Northern India Tour Report, 12th to 28th February

No visitor to India can ignore the remarkable culture of the country - and this tour, with its visits to Jaipur, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, pays due attention to this.  In addition, it is a view of the India of the Princely States of the famed Maharajahs - Junagadh, Dhrangadhra, Jaipur and Bharatpur.

One day, no doubt soon, Rann of Kutch will be as famous as it deserves to be among birdwatchers - we all felt that we could have done with longer there.  Gujarat - and especially this area – is "off the beaten track" and offers a great contrast to much-visited Rajasthan on the "golden triangle" circuit.  The roads and vehicles are more dilapidated. 

Starting at Gir Lion Sanctuary introduces us to the everyday birds of India and gives us considerable comfort at the Gir Lodge Hotel.

Desert Coursers Camp at Zainabad is quite basic, but charming in the extreme.  Whilst elsewhere we had well-appointed spacious hotel rooms, at Desert Coursers we stayed in small thatched stone cottages around a garden.  It is shaded with trees and surrounded with a high thorn hedge and adjacent to good thorn-scrub habitat and the village lake.  Note that, despite its name it is not a camp but a comfortable wildlife safari lodge.

Whilst Rann of Kutch is the principal reason for visiting the state of Gujarat, there are two good reasons for starting the tour at the Lion Sanctuary at Gir.  Firstly we have the chance to see lion at the only place they survive outside the continent of Africa, from a former range that stretched from central India all the way west to Northern Greece.  The second reason is that, from a birdwatcher's point of view, the Rann can be overwhelming.  Better to start by seeing the everyday birds whilst on lion safari and in the first-class habitat around the hotel, then go to the teeming wetlands of Dhrangadhra Wild Ass Sanctuary.

Our route to Gir Lion Sanctuary took us first of all from London Heathrow via Amman to Bombay (or Mumbai as it is now officially known) with Royal Jordanian Airlines.  Then, after a while examining the birds found in the park opposite the domestic terminal of Bombay airport (good views of Coppersmith Barbet, Magpie Robin, flocks of Little Swifts, the inevitable House Crows and more) we took an excellent Jet Airways ATR-72 twin turbo-prop aircraft to Keshod.  Here our minibus and local guide, Pradeep Rathore, were waiting for us.  From Keshod, a rural drive of an hour brought us to Gir Lodge in time for lunch and a post-prandial game drive. 

Thanks to the Maharajah of Junagadh (the first of India's many royal states we encounter on this tour) preserving the area earlier this century, Lions now thrive and can indeed be found outside the national park, having even been sighted on the coast to the south.  The reason for the existence of the present-day National Park is the Lion - the area it covers was first protected as a royal hunting-conservation reserve.  Were it not for the Maharajah's timely action in conservation, the Lion would have joined the Indian race of Cheetah in sliding to extinction - the last examples of the latter having been shot in 1947.  This distinct subspecies - Panthera leo persica - was once widespread in the subcontinent.

There are plenty of birds to distract us from the Lions and our excellent hotel is sited overlooking a small scrubby valley.  The little Hiran stream flowing through it attracts Black-headed and Red-headed Ibises, Little Cormorants, Pied Kingfishers and much besides.

The system of visiting Gir Forest is by small Suzuki-Maruti jeeps and aimed at seeing Lions; inevitably some impressive numbers of Cheetal or Spotted Deer are also seen at very close quarters, as they are not hunted by man.  They are reminiscent of Fallow Deer without the spatular antlers; they provide the principal prey of the Lion population, who also have an appetite for the cattle and buffaloes owned by the area's population of Maldhari herdsmen.  Just as the toleration of Romania's shepherds has allowed Europe's greatest population of bears and wolves to survive despite their appetite for sheep in the Carpathians, so a similar attitude has allowed the lions to co-exist for generations with the local pastoralists. 

