White-tailed Ptarmigan - a vision of blue-and-white in the first rays of early morning sun.
A line of old oak trees in the Ribble Valley near Ribchester.
A WALK AROUND RIBCHESTER on a lovely spring day produced 49 species of birds, which is not bad for an area lacking an obvious birding site. The highlight was a flock of 15 Whooper Swans heading northwest over farmland to the north of the village, towards Longridge, calling. However, an ill-timed light aircraft caused them to veer southwest and out of sight. I also managed a new bird for the village today, Tufted Duck - a pair on a tiny decoy pond not far from High Alston Farm. Curlews, Lapwings and Oystercatchers are back on their breeding grounds and there were a couple of pairs of Common Redshank along the river. Great Spotted and Green Woodpeckers were noted along with a nuthatch and my first Chiffchaff of the year, singing by the river at Old Park Wood. Over 60 Fieldfares continued and one of their small flocks contained at least seven Redwings, which will also be on their way east again soon. Buzzards were conspicuous with six soaring on the warm thermals and a female sparrowhawk was pursued relentlessly by a crow up high into the sky. Mammals included a roe deer, three grey squirrels and three Brown Hares and a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly was my first this spring. In the afternoon Tree Sparrows were busy at the colony on the edge of the churchyard bringing the total to 50 for the day.
Bengal Tiger, Kanha - the Babatega female.
THIS TIME KANHA REPAID OUR EFFORTS to get to this beautiful and remote national park. We enjoyed some great photographic opportunities in its lovely forests and meadows often in very good light, despite crazy electrical storms and torrential rain, which saw us taking cover at times. Fortunately masala chai and a hot shower back at our lovely lodge were never too far away! The early mornings at Kanha zone were particularly nice, with dramatic shafts of light breaking through the mature trees there. Kanha’s highlights this time were the two stunning tiger encounters. One, an animal walking away along a forest track and then retracing its steps some time afterwards and giving a thrilling head-on walking view only a few metres away and the other doing a similar thing but this time in natural vegetation. Everyone was at last on the scoreboard. Phew!
Bengal Tiger, Kanha. There's no feeling like when they look you in the eye at close range!
Gaur, the huge wild forest-dwelling ox, appears to be doing very well indeed at Kanha despite donating at least 50 animals to Bandhavgarh and we encountered several groups there, one a herd of at least 21 in the meadows of Kanha zone. Several of these were immense bulls and one particularly stubborn animal with huge horns blocked the way head and had our jeep driver reversing more than once! The shaggy-coated Barasinghe, the endangered ‘hard ground’ form of Swamp Deer were also numerous along with many of the other now familiar Indian mammals. A Jungle Cat obliged for some but birds were generally a little less conspicuous than at Bandhavgarh but included some photogenic Indian Scops Owls.
A Chital (or Spotted Deer) stag in early morning rays of sunshine.
Back up! An impressive Gaur in Bandhavgarh's Tala Zone.
FLYING SOUTH OVER THE DECCAN, fields grew smaller, areas of deciduous woodland more frequent with the odd rocky outcrop here and there. Once at Jabalpur our Innovas made short work of the road transfer to our first destination, Bandhavgarh, except for the last stretch of the road into the park, which is now getting resurfaced (surprising as we were previously told that it was neglected deliberately to discourage speeding in the park’s buffer zone). For the next four days we stuck to a routine of an early morning jeep safari in the 437 sq km national park, lasting until lunchtime followed by a break and then another safari in the afternoon until dusk. Although travelling around the park in jeeps still feels a little like the ‘whacky races’, Bandhavgarh maintains a reputation of being one of the most reliable reserves to produce a tiger sighting and that is pretty much what everyone is here for.
Bengal Tiger, Bandhavgarh, Maghdi Zone
We could have done with more luck here, with all but one of our jeeps scoring a mediocre tiger sighting, although the first time one sets eyes on one of the most beautiful creatures on the planet is always a special moment whatever the quality of the view! Our luck was still ahead of our birding friends with one encounter from 12 jeep safaris but significantly behind one chap and his partner who breezed in to our resort and scored three sightings totalling six tigers on his first outing!!! Again we had some rain at Bandhavgarh, in fact it hammered down, with thunder and lightning one night. The cool wet weather hampered our tiger prospects as they tend to stay under bamboo cover in such conditions. Well at least the air was cleared of dust for a while and was nice for photos. We had hedged our bets between the picturesque Tala zone and the bamboo thickets of the adjacent Maghdi zone for our jeep safaris this time and whilst we were pleased to find that tiger activity was good in Maghdi we heard there had been around 10 tiger encounters in Tala since October, gulp! We still enjoyed the delightful forests and meadows below Tala’s 2000 years old fort and a couple of us even got off the mark here quickly with a rare sighting of an animal, which had apparently ‘tree-ed’ a Leopard, however, Tala was mostly otherwise quiet, except for its usual interesting bird residents such as Red-headed and Indian Vultures, Brown Fish Owl, Stork-billed Kingfisher and Orange-headed Ground Thrush. Malabar Hornbill was again obliging for some on our first drive but there was no Sloth Bear or Leopard for us this time.
Tickell's Thrush, a winter visitor from the Himalayas.
One of our jeeps also got off the mark with a tiger that strayed briefly into one of the peacock lekking grounds just before closing time but a few of us would have to wait until Kanha this time. It is worth remembering that although tiger reserves are mostly far from wilderness experiences their inhabitants are now a little more difficult to see now following the cessation of elephant-back ‘tiger shows’. This restriction is also likely to further impact on tiger tourism as a generation of tigers grows up more wary, without the habituation of almost ever-present tourists around them. Foreign visitor numbers were apparently 60% down at Bandhavgarh this year, although probably mostly as a result of the new 120 day booking limit for jeep safaris so the park was pleasantly quieter than I have ever seen it before.
Something that is on the up at Bandhavgarh is Gaur (or Indian Bison). Following their reintroduction in 2012 they appear to be flourishing and we are now seeing these photogenic large animals without unsightly collars, as well as the original collared stock. They are a most welcome addition to Bandhavgarh’s attractions. Other wildlife photographed included: Lesser Adjutant Stork; Red Junglefowl, Wild Boar, Indian Muntjac (or Barking Deer) and Sambar as well as the ubiquitous Spotted Deer and Northern Plains (or Hanuman) Grey Langur monkeys. However, as always, Bandhavgarh was mostly about tiger anticipation.
Wild Boar foraging in a forest stream at Bandhavgarh.