Last December I joined my good friends Ian Green and Fiona Dunbar of Greentours on an outstanding tour of Northern India where our 20 day trip was based in three locations; Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, Keoladeo National Park (better known as Bharatpur) and finally to Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas and Corbett National Park. And in between we got to visit the majestic Taj Mahal. Simple stunning!When I asked Ian where he thought the best place to get an introduction to Asian birding would be, he immediately said, “India. You can not go wrong.” Well actually you can go wrong. You can stay home!
The bird list reached over 380 species, including fantastic views of such lovely things as Siberian Cranes, Great Hill Barbets, Painted Sandgrouse and Spotted Forktails. There were five Tiger sightings - two right next to the vehicle, one lying reflected in a still lake, one crouching to drink in a river. We saw Leopard, several Jungle cats including one pouncing on a Vulture and one hunting a small mammal, Desert Cat, playful, metre long Yellow-throated Martins, a herd of wild Indian Elephants, Hog Deer, Chittal, Sambar, Black Buck, Jackals, Nilgai, Chinkara, Wild Boar… and a total of over 70 feet of Indian Rock Python! The beautiful scenery, the colourful saris, the traditional paintings of birds and animals on smoothed walls in the villages, and the camel barbers…….
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‘Once inside the reserve we spent some time with a magnificent Sambar stag industriously scraping the velvet from his horns about ten feet away from the van. There were a lot of sleek Chital or Spotted Deer, some with very small calves, all barely looking up as we stopped to watch them. There were also numerous Sambar hinds with young calves, and a few very fine Nilgai, the males with inky blue-black pelts and all with neat white spots on ankle and throat.
We moved round the track reasonably quickly as Pankaj wanted us to get to the area where two tigresses had territories. Both tigresses had two cubs, one set about 21 months old, the other only a few months. At a narrow pool in a river valley Pankaj stopped and imitated the call of a Stork-billed Kingfisher. Two birds replied and both of these shy birds came out into full view to investigate. We left this pleasant spot on hearing the alarm call of a Sambar. Sambars being large animals only give warning calls for very big predators! About a minute later we spotted a tigress padding down the slope towards us! We could hardly have had better views as she crossed the road twice in front of us and walked parallel to the road by the edge of the river, pausing twice, powerful shoulders hunched, as she drank. After a stunning half hour, during which we also glimpsed a Jungle Cat about twenty feet away, it was regretfully time to leave the tigress and head to the gate - the vans must be out of the reserve before 6pm. However, entering the territory of the second tigress we caught up with a couple of jeeps watching something - the two sub-adult cubs. We glimpsed movement in the grass very nearby, but could not make out anything definite. Moving a few hundred yards along to the edge of a pool we stopped again, and Fi spotted a tiger resting in a stream bed, all but the head partly hidden by straw-coloured grass. Shortly after the two sub-adult cubs walked out into the open at the edge of the lake before fading once again into the long grass.
It really was time to go now and we hare-tailed it back to the gate. Back outside the reserve we had one final stop - at a tiny pool where Painted Sandgrouse come to drink at dusk. There were indeed about a dozen of these gorgeous birds at the edge of the pool, but we could not give them our full attention because of the Leopard that was also drinking there!
Ranthambore N.P. We followed it with our binoculars through the rapidly gathering dusk, before it was swallowed completely by encroaching darkness and we finally headed for home.’
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‘We rickshaw-ed along the main track with a minimum of stops - it was difficult to ignore the fantastic bird life on either side, but today we were aiming for a different area. Approaching Keolado Temple there was a roost of Night Herons, and in the gardens there were very approachable Hoopoes and Jungle Babblers. Taking the Mansarova track we walked with huge numbers of ducks and geese stretching off into the distance on either side. Purple Herons and Gallinules glowed in the sunlight. One incredible sight was a Black-necked Stork killing and eating a Moorhen. Further along the last two Siberian Cranes fed on a knoll surrounded by Bar-headed and Greylag geese. There was time to study all the large eagles with Imperial, Lesser Spotted and Greater Spotted in the same area, with both adults and juveniles present. Blue-throats were again common, and we all saw a beautiful pair of Barred Button Quail. At the pool by the temple there were Anhingas and Pied Kingfishers catching tiny silver fish, and two different species of terrapin were surfacing. Two superb Rock Pythons basked in the sun, quite small, one about 6 feet long, the other around 8 feet. The holy man of the temple to Shiva blessed anyone who wanted it and provided cups of masala chai too. We stopped on the return rickshaw ride for a pair of brilliantly lit Black-necked Storks and a Scops Owl with its face only looking out of a small hole.
