Thursday 21 March 2019

India 2019 - Corbett Tiger Reserve


February 1st 2019

Well, our train was due to leave Old Delhi at 10:30pm but after many hours sat in a waiting room listening to endless announcements apologising for pretty much every train being late, we eventually left the platform at 2am! We had taken the sleeper train as it was always on time unlike the usual afternoon service! We were in a 2nd Class sleeper carriage which was actually not too bad. The beds were a bit short, especially for Rachael, but they were not too uncomfortable and we were pretty knackered so sleep wasn’t too bad. Having said that, with the movement of the train, the noise and the snoring, it wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had! Somehow the train managed to make up 1 1/2hrs overnight and we arrived at Ramnagar at 7:30am where we headed off for breakfast and a short break while we met our guide, JP, for the next few days. We had now managed to catch up the time we’d lost waiting for the train the night before and were back on the birding trail.




A brief stop Ibisbill was unsuccessful but we did manage to see a rather smart wallcreeper grubbing around on a sandbar in the middle of the river. Really not the kind of habitat you expect to see then in when you’re used to seeing them on tall cliff faces.


Crested kingfisher




From there we carried on to the entrance to the famous Corbett Tiger Reserve before spending a couple of hours driving and birding through the park towards our destination for the next couple of nights; the Dhikala Camp. All of the birding in Corbett had to be from the vehicle which at times could be a bit frustrating but it was better than being eaten by a tiger! We managed to see a few flocks of small birds but they were very hard to keep up with but the kaliji pheasant and tawny fish owl were a bit easier to see.





The camp at Dhikala was pretty basic, hard beds, limited electricity and hot water but the food was probably the best of the trip.



Male grey bushchat

The afternoon was spent looking around the river area (along with everyone else) for tiger but although there were 2 females with cub in the local area, none were seen. This was probably not that surprising given that the forest is very thick in the park unlike other tiger sites in the rest of India. We did have good views of a small group of elephants including a small baby. At one stage they were blocking the track and so we had to wait for them to continue on their way.







Many new species added today with the change in habitat including river lapwing, velvet-fronted nuthatch, crested treeswift, lesser fish eagle, changeable hawk eagle, brown fish owl, slaty blue flycatcher and cinereous vulture.


Changeable hawk eagle


Crested treeswift



River lapwing


February 2nd 2019

An early morning start for a tiger safari around the grassland close to the camp. It was a cold start start to the day with mist and a touch of frost on the ground. No luck with tiger so we headed towards the river. JP spotted some fresh tiger pug marks and then we found a parked up jeep who told us that someone had seen a tiger in the area earlier in the morning. We decided to move on a bit further and stopped around the corner. All of a sudden Rachael spotted a tiger on the side of the river! Panic, excitement and relief set in as the large male crossed the river as the rest of the jeeps raced to our location. Despite being at least 500m away the size of the animal was impressive. Despite looking into the sun with the misty early conditions you could still clearly see the orange colour and the stripes as it crossed the river with its tail held up high. It showed in better light after it came out of the river before disappearing into the grassland. I was shaking with excitement as we raced off to the other side of the river to see if we could intercept it again but sadly, despite lots of eyes looking, there was no further sign. We added a few birds during the morning including rufous bellied eagle, red junglefowl and white bellied drongo.









Lunchtime was a bit of an interesting experience as we caused a bit of chaos by finding 2 tigers by ourselves. The first one was lying in the middle of the river out from the camp. It was never close but it showed pretty well. Rachael went and told a couple of people who were fairly close to us that we had on and then all hell broke loose with people running over trying to see it in my scope. A few people did before the animal walked off into the grass and we didn’t see it again. After things settled down and people went into lunch Rachael spotted another tiger, much closer walking to the edge of the river before sitting down on the bank. Again we called it and people came rushing out of lunch to get views. Again, this animal didn’t hang around long and walked across the river and out of sight. It was good to have got loads of people onto the tigers and let them see them through the scope. A little girl even came over as we were eating lunch to say thank you. We were buzzing from the experience. We even managed to add a new bird to the list in the form of a white tailed rubythroat.


One tiger was sitting in the furthest part of the river. The 2nd was where the 2 rivers meet in the foregound!



Crested serpent eagle

Just as we were waiting to go out with the jeep there was a commotion and the tractor that was cutting the grass outside of the camp started revving its engine and was rushing back to the camp at high speed. The mahoots with the elephants that were coming back to the camp were shouting and the elephants were unsettled because there was a tiger in the area. The gates to the camp were closed and no vehicles were allowed to leave the camp. Everyone rushed over to the fence to see the tiger despite being told to move away. I was lucky enough to see the tiger cross the road just outside the camp. Once the tiger had moved off we were allowed out of the camp but the grassland area remained closed to allow the animal some space from any disturbance. We later found out that tiger had actually attacked the tractor so it was no wonder they were driving it so fast!

We went birding in the afternoon and managed to get one of my target birds; great slaty woodpecker. We had heard them calling on the drive in but now we managed to get good views. Three birds were around a nesthole with a 4th bird close by. As we came back along the river section JP heard a macaque alarm calling so we stopped to check for tiger. We heard a male growling in the bushes close to the track but despite spending a lot of time waiting it never did show. The fact there were spotted deer feeding on the track probably meant it wasn’t hungry.


Black faced languar


Spotted deer

It was a shame it didn’t show but it had been a pretty special day.

February 3rd 2019

Misty morning safari around the grassland/woodland edge. Stopped for a while when there were some deer alarm calls and added black throated thrush, common rosefinch and red headed vulture to the list. Reports of a spot bellied eagle owl across the river sent us in that direction. The brown fish owl was again sat in its favoured tree but we didn’t managed to catch up with the eagle owl. A brief stop of the way back to camp for a beeeater sp over the trees produced a slice of luck in the form of a collared falconet sat in the treetops; another target bird added. A nice couple of crested buntings were also seen on the drive back through the grassland.






Brown fish owl

Another check for spot bellied eagle owl after lunch proved eventually successful with a bird flying through the trees and perching. Despite seeing where the bird had landed it was still really tricky to locate especially as we couldn’t get out of the vehicle. After a lot of moving back and forward we managed to get into a position where we could see the bird roosting. With the tripod on full extent out of the vehicle I managed to grab a few phonescope pics. A great bird and well worth the effort.


Spot bellied eagle owl

We then started to leave Dhikala and head towards our next guesthouse within the park. We just missed another tiger crossing the road that another vehicle had just seen. Despite hearing the deer alarm calls it never showed again. The rest of the drive produced stork-billed kingfisher, bronzed drongo and white crested laughingthrush. A stop at a river watchpoint gave us excellent views of gharial and mugger crocodile hauled out on the bank. The final bird of the day was added at dusk in the form of a collared owlet.


2 gharial & mugger crocodile




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