Dudhwa Sanctuary with Vihang Travels
For close to a year now,
I have been touring with Vihang Travels. It has always been a wonderful
experience so far to be in the august company of Yuwaraj, Makarand & other
Vihang regulars.
This time, they had selected
an off-beat location in Uttar Pradesh nearing the Nepal border. They had made
contact with a known name in that area and we hoped to have good time there.
As usual a new WhatsApp
group was created for all 8 participants (myself, Deepa, Bhaskar Athawale,
Nainesh Amin, Amish Parekh, Avinash Mishra and off-course Makarand, Yuwaraj).
The discussion lingered on whether we should expect tiger sighting on the tour
or go without any expectation. Even on earlier tours I have been going with the
expectation of enjoying the jungle (good birding is an additional bonus). Did
not think much about tiger but obviously when you go for such safaris,
somewhere down in your thoughts you do hope to see the real WILD life.
This time I had decided
to carry the zoom lens for wild/birding and Macro lens just in case we see
something interesting. Nikon point-n-shoot as well as the Binoculars were with
Deepa. Packing was relatively simpler now with some experience of such trips.
{At the end of this blog have given some more details
about the trip logistics}
28-Apr
Day started really early,
we had to catch 6am fight, so 2:30 wake-up alarm and by 3:30am we were out of
house. (OLA guys did give initial scare when the driver didn’t pick-up call
even after calling him 3 times, quick cancellation followed and fortunately,
the 2nd driver did answer the call).
Check-in and security
check was smooth, and the flights were on time too. Mum-Delhi and then same
flight continued till Lucknow.
At Lucknow airport, we
met our local tour operator Siddharth Singh and from then he actually took
control over things. We had 2 jeep-type vehicles at our disposal. Bags were
packed in the overhead carrier and we quickly started for Kishanpur Wildlife
Sanctuary. On the way we got water bottles and some snacks from the town.
That’s where Makarand spotted an interesting Mataka-Lassi. All of us devoured
it with gusto.
|
Lassi - PC: Avinash Mishra |
Since we were not sure
about the travel distance and time, there wasn’t any plan for evening safari,
which meant we could travel at leisure. Took relaxed breaks for lunch and tea
in addition to the Lassi one.
It was about 5pm when we
reached the Kishanpur Homestay. The plan was to have one night stay there and
then move to Dudhwa next evening. Kishanpur sanctuary is part of the larger
Dudhwa reserve but the chances of tiger sighting were apparently higher here.
We checked-in to the room
and came out quickly for tea. Over snacks, we discussed about the location and
safari plans for next day. Siddharth wanted to know our expectations as well as
priorities (as in, should we give preference to tiger over elephant, or
sloth-bear over rhino, etc.).
After snacks, we had a
quick stroll outside the guest-house. The jungle was anyway very close from
there and we did discuss the prospect of finding any snakes in the night trail.
This area apparently is a natural habitat for the “banded krait”, a highly
venomous snake.
We watched the setting
Sun, heard some langur calls (implied that some predator was in the vicinity)
and returned back to the rooms. Deepa did manage to see an Indian Roller bird
at a distance, so birding officially began there itself.
Dinner was at 9, a simple
local food and we quickly decided to go for a night trail. With all the talk
about venomous snakes, Deepa was very skeptical about it but then she gathered
all the courage and tagged along. Siddharth initially was reluctant to allow
this as the predators here were known to prowl in nearby areas, but he didn’t
even want to disappoint his clients. We settled for going only for about half a
km from the gates, and the trail was immediately fruitful.
Amish quickly spotted 2
shining eyes in a tree just outside the compound. On further inspection we
realized it was a palm civet. What luck! And it even stayed put on the tree for
next few minutes allowing us to take some record shots. (Let me digress from
topic and state here that a “record” shot meagerly means a proof that we had
seen it, this normally is a poor quality photo. Non photographers might wrongly
interpret this as something to Cherish, a record. And hence the clarification..
I myself had that misconception when I got into bird photography).
On the trail we also managed
to find a 2-tailed spider, some pairs of “six spotted ground bugs”, few
scorpions peeping out of their dens, and the assassin bug
|
Palm Civet Cat |
|
2 Tailed Spider |
|
Assassin Bug |
|
Six spotted Ground Bugs - mating |
.With all the days travel
fatigue, we slept like logs till Makarand gave his characteristic wake-up call.
