Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary

A Ramsar-listed wetland on Thane Creek where, in a good year, over a hundred thousand migratory birds winter, several thousand of them lesser and greater flamingos, enough to turn the mudflats pink from the waterline outward. Forest-department boats leave the Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Centre at Airoli for trips of about an hour, on schedules set by the tide rather than the clock, roughly from October or November through May, with late January to April the peak. A few hundred rupees a seat, more at weekends and in small private boats. Book ahead.

An hour on the water among a hundred thousand flamingos, inside the metro area