A wetland morning, right at the end of the season

We rolled at 5:45 to get clear of Gurugram before it woke up, and the ride out past Farrukhnagar was the good kind of boring — empty flat roads, canals, the light coming up over the fields. Sultanpur opens early; we were among the first in. The season was clearly over — a few painted storks, some resident ducks, a lot of empty water — but the walk around the central bund is pleasant regardless and two of the group had brought decent binoculars and were happy.

Then the 30-odd km across to Bhindawas, which is bigger, wilder and much less visited — a Ramsar site that most people in Delhi have never heard of. Even at the end of the season there was enough on the water to keep everyone at the fence for half an hour.

Both sites have the same problem: the approach roads and the bunds where people park and picnic collect bottles, gutka sachets, chip packets and the odd dumped bag of household waste. It is not a beach's worth, but it is on the edge of protected water and birds pick at it.

We split into two teams — one on the Sultanpur approach, one along a stretch of the Bhindawas bund — gloves and bags from the kit, forty minutes each. About 15 kilos, mostly plastic and glass, handed to the forest-department staff at Bhindawas who have a collection point. Nobody's idea of a heroic clean-up. But it is a place worth keeping tidy and we were there anyway.

We were back at the dhaba on the Farrukhnagar road by nine, parathas all round, home before the day turned properly hot. That is the whole shape of this ride — short, flat, early, done by mid-morning.

Go in December or January if you actually want the birds — the numbers are a different thing entirely. The loop, the two sanctuary timings and the fuel note are on the Delhi Wetland Loop page.