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Bar-headed goose
राजहंस (rajhans)
A pale grey goose with two black bars across a white head. It breeds on the Tibetan plateau and crosses the Himalaya twice a year to winter in India.
👀 How to recognise it
Two clean black bars on the back of the head, and an orange bill and legs. Flocks graze on sandbanks and wet fields and fly in ragged lines.
Where to see it
Delhi
The rajhans of Sanskrit poetry, the swan-like bird said to separate milk from water, is usually taken to be this goose or a close relative, not a European swan.
Okhla Bird Sanctuary (in season) · Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary (Neeli Jheel)
Vrindavan
Bar-headed geese cross the Himalaya twice a year, among the highest sustained flights recorded for any bird. The winter flocks on the Braj wetlands are the far end of that journey, and they are the clearest sign that the cold season has properly set in.
Jodhpur Jhal Wetland (in season)
Agra
At Keoladeo the geese are grazers: a study in the park found that 97 per cent of what they ate was Paspalum distichum, the dominant grass of its wetlands, and that they fed in quiet spots away from roads and the park boundary.
Keoladeo Ghana National Park (Bharatpur) (in season) · Sur Sarovar Bird Sanctuary (Keetham Lake) (in season)
Chandigarh
The rajhans of Sanskrit poetry, the swan-like bird said to separate milk from water, is usually taken to be this goose or a close relative, not a European swan.
Sukhna Lake (in season) · Siswan Dam and Community Reserve (in season)
Dehradun
At Asan the January 2026 waterbird census counted 5,806 birds of 126 species and named the bar-headed goose among the key ones, alongside the greylag goose and common pochard.
Asan Conservation Reserve (Asan Barrage) (in season)
Jaipur
This is the goose that flies over the Himalaya twice a year, one of the highest migrations known in birds; the flocks that settle on a Rajasthan farm pond have just crossed the highest mountains on earth.
Chandlai Lake (in season) · Sambhar Salt Lake