Birding India Part 10: Great Rann of Kutch Dec 17-20

This video is mainly a slideshow and covers our extension days to Gujarat, way too few (only 2 whole days!), but resulted in a handful very important Target Birds: Demoiselle Crane, Grey Hypocolius, White-naped Tit, Sykes's Lark, Sykes's Nightjar, Red-tailed Wheatear plus Marshall's Iora and Grey-naped Bunting.
The two days of birding went well, we got all our Target Birds and then some! Second day was spent in Mandvi, by the sea, where we got the Cranes but also Greater Flamingo, Slender-billed Gull, Brown-headed Gull, Black-headed Gull, Pallas's Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, 3 species of Terns and a few species of shorebirds (like Oystercatcher, Eurasian Curlew & Kentish Plover).
We could've had two half days of birding added (arrival and departure days), which was the plan when the trip was hatched the year before. However, the flight to Bhuj disappeared, and we had to make do with Ahmenabad and a 8-10 hour drive one way. There went those birding hours! Adding to that the landwide riots, with closed roads to and from stations and airports, the trip back to Ahmenabad had to start before dawn.
Then there was the problem with the pilots not being cleared for landing by help of instruments only, combined with the everpresent heavy smog over New Delhi... We got redirected to Indor, after circling Delhi for at least 30 minutes (no smog in Indor, so it was OK for them to land there, but we hadn't made any progress at all).
We were locked in the cabin, waiting 5 hours for another crew cleared for instrument-only landing. They were flewn in from Mumbay...
Then re-fuelling, then off we went and actually landed in New Delhi an hour or so later. We were so late, on group-member was very VERY close to miss his flight home. We were met with a rep from Ashok Country Resort, that had his incheck bag (left on the hotel during our days in Gujarat), and drove him pronto to the international terminal. Thanks to that he made his flight.
Our group leader, my partner and me had a little more time and therefore drove to Ashok and our incheck luggage and one hour of rest, after final repack and a quick wash of our exhausted bodies.
After that, everything went smooth once again. No problems at the airport, through security and then a beeline to the Finnair VIP-lounge. We had (before leaving to Gujarat) jumped on the offer to upgrade to Business Class again, and after all the flight problems we were VERY happy to be able to lie prostrate in the seats during the long flight home!