With a small jeep full of birders it is possible to tell the driver to stop so that we can watch any birds seen along the way.  In the event our lion viewing was enlivened at the same spot by close views of Tickell's Blue Flycatcher and White-browed Wagtail.  In addition to searching for lions and birdwatching on the way, an early-morning visit was arranged to Kamleshwar Lake, in the heart of Gir Forest.  Here we had excellent views from the dam until the chilly breeze drove us back into the trees. 

Blue-tailed Bee Eaters Tim Loseby

In terms of adding numbers of species to the list, Gir contributed little.  However, there was some excellent birdwatching, with a flock of White Pelicans on Kamleshwar Lake, a small flock of Painted Storks, a good selection of waders and an enchanting view of a covey of Jungle Bush Quail at a water point in the forest.  The last of these just seemed to turn up, when we had in fact stopped merely to photograph a delightfully supercilious domestic camel that was in the process of quenching its thirst. 

Everyday birds on the game drives in the reserve included Green Bee-eater, Chestnut-shouldered Petronia, Purple Sunbird, Common Peafowl, Oriental Turtle Dove and a great deal more.  Less-than-everyday birds were the pair of Tickell's Thrushes seen in the dawn gloom as we were loading up for departure.  It appears that these might be the first recorded for Gir.  They were feeding beneath the bushes, on the edge of the lawn in the garden of Gir Lodge.

A less than arduous journey of eight hours brought us north across Gujarat to Desert Coursers Camp, just outside the village of Zainabad - our base for visiting the Rann.  In fact it is really the only base. 

The journey had two notable stops.  The first was to visit the former royal Muslim cemetery at Junagadh and the royal mausoleum.  Here Pradeep obtained the key and we had the place to ourselves – a tangle of overgrown graves and spectacular stone carving, all in the midst of the usual hubbub of an Indian Bazaar.  We were the only people in the place, sharing it with some very pleasant-natured pi-dogs and a few Black Kites who trilled amusingly at us from their perches a few feet overhead on the carved stonework.  From trees overlooking the nearby mausoleum we heard Koel calling and watched a squirrel-party chasing themselves along the walls.  Later we stopped to irrigate the fields in our own personal way and found a pair of Long-billed Pipits and a party of Common Cranes. 

Towards the end of the journey, shortly before Zainabad, we stopped at Bajana Bridge, over the Rupen River.  This was memorably delightful - the bridge itself is a fine construction of stone arches dating from the 1920s and designed by a Mr Armstrong.  Birds seen from it - in the last stretch of the Rupen River before it disappears into the vastness of the Rann of Kutch deserts - included all three egret species, Purple Heron, a small party of Woolly-necked Storks, Marsh Harrier and a flock of more than a score of Whiskered Terns - the best view we had of this species for the whole tour.  There were also Gull-billed and River Terns, Common and Pied Kingfishers and a Lesser Whitethroat - the first of a great many more, seen for much of the rest of the tour. 

In the evening we heard an Indian Nightjar, but despite diligent searching in a Mahindra jeep with a hand-held spotlight around all their usual haunts outside the village, nothing could be found.

Our first day in the Rann was spent in the morning with Shabbir Malik, the founder of Desert Coursers Camp, the father of the present proprietor Dhanraj Malik.  We set off to Nawa Talav - "New Lake".  The drive took us along a tarred road and then on some tracks through Mithagodha village and out into the camel-thorn scrub of the margin of the desert itself. 

Much of the shallow lake was dry, as expected at this time, more than half way through the dry season.  The area of water and wet mud was predictably full of birds, so that it was difficult to know where to look.  What would attract our attention - the dense flock of several hundred Lesser Flamingoes, the more scattered collection of paler Greater Flamingoes, the creamy-white collection of White Pelicans, the Dalmatian Pelicans, the restless party of Small Pratincoles, the scarcely believable numbers of Temminck's Stints or the rather tame-seeming Greater Spotted Eagle perched on a grass spit?  Wherever one looked, there was something to exclaim about.  It was a birdwatching feast, and even as we left it was not over, as we encountered parties of Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse coming to drink at a waterhole.

