Uttarakhand-3
I had promised myself that I will not travel anywhere before I finish all my blogs for my last trip. But then I was having itchy tyres and just had to have a long drive, so I broke the promise and drove to the Nilgiris. But I guess if I finish the blog now all is not lost. So where were we?
I was adamant about seeing the White-crested Laughing thrush and R had told me in no uncertain terms that I need to go to the hide to see it, there is no other way. So I succumbed and went to the hide. It was very early in the morning and the light was very bad. In the first few minutes of reaching there, as promised, the White-crested Laughing thrushes were there. More and more people were pouring in into the hide and I was starting to get suffocated. I left the hide to continue birding by the roadside. V stayed back and ended up seeing the Rufous-throated partridge, which I missed. I guess I will find it somewhere some day, without a hide. While doing roadside birding I saw two White-crested Laughing thrushes which were possibly on their way to the hide.
 |
| Tiny beauties wearing lipstick: Red Avadavats |
We packed up from Sattal and traveled to Ramnagar for the last leg of our trip: Corbett National park. The driver and the guide told us right away that the hides are all outside the park, when they heard that we would want to do some birding. So in Corbett also, birding means hide birding. We ended up seeing a lot of birds during the safaris, but for them to stop and let us get a few pictures turned out to be an extremely challenging task. There they are after only one life; tigers. The whole safari revolves around tracking tigers, once spotted even chasing them, and taking their pictures. When I reminded them about birds they reminded me that all the good birds have gone back, this is not the right time for birding. Good birds, really?
 |
| Red-breasted parakeet, doing some acrobatics |
A male Sambar Deer majestically stood in the middle of the road with the morning sun streaming behind it. I was in awe of the sight and expected the driver to stop the jeep. The driver just drove the jeep right on to the deer and it turned and ran for its life. Luckily they both were disappointed at the lack of a tiger sighting by the time we spotted an Indian Golden Jackal and we managed a few pictures.
 |
| Indian Golden Jackal |
We packed up the last of the safaris and traveled to Delhi for our flight to Bangalore and landed up directly into the middle of a dust storm. Luckily we managed to reach the airport without any issues. On this trip I was not destined to have a single flight on time, so we were looking at more than five hours to kill at the airport. We picked up playing cards and played the extremely addictive open rummy for the rest of the night. A good end to a nice long trip.
With 345 species and out of that 218 lifers, the trip was an exhilarating one, even though I have seen only a small part of the birds from all the places I have visited.
 |
| Black Stock; not a good bird apparently |
Note: All pictures are taken by me
eBird lists: Sattal
Previous blog in the series: Part 11
