October 13 to 17, 2022. We are only half way through our trip to India but with a little extra time I'm getting a post done! The first two weeks of this trip have been a long time in coming. This part of the trip was supposed to happen in 2020 after we finished Bhutan. But the world and the pandemic had other ideas and we missed out. Over two years later we would finally get a chance to look for Bengal Tigers. And "look" is a good term to use, because going out on a tiger safari is anything but a sure thing, and this is especially true in October. After the annual monsoon season in this region, the grass is green and tall making tiger spotting especially challenging. And add to that the late monsoon rains that fell just days before we got here, we were in for a challenge. In fact, our first park, Ranthambore National Park, was closed to visitors until our arrival day. The flooding rains of days before had made the park roads impassible. Just a few days before we arrived there was 8 feet of water flooding though the main gate to the park. We were with good friend Tim and Agnes again, and the four of us joined Peter Lobo, the owner of All India Birding Tours for this trip. Peter has been guiding and managing tours in India for many years and knows everyone. This was especially helpful because for our first three days at Ranthambore National Park he got us the top tiger and birding guide at the park, Ghani Singh, a long time associate of Peter's.
We spent three days at Ranthambore and Ghani's expertise was invaluable. While tiger safaris are mostly focused on finding the tiger, we did see many birds as we traveled the park in search of animals.
After a late evening arrival in Delhi, we boarded a train the next morning for a 5 hour ride to near Ranthambore. We did a safari that afternoon but had no luck. The next two days we did two safaris, one each in the morning and afternoon. One our first morning we had a brief sighting of a tiger crossing the road. Ghani kept an eye on the tiger and saw it lie down in the late morning sun to take a nap. He was pretty sure it would still be there when we got back in the afternoon. Sure enough, when we returned he quickly spotted it near where we had left it hours before. Figuring it would get up with the cooling temperatures we were in place by about 3:30 pm to watch. But word had got around and pretty much all the vehicles in the park were trying to get a view. Before the tiger got up we were hemmed in a sea of vehicles. Not knowing which way the tigress would go made it useless to try and move. Once she got up, and of course strolled away from us, we were blocked. But somehow our driver did a masterful job of weaving through the vehicles and parking right where Ghani told him. Sure enough, we were in a perfect position, and when the tiger came out of the forest minutes later, she walked right at us. She got so close to our jeep that I took video with my cell phone. Such an amazing experience.
Navigating the sea of humanity at the Delhi train station
A cliff in Ranthambore National Park
The front gate at Ranthambore where just days before 8 feet of water flowed
Typical tiger habitat at the park
Local Guide Ghani
Sambar Deer
Near the core area gate, an amazing strangler fig
One of several lakes at Ranthambore
The hilltop fort at Ranthambore dates back to the 10th century
A sleepy tiger rests quite some distance from the road
Coming right at us in our open jeep. What a humbling (and a little bit frightening) experience
After a wonderful tiger sighting, a lovely sunset drive out of the park
The next morning we did one better with rarities. Ghani took us down a lesser traveled road right at sunrise and we came upon a Sloth Bear foraging. These bears are much more rare to see in the wild with their secretive nature. As the bear noticed our jeep coasting to a stop it started to move away into the deeper forest. Ghani made a bear sound with his voice getting the animal to turn, stand, and look right at us for several seconds. Incredible.
The rest of our safaris were mostly tiger free but the birds and other animals kept our interest. We had a wonderful three days at Ranthambore.
Early morning in the forest
A Sloth Bear!
This Rufous Treepie checked out our jeep while we were stopped at a fenced compound for breakfast
Another lovely sunset on our last day
Some random bird photos from Ranthambore.
Common Babbler
Gray Francolin
Indian Robin
Painted Spurfowl
Rufous Treepie
Ultramarine Flycatcher. It had never been reported from the park before our sighting
The next couple of days had us at the town of Bharatpur, the sight of the world famous Bharatpur Wetlands Bird Sanctuary, or Keoladeo National Park. This artificial wetlands was created in the 1850's to provide a hunting area. Now it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the premier birding destinations in the world. The road into the wetlands is quite long, so Peter arranged for some novel birding transportation - cycle rickshaws. Too much fun. We spent an afternoon and the following morning at the wetlands seeing the wide variety of birds. Of special note was the large colony of nesting Painted Storks. Absolutely beautiful.
Our birding carriage awaits
Do we look comfy?
Painted Stork nesting colony
Sunset over the wetlands
Spotted Owlet
Indian Pond Heron
Painted Stork
Painted Stork
Painted Stork
Painted Stork
Painted Stork
Painted Stork
Golden Jackal
Cattle Egret
Brown Rock-Chat
Asian Koel
Indian Flying Fox (a fruit eating bat)
Indian Scops-Owl
Rose-ringed Parakeet
Our afternoon destination on the last day in Bharatpur was the farm fields nearby for some specialty dry land species. Eagle-eye Susan spotted our first Indian Coursers as we drove the dry ag fields. And a short time later we found a pair of Sarus Cranes, the tallest of all flying birds in the world, standing nearly 6 feet.
Looking out at the Indian Coursers in the ag field. It's like hunting for winter Mountain Plovers at home
Walking out to the distant Sarus Cranes
One last beautiful sunset in Bharatpur
Indian Courser
Sarus Crane
This wraps up the first five days of our ongoing India trip. We'll be here until November 9th. And there's still much more to come, including one more tiger at least!