We returned the few miles for lunch, after which we headed out again, in the spacious open-sided minibus type of vehicle (four-wheel drive), this time with Dhanraj Malik.  Macqueen's Bustard and Indian Courser were sought in vain, but a number of Wild Asses did show themselves, also Nilgai, Rufous-tailed and Greater Short-toed Larks.  It was a worthwhile experience in itself, cruising the baked mud of the desert. 

For our second day we started with an early-morning walk to the village lake, through the scrubby area near Desert Coursers.  A rather elusive warbler in the trees in the garden turned out to be Blyth's Reed.  Bluethroats showed in the scrub and the village lake held Temminck's Stint, Shoveler, Black-winged Stilt, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper and a Citrine Wagtail. 

After breakfast we set off south from Zainabad, along the road through the thorns to the local town of Patdi, finding firstly an adult male Montagu's Harrier over the fields of cotton.  A stop at a small bridge where a camel-cart load of sacks were being washed in the creek revealed a Spotted Owlet, another Blyth's Reed Warbler, a Hoopoe and Pied Kingfisher. 

After these two birding stops en route there was not time to give "The Creek" the attention it deserved.  There were good numbers of White Pelicans, Painted Storks, Spoonbills, Wigeon, Teal, several hundred Shoveler and our only Shelduck of the tour. 

Black-necked Stork Tim Loseby

We returned for lunch and set off by road to Ahmedabad, seeing a few gypsies on the way and pausing at the very opulent Ahmedabad Holiday Inn for a loo stop before entering the throng at Ahmedabad Station.  Here Bank Mynas and Rosy Starlings swarmed over the trains and we were just beginning to enjoy things when our own train spoiled it all by drawing in - the Ashram Express.  We found our berths, a very good Indian Railways dinner was served and then the bedding-wallah appeared with the sheets, pillows and blankets.  We settled down early and all slept well as we made our way out of Gujarat through the night and into Rajasthan for the next stage of our adventure.

Our birdwatching was interrupted with a day spent enjoying the sights of Jaipur.  We arrived at the station at five in the morning, and were met off the train by a local rep and our minibus driver.  He took us immediately to the spotless and very plush Mansingh Hotel where we had two hours of "personal admin" - sometimes used on this tour as a euphemism for shut-eye – and re-convened at the sumptuous breakfast buffet at a civilised hour.

We met our guide for the day, a lady by the name of Veena in a sky-blue shalwar kameez.  First we drove out of town to the Amber Fort and parked up by the lake, noting the birds that were there before making our way on elephant up to the fort itself.  Our first sight of one of the fortresses of central India was immensely impressive for its size and craftsmanship and we learnt much of the royal family of Jaipur - yet another princely state that was largely independent of rule from Delhi before Partition.

Highlights of the journey back into town were the stop at the Lake Palace, where we saw hundreds of Shoveler, River Terns and a small flock of Small Pratincoles.  The afternoon was spent at the mind-boggling eighteenth-century open-air observatory of the Maharajah of the time.  The term "observatory" scarcely conveys the scale of the enormous stone structures, used for solar and other observations two centuries ago, nor their accuracy.  The famous "Palace of the Winds" - really only a facade - and the royal palace itself were visited, also a fine carpet emporium where the explanation of dyeing and weaving was much enjoyed.  Jaipur has to be visited en route from Ahmedabad to Ranthambore by the nature of the journey but in fact it is a "not-to-be-missed" place in any case.  All were enchanted by Veena and the way she was able to speak personally of the former Princely State of Jaipur.

Our journey from Jaipur took a whole morning and marked the transition of our travelling from parched Gujarat and western Rajasthan, suddenly into a sea of green fields as we entered the cereal-growing areas with endless small enclosures of bearded wheat and occasional mustard flowers.  We stopped at a village tank not far outside Jaipur and enjoyed a satisfying birding break, and then another at a similar village tank at Churu, before the press of locals around our telescope tripods became a little too much.