29-April
Wake-up call was at 4:30
and by 5:40am, we had our tea and were ready to embark on our first safari. We
split the group into 4 each, plus the driver and guide. The Open Gypsys quickly
took us to the entry gates and before 6 we were already inside the Kishanpur
jungle.
The experienced set of
Yuwaraj, Amish, Bhaskar and Nainesh went with Siddharth in the other gypsy and
they wished us a beginners luck (since this was a first tiger safari for me and
Deepa). Their wishes brought fruits immediately. Within 10 minutes, we spotted
a young tigress (known as the Bel-danda tigress) right on the road. Our guide
Altaf, spotted it at some distance and immediately alerted us to get ready.
Quick record shots from the distance and we speedily approached the tigress.
When we were about 50 odd feet, we realized that the tigress was actually walking
towards us. What Grace! What style! We were just mesmerized by the gait. Within
a minute we were joined by another gypsy and there were incessant camera clicks
that could be heard for next few minutes. Altaf was well aware of the movement
of the tigress and he knew that she was actually walking towards a small water
puddle that we had crossed while approaching the tiger. He asked the driver to
slowly reverse our gypsy and the tigress actually followed us closely till she
reached the water source. Then she went off-road and entered into the ditch for
water. While she was having her mouthful, 2 more Gypsys came from the opposite
side. Luckily they could interpret our wild gestures correctly and stopped well
before the puddle so as not to disturb the beast (or is it beauty?). Those 5
minutes (while she was drinking water out of our sight) felt like eternity but
she emerged out majestically soon.
Cameras were at work once again. Light was
low, so increased the ISO, but beyond that there was no time to check settings.
Slowly she walked till the road, stayed put there for few minutes and swiftly walked
away to the other side of the jungle and went out of sight. She was walking
towards the core portion of the jungle which is out-of-reach for the tourist
vehicles. So that was the end of show for us. But what a treat it was, lasted
for about 25 minutes in all.
We came out of that spell
in next 10 minutes and started back on the safari (but with the lingering
thought, “why are we even continuing now”). We could quickly see a shikra and
few spotted deer. By 7 o’clock, we were near a big water body and a watch
tower, we could get down on foot there. At the far end of the lake, Altaf
spotted some movement that he suspected to be another tiger. It was really too
far and we couldn’t see anything at all. But on his insistence, I pointed my
camera in that direction and took a few guess shots. It turned out to be gold.
We were actually looking at a big male tiger walking away from water (the
chance photo came out really well as it showed the habitat perfectly along-with
the tiger and the watchful swamp-deer). On seeing the photo in camera-screen,
Altaf immediately rushed us into the gypsy and asked the driver to speed away
quickly towards the other side of lake. On the way, we also alerted our other
gypsy to head in that direction.
|
Tiger walking away |
We patiently waited at
the possible openings at the other side but couldn’t have any glimpse of the
tiger. It was worth attempting it anyway as the male tigers there seem to
prefer movement only in the night and were not photographed that frequently.
Spending some 45 minutes in that chase and we were back at the watch tower near
the lake. This is where we were to have our breakfast as well. But there was
enough time to snap a few birds in the water body. Sighted the black-necked and
woolly-necked storks there and also the swamp deer (बाराशिंगा in
Marathi). We also went onto the watch
tower and could catch a lovely pair of rose-ringed parakeets at eye level, we
could also see their offspring peeping out of their nest.
|
Black necked Stork |
|
Swamp Deer |
|
Pair of Rose-ringed Parakeets |
|
Baby parakeet |
By that time our
breakfast was arranged. The usual parathas tasted sweeter after the eventful
morning. We did catch a few macro photos like butterflies, dragonflies and
spiders.
|
"Cabbage White" Butterfly |
|
"Picture Wing" Dragonfly |
Remainder of the morning
safari did give us good images of spotted deer, and some storks on the water
body but everything was pale in comparison to the show-stopper of morning. Our
other gypsy managed to see one more tigress that was known to be relaxing near
the water body during afternoons regularly. So they waited patiently at the
approximate spot till 10:30 and did get to see the tigress walking from the
jungle and entering into the thick bushes near the lake. One of her ear was
cut-off in some earlier skirmish with another tiger, that’s how apparently she
got the name “kankati” (कनकटी).
