.
The landscape is a patchwork of wetlands, grassland and scrubby woodland, laid out by the Maharajas with low embankments that hold water during the monsoon. In winter it becomes a crowded haven for hundreds of species. Painted storks and spoonbills nest in the trees, cranes stalk the shallows, and migratory ducks arrive from Central Asia and Siberia. The Siberian crane, once the park's most celebrated winter visitor, no longer comes, which is a sad story, but the sarus crane, the tallest flying bird in the world, still lives here and can be seen dancing in the fields. Look in the trees for owls and in the grass for pythons basking in the sun.
Motor vehicles are not allowed inside, so you leave the bike at the gate and move on foot, by bicycle or in a cycle rickshaw whose driver doubles as a surprisingly good bird guide. The paths are flat and shady, and the best time for birds is early morning in winter, when the mist rises off the water and the light is golden. Bring binoculars if you have them, and a hat. Mosquitoes can be fierce near the water.
In the nearby town of Bharatpur, the Lohagarh Fort, the Iron Fort, held out against several British sieges in the early nineteenth century. The town is a plain, busy place, but it has good sweets and tea.
The ride from Agra, about fifty kilometres west, is a mix of highway and rural roads, with crowds, trucks and cattle. Fuel is available in Bharatpur, a city of over two hundred thousand, a few kilometres from the park. Avoid the monsoon and the hot season, April to September, when the park is quiet.