We were in time for lunch at Tiger Moon and set off into the reserve in our little white Maruti jeep, turning right off the road below Ranthambore fort along the re-numbered "Route One", initially up the Vindhya valley to be rewarded with our first view of a single Tiger.  We were looking across a tiny ravine and had good lengthy views before our chosen animal disappeared into the long grass - this at a distance of around eighty metres or less. 

After this kind of experience it is perhaps difficult to become too excited about the views of birds that we also enjoyed on the drive.  We returned in high spirits to the usual fine buffet, this time a barbecue laid out beneath the trees of the garden of Tiger Moon. 

The Kingfisher beer ("most thrilling chilled!" as it says on every bottle) was satisfyingly cold and small coloured lights had been hung in the bamboo.  Some local musicians and puppeteers put on a small show for us and we all had a fine evening.

The total time spent at Ranthambore is two full days, plus a game drive on the day of arrival and another on the day of departure.  The plan we adopt for this time is to spend the first day inside the park on two different game drives and the second outside the reserve itself, at two lakes.  The game park day also has the attraction of birdwatching in scrub near the entrance (the "heli-pad" site) and inside Tiger Moon Resort - much the best place to stay as it is by far the nearest to the park entrance and stands in good habitat.  On our Ranthambore day we saw no tigers but had an excellent day nonetheless, finding courting Little Ringed Plovers, a small party of Tawny-bellied Babblers (a rather difficult bird and a "lifer" for the leader), Purple Gallinules, Marsh Mugger Crocodiles, excellent views of Sambhar deer, Wild Boar and a large party of fruit bats (or flying-foxes) perched in trees across the far side of one of the lakes. 

We also had a walk up to the fort and for a very short distance inside it.  A fairly extensive plateau, covering several square miles at the top of some impressive cliffs has all been fortified, dating back some thousand years.  It is in amazingly good condition and offers a fine view of the surrounding forests, leafless at this dry season.  We found the predicted Brown Rock Chats here, also excellent views of Sulphur-bellied Warbler and the following "Indian experience".  The fort, now entirely deserted, is naturally a focus of visits by locals, many of whom pay homage at the temples there.  For Hindus it is also a votive act to make small offerings to the enchanting Langur monkeys that appear to have appointed themselves as guardians of the fort entrance.  However we had nothing to give them, until a local gent on his way down gave us some sweet cakes so that we could feed the monkeys.  The feeling of having your fist prised gently open by the probing fingers of a politely inquisitive wild monkey is curiously pleasant and should be sampled.

Tiger Photo: Tim Loseby

Notwithstanding the fact that we had so far seen just one Tiger, we continued with our plan of birdwatching on the second day at two lakes outside the park, with no chance at all of seeing Tiger.  The first lake, Mansarovar, lies the far (east) side of Sawai Madhopur Junction town from our accommodation and the reserve.  Situated amidst extensive farmland, it is a shallow dammed reservoir,

reached by a dusty road that goes along the top of the dam.  We managed five hours of solid birdwatching here, with never a moment without something catching our attention.  Highlights included a flock of White Pelicans, the difficulty of sorting out the Drongo Cuckoo that appeared in the bushes below the dam, the close view of a Short-toed Snake Eagle overhead, the eyeball-to-eyeball contact with Indian Rollers and the party of Great Thick-Knees lurking in the dusty scrub. 

We ate our plentiful packed lunches on the dam and later made our way back into Sawai Madhopur Junction town.  We continued through the separate old town, beneath an ancient stone gateway and past a pair of enormous sculpted elephants before bumping our way east for a couple of miles to Mansarovar Lake.  The highlight here was a single Little Heron perched in full view, but there was much to distract us from this, such as the flock of Openbill Storks, the large flock of Bar-headed Geese and the delight of sexing Pied Kingfishers.  For the uninitiated, the question is about the black breast-mark and is phrased "bra or waistcoat?" - consult Grimmett and Inskipp for further information.
 