We returned back to the
rooms by 11am. Rather than relaxing, we thought of checking the guest-house
premises. There were good number of butterflies around; plus the spotted owlet
gave us some nice poses.
|
Spotted Owlet |
After spending about an
hour, we decided to take some rest but that wasn’t to happen. There was no electricity
from 12noon and within a few minutes, the generator was out of diesel. Some of
us still managed to remain in the room and take some rest but I just couldn’t
do that, and preferred to roam outside under the tree shades. Even took out the
macro lens and clicked some flowers there.
Our evening safari was at
3 and we were ready by 2:45 (lunch was served at 1:30). The plan was simple,
the kankati tigress was known to come out of her hiding around 5pm so our gypsy
was to wait there from 4:30 itself as we had not seen it in the morning. We had
time till then, our safari did give us some good birding opportunities. We
could see the Indian Roller, Changeable Hawk Eagle and a white bellied drongo
among others.
|
Changeable Hawk Eagle |
|
Indian Roller |
By about 4:30, we
stationed ourselves near the lake. The wait was long, very soon the sky
suddenly became cloudy. It definitely looked like it will rain soon; it did not
happen then but when it happened, we were really in bad shape. More about that,
little later.
Our long wait wasn’t
entirely unfruitful. Within first 15 minutes, we could sight pheasant tailed
jacana (lifer for me), could also see some hornbills flying around. It was
getting little darker but we could witness a lot of bee-eater activity. Many
males were probably trying to woo the female by giving her generous gifts of
tasty dragon-flies.
|
Pheasant tailed Jacana |
|
Bee eaters |
There was no sign of
kankati anywhere, we waited till 5:45 but nothing, finally we moved on. On the
way back, we could see the peacock and few more deer. The sunset as usual was
very beautiful and the jungle in that light was looking fabulous. Just before
moving out, there were a few calls from swamp-deer that aroused our attention,
we waited patiently for 10 more minutes but then the calls died out slowly. It
was getting dark and we had to also travel to Dudhwa guest house later, so we
closed the safari there.
Rushed back to rooms and
quickly moved the packed bags (we had already packed before leaving for the
afternoon safari). We realized that for this 30odd km travel, we had to use the
same open gypsy vehicles. That seemed like a novelty to start with. Bags were
packed and we 8 (plus 4 other including drivers) managed to hop into the 2
gypsys. By the time we started it was already about 8pm.
It was completely dark
outside and the evening clouds had now given way to thunder-clouds and
lightning. The ride was truly an experience, the speeding open gypsy, the lightning,
gusty winds and to match all that Siddharth was speeding like a race car. Luckily
the roads were good. In between, we had to make a few stops for diesel,
water-bottles, etc. and that delayed our final destination by 10-15 minutes.
By the time we were
nearing the Dudhwa area, we could experience some rain drops. We all prayed for
delaying the rains as all our bags, including camera were in the open gypsys and
even a moderate rain could have been a problem for us. Luckily the rain was not
heavy so far. When we saw the boards of our guest house (some 1-2 kms before
the gate), we thought we have made it but the real thing was yet to come.
Before we could understand what was happening, we were bombarded by small
stones hitting our head/face. Took us few seconds to realize that we were
facing the hailstorm. Thankfully we were just entering the guest house gates by
then, within 2 minutes we entered one of the guest-house rooms. We just dumped
our luggage quickly inside (without checking whether those rooms were allotted
to us or someone else). Our other gypsy driver was totally confused as he did
not know what to do after reaching the gate and there was no one to ask. But
they saw us and quickly followed. Most of the luggage was actually in their
gypsy. It was quickly unloaded by all of us collectively but those few minutes
were a lifetime experience.
Had the hailstorm started even 5 minutes earlier,
we were doomed because on that road, there was no shelter for us to wait and open
gypsy just do not provide any protection. But frankly, we all enjoyed that JoyRide.