Roger and one boat driver liberated some silky pink tail feathers from beneath the tree. We also got very close to a Crested Serpent Eagle, and watched the sun get redder and redder as it went down – a large sun spot was clearly visible.’
For the afternoon we were in punts. Bronze-winged Jacanas, White-tailed Plovers, Woolly-necked and Painted Storks were everywhere, and Black-headed Ibises and Spoonbills flew overhead. We got particularly close to the Painted Storks which were stacked in a couple of shrubby trees with their nests and youngsters.
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‘In the trees below the picnic spot were a number of small birds including a Golden-spectacled Warbler, and only a few yards away we stood watching a gorgeous Spotted Forktail feeding in a nearly dry stream, just where some Red Jungle Fowl had also been. We took a track which went through a permanent tented camp and followed the edge of a small lake. On our left was a wooded slope, through which moved a large flock of Red-billed Blue Magpies, Black headed and Eurasian Jays and White-throated Laughing Thrushes, which gave us a wonderful opportunity to get good looks at all of these. There was also a gorgeous Greater Yellow-naped Woodpecker. At the top of the lake we had an amazing time with Pink-browed Rosefinch in the bush in front of us, and a Scaly-breasted Wren-babbler hopping unconcernedly in the leaf litter a few feet away. Ian and Roger flushed an Orange-flanked Bush Robin.
Two vans headed up to Snow View to photograph the sunset on the Himalayas. As we turned the corner before the viewpoint there were audible gasps for the view to the north was really quite incredible. In the red light of evening we could see range after range of snow-clad mountains disappearing away towards the east.’
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‘There were plentiful woodpeckers – we had fine views of no less than six species before we’d even reached Corbett’s gate. One roadside tree alone held Lesser Yellownape, Himlayan Flameback and a Grey-headed Woodpecker and was also saw Fulvous-breasted, Grey-crowned Pygmy and Greater Yellownape. Inside the park there were numerous Chital and a large family of glossy Wild Boar, all with well-developed manes, which crossed the road in front of us and foraged in the woodland by the track. This particular group had white sideburns giving them a curiously refined appearance. As we sat overlooking a beautiful mixed grassland and woodland in a river valley a Chital down below started to bark its alarm call insistently and fixed its gaze on the bushes on a bank behind. We watched and listened awhile with baited breath but eventually the deer relaxed and whatever had caused her concern was not to be revealed. We drove through woodland bisected at intervals by the wide stony bed of the river Gharal. At one open area of riverbed there was a Wallcreeper hopping around the boulders, the directions to find said bird used a stunning male White-capped Water-Redstart as the marker! At another a Collared Falconet hawked for dragonflies. Other birds along this stretch included a group of Blue-throated and Lineated Barbets feeding in a tree frequented by both Ashy Bulbuls and our only Black-crested Bulbul of the holiday. From a vantage point overlooking the clear, deep river we could see catfish up to four feet long and thousands of Gold-striped Mahseer – a fish famed for its fighting abilities in the manner of the best salmon. Resting on the bank were two large Ghariel, one male with an inflated end to the snout and one female.
The jeeps did not all follow the same route, but most people saw the huge flocks of Blossom-headed Parakeets and the gorgeous pair of Yellow-throated Martins that played in and out of the trees by the trackside for ten minutes or so. There seemed to be male Junglefowl everywhere. One thing we all saw for sure was the herd of twenty-eight wild Elephants grazing at the side of a lake. One young male came quite close to one of the jeeps, and the echoes of another individual trumpeting added to the atmosphere.’
~ Ian Green