We were relying on our final game drive to show us Tigers and the leader briefed our jeep team to this effect and that some serious baksheesh was at stake here.  The result was breathtaking, as we had protracted views of a female and her three almost adult youngsters - she had been seen with the same much smaller cubs on the previous year’s tour.  There was further excitement as we enjoyed some absurdly close views of a Crested Serpent Eagle and a number of Crested Honey Buzzards perched in the early-morning sun.  Suddenly, driving on, we found another Tiger, just a car's length from our jeep, behind a screen of scrub.  Ranthambore had given us quite amazingly close views of some magnificent birds and mammals (not to mention the odd Crocodile) and there was some incredulity among the party that Bharatpur could match up. 

For seeing numbers of birds, a variety of species, usually at impossibly close quarters, all in superb light and in comfortable conditions there can be nowhere in the world as good as Bharatpur.  It is no exaggeration at all to say that all of its extensive lakes are peppered with waterfowl of huge number of species or that wherever one turned one saw an eagle perched in a tree.  This is Bharatpur in February - the best month for numbers of birds and number of species.  We spent three days dawn-to-dusk in the reserve and had a "day off" from intensive birdwatching to join in the surprisingly pleasurable mass-tourism experience of Agra's Taj Mahal and Red Fort.  Of course if anyone wants to avoid Agra and have another day at Bharatpur, with a first-class local guide, this is easily arranged for no cost.  Our guide for all of our time at Bharatpur was Shri Chand, elder brother of Sohan Lal who had been our guide on our previous tour.  These are the elite of Bharatpur bird guides and not to be compared with the also-rans who take round other parties and studiously ignore all the "lbjs" because they don't know what they are. 

Our accommodation at Bharatpur was the Laxmi Vilas Palace hotel.  The word is often put about among the birdwatching community that one should only stay inside the park, at the Forest Lodge.  This had been our base the previous year.  However, the vagaries of Indian bureaucracy mean that not all groups that try and stay here manage to do so.  On balance, Laxmi Vilas is probably better.  Certainly it is a more comfortable hotel and a remarkable building.  To say it has "character" is to belittle it.  It is a small palace built a hundred years ago by the family of the Maharajah of Bharatpur.  They are still there, now very much enjoying running it as a classy hotel.  It is ten minutes' drive from the barrier inside the reserve and has a fine garden where a Shikra perched in a gum tree was a permanent early-morning fixture.  Of fine indigenous architecture, built of the iron-hard brick-red local sandstone (just like Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, Delhi Fort, Lahore Fort etc. etc.) and staffed with local retainers, it is an exquisite place.  Where else do you rub shoulders with the Maharajah's family, while the family portraits with their remarkable hereditary likeness stare down at you from the walls?  No, the thinking birdwatcher's place to stay in Bharatpur is Laxmi Vilas Palace.

Our three full days in the park gave us a chance to examine all the very different habitats - flooded woodland, mature forest, extensive savannah-type grassland, rows of thorn trees (Acacia nilotica) lining the banks and of course the lakes themselves.  Predictably, a majority of our time was spent examining the latter.

A highlight was an excursion in a small boat, punted silently among the trees and out into the open water where we had ridiculously close views of the waterfowl.  For our cultural tourism day we naturally had a different guide.  Forty minutes of driving from Laxmi Vilas brought us to the deserted seventeenth-century Moghul capital of Fatehpur Sikri.  Here we met the smoothly articulate Puneet, a church-going inhabitant of Agra.  He was very good indeed.  Normally as a day guide around monuments you do not have guides as good as Veena or Puneet.  The two of them also work as leaders of cerebral tours in their own right.  He informed us and amused all day as he took us around the Taj and saw off the locals who occasionally attempted to queue-barge us.  An immensely affable man, we were sorry to see the back of him as we headed ‘home’ out of Agra in the evening.  This is not the place for a discourse on Moghul history, but suffice to say that all of us know plenty about it and are impressed with the social organisation that could construct such monuments, all this knowledge largely thanks to Puneet.

The finale of our time at Bharatpur was to drive to Sultanpur National Park on the final day (a four-hour journey), before making our way in the small hours to Indira Gandhi international airport for the flight home.  Our reward at Sultanpur was excellent views of Bonelli's Eagle both flying and perched.

Full Species Lists