Dinner was at 9:30 and
this jungle guest-house only served vegetarian food. But the quality was
decent. Our morning safari was at 6am, so the wake-up call was scheduled for
5am.
In all the hailstorm
related melee, I seemed to have misplaced my spare camera battery. I vaguely
remembered that I moved it out of the outside pocket of my waist-pouch but
could not remember where I kept it. Left to a single battery, I will have to be
careful tomorrow. For the next entire day, I kept thinking about this untimely
miss, but couldn’t do anything about it!!
30-Apr
We were ready for the
safari by 5:45am. The safari gate was within the guest-house compound itself so
there was no travel time to reach there. At sharp 6, we entered inside.
The first impression of
the jungle was just too good. Amazing greenery all around, nice and tall trees
lined up the sky on both sides. There were patches of lush green grasslands
in-between. I don’t think the beauty can be described in words, it has to be
experienced.
Maybe it was the impact
of yesterday’s rain, but it was chilling cold that morning and the blowing
winds were making it harsher.
Within few minutes we
could see the Emerald Dove. The colors were really cool though we could not take
any meaningful pictures.
If we were to watch
rhinos, the only option available was to take the elephant ride, so we quickly
moved to that area but we were little late. Apparently there was some VIP
visitors for whom 2 elephants were reserved and the other 2 were already
booked. Another option was to come back after an hour and take a chance but we
decided to skip that and instead roam in the beautiful jungle looking for other
inhabitants of the landscape.
On our way, we passed through a river that was flowing quietly and could see a
crocodile basking in the morning sun. Could also see white-throated kingfishers
on the shore.
Many more birds and trees
later, at about 8am we saw glimpse of a tusker roaming alone in the elephant
grass. Our guide Altaf was well versed with the pachyderms (his father is a
mahavat handling a big elephant in the same jungle). We stopped our gypsy and
waited for it to come out in the open. Little later it did make some movements
and apparently it was trying to gauge our responses. If we were not alert
enough, he might even had charged at us (that was Altaf’s experience speaking).
Very soon there was another gypsy on the road and both following the movements
of the tusker. After about 10 minutes, the elephant actually dashed towards the
road (making some excitement in both gypsys) but swiftly went in between both
the gypsys and dashed inside the other side of the jungle (which was thick
compared to the grasslands where it was operating all this while)
All this action was
happening near a watch tower which was also supposed to be our breakfast joint,
our packed breakfast was to be brought over there. But before that, we spotted
a grey-headed fish eagle near-by. It appeared to have made a fresh kill of an
Eel. The eagle was tearing into the flesh and the blood could be seen on its
beak even from that distance.
But in 2-3 minutes, it
decided to fly away (with the Eel) from that spot (unlikely to be disturbed by
us as we were really far from it and also at a height, though it obviously
would have seen us). Few of us decided to follow the eagle little further while
others got busy with the breakfast. Our tracking was immediately fruitful as we
could spot the Eagle perched on a tree at a height of about 15 feet allowing us
to take some more snaps. It changed the position 2-3 times within that area and
we could take more photos.
Within 20 minutes, we joined
others for breakfast. It’s fun having parathas in that open jungle with loads
of wild animals around (though not visible openly).
The remaining safari gave
us good sighting of the elusive Asian Paradise Flycatchers, they were in really
good numbers but were very erratic in their flight, so taking photos was not
possible. But we did get to photograph the ‘Racket Tailed Drongo’. I had
managed to see it in 2 earlier trips but could never take photo. So this was
also a lifer.
|
Racket Tailed Drongo |
|
Asian Paradise Flycatcher |
By 10:30 we were back in
the guest-house. The lunch was at 1:30, so there was time to roam within the
campus. My lone battery was still going strong so I quickly changed the camera
lens to Macro and went out of the room. With Yuwaraj around, there can be
dearth of good macro objects and this was middle of jungle, so had to find
things of interest. Even before going for other things, we had spotted a bunch
of butterflies mud-puddling near the safari entrance. Since the safari gate was
still open for vehicles coming in, we decided to visit that area in the end.
We could quickly find
nice specimens, some of which can be seen here:
|
Ladybug |
|
"Common Mormon" butterfly |
|
Langur watching us closely |
|
Fruit mantis |
This went on till lunch
time. During this time, we also managed to find the souvenir shop of the
sanctuary but that was closed. On further enquiry, we came to know that it was
closed now as the tender for that wasn’t floated recently and the earlier
vendor had abandoned it.
