A Sky Full of Wings: Witnessing the Great Bird Migration Over Kashmir

A Sky Full of Wings: Witnessing the Great Bird Migration Over Kashmir (November 23, 2025)
Yesterday, something magical happened above the valleys of Kashmir that I’ll never forget.
I was walking along the shores of Wular Lake just after sunrise when the sky suddenly came alive. At first it was just a faint, distant murmur, like wind rustling through poplars. Then I looked up, and my breath caught.
Thousands upon thousands of birds were streaming north in perfect, shimmering ribbons.
Bar-headed geese, those incredible high-flyers that cross the Himalaya at altitudes commercial planes use, were leading the charge. Their unmistakable black-and-white heads glinted in the early light as they flew in classic V-formation, honking rhythmically like an airborne orchestra. Flying at what must have been 6,000–7,000 metres (you can actually see them above the snow peaks from the valley on clear days), they looked tiny against the massive backdrop of Nanga Parbat and Harmukh, yet somehow heroic.
Lower down, over the marshes, came wave after wave of northern migrants finally reaching their wintering grounds:
Hundreds of greylag geese settling noisily on the water
Elegant northern pintails and mallards whistling overhead
Flocks of common teal so dense they darkened patches of sky
A lone Eurasian crane bugling its prehistoric call as it circled Hokarsar wetland
Brahminy ducks (ruddy shelducks) in bright rust-orange, glowing like embers against the blue
Small parties of common pochards and tufted ducks already diving in the shallows
And the raptors! A steppe eagle soared lazily above the chaos, while marsh harriers quartered low over the reedbeds looking for breakfast. Even a peregrine falcon made a brief, blazing stoop through a flock of fleeing coots, pure lightning in feathers.
This is the tail-end of the great autumn migration through the Central Asian Flyway. These birds have flown from Siberia, Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau, and the Arctic tundra, funneled by geography through mountain passes into Kashmir’s wetlands (Hokersar, Wular, Mirgund, Shallabugh) before many continue south to mainland India. For some species, like the bar-headed geese, Kashmir is the much-needed rest stop after the most extreme migration on Earth. For others (ducks, waders, greylags), these marshes are home for the next five months.
Standing there with frozen fingers clutching my binoculars, I felt incredibly small and incredibly privileged. In a single hour I must have seen fifty thousand birds. The air vibrated with their wings and voices. The wetlands, which can look deceptively quiet in summer, suddenly revealed their global importance.
As the morning warmed, the sky emptied again. The great rivers of birds dissolved into the reedbeds and lakes, settling down to feed and rest after journeys that defy imagination. By noon, you could almost believe it had been a dream.
But the muddy shores covered with fresh webbed footprints, the distant honking echoing off the mountains, and the faint white specks still crossing high ridgelines toward Zojila Pass all said otherwise.
Kashmir in November isn’t just about snow and chinar leaves. Sometimes, if you’re lucky and the weather holds, it becomes the stage for one of nature’s greatest spectacles.
I’ll be back at dawn tomorrow, just in case the sky decides to sing again.

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