The Cranes of Keoladeo

Sarus and Siberian cranes · Bharatpur, on film

The marshes of Keoladeo, at Bharatpur in Rajasthan, were among the places Nanak Dhingra photographed on slide film in the 1990s. The bird he gave most frames to there was the sarus crane, the tallest flying bird in the world, which pairs for life.

These photographs follow the sarus through a season: feeding in the morning mist, calling in unison with bills to the sky, the courtship dance, mating, and then the nest on its mound in the shallows. The last two frames show a different bird. The white cranes dancing on the grass are Siberian cranes, which once flew thousands of kilometres to winter at Keoladeo. The last of them were seen there in 2002.