Shortly in the safari
Altaf alerted us about a wild elephant group that was hidden behind the grass,
this was very close to where we had spotted the solitary Tusker in the morning.
The group was very quiet and for a few minutes we could not see it at all. We
waited patiently for 30 odd minutes on the watch tower after which the group
made an appearance far away on the horizon. It was a group of about 20odd
elephant including 5-6 baby elephants of different height. Altaf hinted us that
the group is likely to move to the far side of the water body and we can
possibly observe it from a different watch tower. We immediately went there,
that watch tower was little shaky but we risked it and got some more photos of
the herd.
|
With Jungle Habitat |
After the elephant herd,
Altaf also spotted a sloth-bear at some distance. We waited a moment there.
Took a record shot and then tried to go near it, but the bear had obviously
seen us and it quickly darted
into the jungle.
We did try to search that area through
gypsy, we even alerted our other gypsy about it but we couldn’t get to
see it again. While searching for the bear, I spotted a doglike thing and joked
about it being a wild dog. But the moment
Makarand saw it, he said it is a Jackal. Till then my camera was inactive but
the moment I heard it’s a jackal, immediately the camera was raised and I took
a record shot. A sudden and lucky find that was.
But that was not all, as
a parting gift the Dudhwa jungle offered us a lovely specimen of dancing
Indian Peafowl with it’s full
plumage.
With that we ended the
safari on a very happy note. It was really a fantastic experience of the jungle
for last 2 days.
In the night we also watched
a jackal right there inside the guest-house premises when it jumped over a
small internal compound wall.
1-May
Today
was going to be another day of long travel (and hence boring). Plan was to get
up by 6, the vehicles would be ready there and by 7 we will move on for
Lucknow, have breakfast on the way. If possible make a stopover in Lucknow city
for some local sweets.
But
there was still a twist in the tale. We were all ready by 6:45 but there was no
sign of the vehicles. They had a punctured tyre somewhere on the road and
reached only after 7:30. Which meant we had lost some precious time as we had
to reach Airport by 1pm.
But
the journey then was smooth and we did manage to reach Airport by 12:45 with
just 1 quick break for tea.
By
the way, just when we were about to get into the vehicle, I remembered about my
motion sickness medicine. I opened the inner compartment of my waist-pouch for
the tablet and there it was!! The lost battery for which I was cursing myself
the whole day, was sitting there neatly. Then I remembered that I had kept it
in the innermost compartment so as to protect it from the rain. All along when
I was searching for it, it was there on me through the day!!
Flights
were on time but by the time I reached home it was about 11pm.
Overall
the trip was a grand success although 2 days out of 4 were spent only in
traveling. The lush green Tarai jungle had its own charm and I would definitely
like to spend more time there. With the hope of making another trip to Dudhwa
soon, closing this travelogue here.
Last
but not the least, thanks to the the wonderful company that we had during this
period. All our fellow travelers made it really special and would definitely be
going with them again-n-again (hope they have the same feeling too)
Logistic Details:
·
Best way to
access Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is to reach via Lucknow
- · Lucknow
Airport is about 240kms from Dudhwa
o
The road
condition in general is very good except some places where some work is
on-going and when it passes through crowded
towns/villages in between
o
Roads are
more or less flat all through (no hills/ghats)
o
Typically one
would take about 4.5 hours to cover the distance
o
And with
breaks it might take little more than that
- ·
Kishanpur
sanctuary is part of the overall Dudhwa Reserve but is a separate area and it
has different safari entrance as well
o
As per my
knowledge, it is smaller jungle than main Dudhwa forest and the likelihood of
finding a tiger here seems to be more
o
It also has a
good water body that seem to be frequented by the local as well as migratory
birds during season
- · The Dudhwa
Forest Guest-house is very convenient place from safari point of view though
there could be some mismanagement issues like frequent power-cut (sometimes the
generator backup doesn’t work), non-availability of water in some rooms, etc.
#Dudhwa
#DudhwaTigerReserve #VihangTravels #Kishanpur