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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