Part Three. Ranthambhore and Tigers. |
Written by Jos | |
A short excursion into Rajasthan to visit Ranthambhore National Park and its immediate surrounds, an excellent few days with an eventful Tiger encounter, plenty of birds and an end with a bump on a train! Top birds included Bonelli's Eagles hunting Cattle Egrets, an Crested Serpent Eagle, several Great Thick-knees and a Large Cuckoo-Shrike feeding a fledged youngster.
With the Snow Leopard adventure over and four days at my disposal before a return to Europe, I pondered my options - my two main choices were a trip up to Ramnagar and Nanital for a rich feast of birds on the lower slopes of the HImalaya or a few days at Rhathambore in Rajasthan for the chance of Tiger to add to the cat haul.
From Leh, a late morning flight back to Delhi, the cold rugged beauty of the Himalaya replaced by the hot humid seething mass of of humanity and dirt and pollution that is Delhi. People and cars everywhere, pigs running aside the road, Black Kites wheeling above, House Crows and Common Mynas rejoicing in the rubbish.
With no desire to savour this longer than necessary, I went directly from the airport to main train station to catch a train to Sawai Madhopur, junction for Ranthambhore. Bank Mynas running around the platform, House Crows and House Sparrows hopping about alongside, my train departed at 16.50, a comfortable sleeper that arrived at 22.00. A quick taxi and I was in my hotel, the very fine Atitya Hotel, my room costing the grand sum of four euros.
31 October. Ranthambhore National Park.
A very pleasant walk in the Ranthambhore area is along the road in the buffer zone between the national park main entrance and Ranthambhore Fort a distance of six or seven kilometres. As part of the reserve, access on foot is strongly discouraged, but not as far as I am aware technically prohibited. Some minutes of debate with the guards, they trying to insist it was illegal, me arguing that locals occasionally walk this way, I got through.
Thick forest and prime tiger territory, birding here is in reality a little foolhardy and, to be honest, quite scary. Amazing it is though, Black-faced Langurs numerous, occasional Spotted Deers, birds galore ...and, adding a certain edge to the proceedings, fresh Tiger pugmarks. Naturally, the inevitable happened. About 3 km into my walk, senses very heightened and all steps taken with great caution, I reached a shallow valley with a stream running up the centre and woodland rising on both sides. All pleasant enough, Common Tailorbirds in the bushes, a couple of Eurasian Kingfishers on the stream, one Striated Heron too, but ahead the Langur Monkeys were alarming - this stopped me dead in my tracks, any sign of alarm by monkey or deer in Ranthambhore is almost certainly due to the nearby presence of Tiger. Alarms were constant, a few hundred metres ahead as I could gauge, time to stay put I thought, of course not knowing which way the presumed Tiger was going, if in my direction it would be with me in a matter of minutes.
For my afternoon entertainment, I joined the scrum at the forest department office for tickets into the national park proper. Thanks to Indian bureaucracy, Supreme Court rulings and inept government, obtaining the required permits to visit tiger reserves in India is now an energy-sapping exercise in frustration, and it is becoming worse. Of course, for added inconvenience, the ticket office is not near the park gates, but 15 km away in the town of Suwai Madhopur. And then to top it off, if you get tickets, you are randomy allotted a zone to visit within the park. I unfortunately got zone 8, an area of dry hills without lakes or significant water - this is a pretty rubbish part of the reserve for mammals, so chances of further felines this day were effectively zilch.
Nevertheless, a mildly attractive area, high cliffs and deep gorges and not too bad for birds either - three Small Buttonquail the best, but also Lesser Goldenbacks, White-bellied Drongos, both Bay-backed and Long-tailed Shrikes, one White-browed Fantail and plenty of the commoner bits and bobs. For the non-birders aboard the jeep however, it must have been a tad tedious - big mammals amounted to a mere handful of Sambar, one herd of Spotted Deers, a few Nilgai and, rather better, a pair of Indian Gazelle. One Indian Jackal also put in an appearance at the end of the day, as did a very brief Small Indian Mongoose.
1 November. Ranthambhore.
A little after dawn, before the day's temperatures began their climb to the dusty highs of about 30 C, I hitched a lift up to the park gates again. Instead of entering the reserve however, I then turned east and walked adjacent to the reserve for about six or seven kilometres, a route that took me through a landscape of arid bushland, poor quality farmland and occasional dams.
Chances of encountering a Tiger in this direction are minimal, but I did follow fresh tracks of Common Leopard for quite a while and other mammals hopping over the crumbling masonry from the national park included several Nilgai. In birding terms however, the area is excellent. Typical aridland birds such as Yellow-eyed Babbler and Ashy-crowned Sparrow Lark were encountered without much effort, as were Indian Robins, Hoopoe, Indian Bush-Lark and various prinias. Also found a female Pied Bushchat in an area of scrub, two River Terns and a couple of White-browed Wagtails on a small dam, a splendid pair of Bonelli's Eagles hunting Cattle Egrets at an irrigated field and, here and there, occasional migrants, including Black Redstarts, a Red-breasted Flycatcher and a Hume's Leaf Warbler.
By mid-afternoon, however, I was back on at the gates of Ranthambore National Park. Not learning much from my experiences the day before, I decided to walk the fort road again, the guards barely even debating with me this time, but just waving me through. Hyper cautious this day, but the birding was actually even better than the day before - in addiition to the usual assortment of forest birds, some of the highlights in my couple of hours included a Brown-capped Pygmy Woodpecker, a Large Cuckooshrike feeding a fledged youngster, a small party of Common Ioras, several Oriental White-eyes, a Coppermith Barbet and a splendid male Verditer Flycatcher.
With Indian Peafowls making a racket in the roadside thickets however and my mind playing images of a Tiger suddenly emerging, I have to confess that I bottled out on this day and actually only walked a kilometre or two before I deemed it too dangerous.
2 November. Ranthambhore.
Up at 5.00 a.m. to join the medlam for permits at the forest office department in Sawai Madhopur, what joy! By 6.30 a.m. with no advance in the queue and me bored out of my brains, I contemplated giving up on a trip to Ranthambhore National Park and instead taking a stroll. But no, the queues suddenly lurched forward a little, the counter appeared and a light at the end of the tunnel materialised between assorted heads of guides and tourists. And my allotted spot on a jeep - Zone 7, almost as rubbish as Zone 8 I happened to know! Declining the offer, I was shunted sideways to the queue for canters, large twelve-seater things that do actually offer very good views. A few more minutes of waiting, form-filling and waving of passport and I got a seat for Zone 2, much better - a picturesque route that would meander around a series of large lakes and old temples drapped in forest cover.
Pretty tedious overall, but the lakeside stops did offer some excellent moments to watch the birds otherwise ignored by the guide - amongst the best, five rather splendid Great Thick-knees standing out in the open between Mugger Crocodiles, a few Bronze-winged Jacanas in wet grassy margins, one Pied Kingfisher hovering aside our vehicle and a good assortment of herons and egrets, including a Striated Heron. Also two Ruddy Shelduck, a few River Terns and a brood of baby Knob-billed Ducks. No sign of Tiger whatsoever, bar a few relatively old pugmarks, but a reasonable selection of other mammals fortunately, small herds of Spotted Deer and Sambar common, Wild Boars in places and Nilgai at regular intervals. Highlights of the morning however were a number of birds happened upon - a cracking Crested Serpent Eagle perched in a dead tree, a very nice Spotted Owlet in another tree and two Woolly-necked Storks drifting over mid-morning.
Having completed my cultural obligations, wandering as far as the main temple, I then ambled back down, finally jumping into the back of another bush taxi to take me back to the hotel late afternoon. Popped into town to buy a train ticket, then spent the evening on the rooftop of my hotel, Ring-necked and Plum-headed Parakeets zooming over, a weird gecko of some sort on the walls. Dusky Crag Martins flitted about, a shimmering sun set over the hills beyond.
3 November. Life on the Rails.
I did have ideas of entering Ranthambore National Park again, but not keen on enduring the 5.00 a.m. permit fiasco a second time nor the pretty poor effort that the tours actually entail, I instead decided on an early return to Delhi, taking the 7.00 a.m. train from Sawai Madhopur.
Tinted windows on the train, so nothing seen on route. In Delhi, after a midday arrival in the city of noise, dirt, congestion and chronic air pollution, I settled into a dump of a hotel, had a last few wanders around the streets and markets, then prepared for exit from India, my trip nearly over. Overhead and around, the usual mix of Black Kites, Common Mynas and House Crows, that was about that.
10.40 a.m. local time, Black Kites drifting about, time to board my Finn Air flight for Helsinki, goodbye India. Some hours later, via several time zones and one transfer, I touched down in Vilnius.
For List of all Birds and Mammals, India & Ladakh 2012 CLICK HERE
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 25 November 2012 ) |