Thursday, March 5, 2015, Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India

We spent today at the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh
(Image courtesy of VENT)
(Click on images to enlarge)

We were up and dressed to meet with the others to go to the park at 5:15 this morning. The park doesn’t open until 6:15, but this way our jeep was the first in line to enter, which is worth doing. While we waited, we watched the dawn and the arrival of the Treepies in the trees across the road.

Amazingly, within 15 minutes of entering the park, we had found a Bengal Tiger, a lone female, very beautiful, about 100 yards away, sitting upright in the short grasses and completely visible. (This was a real piece of luck, as there are only 60-65 tigers spread across Kanha’s 940 square kilometers.) I was more thrilled than I had expected to be. It was much the same feeling I got when the Taj Mahal was suddenly there before me. We were soon joined by a few other jeeps, but it was not the sort of experience we had at Ngorongoro Crater where we were surrounded by careening jeeps. We all just sat peacefully watching her as she watched us. After more than five minutes, she got up and strolled away, disappearing into the grass. (When she turned around, we could very clearly see the white eyespots on the back of her ears. I can only believe that those must have evolved for fooling other tigers. What else would have been a threat to such a magnificent animal?) Wow!

Crested Hawk-Eagle, Kanha National Park

Lee commented as we drove on that it was a relief to have the pressure off so that the driver and local guide wouldn’t be rushing us around the rest of the morning looking for tigers and not letting us see birds. We just roamed the roads of the park through hilly woodlands and flatter grasslands with pretty streams cutting through them, all quite lovely. (The park is mostly dry deciduous forest with groves of huge bamboos.) The forest roads were unpaved but in good condition. We passed crews of men carrying dirt in baskets to use to repair the road, which requires much maintenance due to the heavy rainfall. We had some spectacular looks at some spectacular birds. The first was a Crested Hawk-Eagle perched on a snag by the side of the road; we had a long close look at it. Later in the morning, another flew along the road toward us and very low over our heads with a bright green parakeet clutched in its talons.

Tiger scratching tree, Kanha

The driver stopped a few minutes later to let us see a tree that the tigers use as a scratching post. They can reach quite high. (One assumes, however, that they would prefer a couch if they had one.)

Everywhere there were Peafowl to photograph, as well as four species of deer. (We saw Common Barking Deer, Sambar, Swamp Deer, and Spotted Deer in the course of the day.) The Spotted Deer had many tiny fawns with a very high cuteness quotient.

Spotted Deer mother and fawn, Kanha National Park

Peacock, Kanha National Park

Other great birds seen close up included a Crested Serpent-Eagle and a Brown Fish-Owl. A tree that appeared to be covered with flowers was actually covered with Red-rumped Swallows. A Streak-throated Woodpecker (a write-in bird—one not on our checklist) posed on a tree trunk long enough for us to photograph it well.

Brown Fish-Owl, Kanha National Park

Streak-throated Woodpecker, Kanha National Park

Around 9, we drove to a visitor center where people are allowed out of their vehicles, so that we could eat the breakfast the lodge had packed for us. It was really good, especially the vegetable fritters, which one ate with a McDonalds-type plastic packet of Indian mixed pickles. On our way to our picnic table, I had spotted the park shop and noticed some beautiful silk tiger neckties, so as soon as we’d finished eating, I led Lee back there. We selected the perfect necktie for a Princetonian and also got me a scarf with Indian Rollers. Now we have our souvenirs of India. Walking back to our jeep, we came upon a gang of Indian Jungle Crows going through one of the other vehicles looking for food, in defiance of park regulations.

Visitor Center, Kanha National Park

We continued driving around and finding good birds. The Greater Racket-tailed Drongos were very showy. As Sir David Attenborough points out in his new video Conquest of the Skies, the tail of the Racket-tailed Drongo is very like that of Confuciusornis (which dates to 125-120 million years ago): Male Confuciusornis (China, 125-120 MYA) (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Male Greater Racket-tailed Drongo (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

We found a very handsome sleeping Indian Scops Owl and a flock of Bambis:

Indian Scops Owl, Kanha National Park

Spotted Deer fawns, Kanha National Park

We stopped at several ponds and got some very good waterbirds, including the charming Cotton Pygmy-Geese we learned to love in Australia. We had a low flyover of a Black Stork. And I finally got a good look at a Red-naped Ibis—certainly a memorable bird. Cotton Pygmy-Geese (with Whiskered Tern) (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Red-naped Ibis (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

We left the park shortly before 11 to go the three miles back to the lodge. On the way, Gajendra called a halt for us to see a Black-hooded Oriole, spectacular with its red bill. Black-hooded Oriole (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) As we drove through a hamlet near the lodge, I watched a man drawing water from his well with a bucket on a rope, and it occurred to me that as many times as I’ve seen illustrations of people doing that, I’d never actually seen it with my own eyes. An elderly woman (probably much younger than me, of course) walked across a field so bent that her back was parallel to the ground. Kaaren (who is a physician) suspects that it might be spinal tuberculosis.

Hanuman Langurs, Kanha National Park

We joined the others in the hotel restaurant for a really good lunch, and I rejoiced in an hour-long nap afterward. Flower arrangement outside restaurant, Baagh Resort Lee decided not to go out for the afternoon, as five hours in a jeep had been quite enough for his back for one day. I left him to take it easy and met Gajendra at the gate, where he got me onto a Tickell’s Blue-Flycatcher in the garden. (You can see and hear it in this video.)

Male Tickell’s Blue-Flycatcher (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

With Stephanie and Kaaren, we set off to the park at 2:15 to be first in line for the 3pm opening. While we waited at the gate, I practiced using my iPhone-to-binoculars photography setup on a langur eating red flowers in a tree across the road.

Hanuman Langur lunching

Indian Pond Heron flying (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Our local guide for the afternoon (they are assigned on a rotating basis, so one gets the luck of the draw) didn’t seem to be much into birds and really wanted to find us a tiger. We spent a couple of hours dashing around the park without much to show for it but a coating of dust. We did get to spend a couple of quiet interludes beside a pond that a tiger favors for drinking, where we watched the resident Little Cormorant, Little Grebe, Pond Heron, and White-throated Kingfisher pair. This pond is the place where Gajendra once saw six tigers at once, a mother and her four cubs in one corner and a male in another, with a Bison also in another. I was surprised to see that when the usually reed-colored Pond Herons fly they turn white in the same way a Squacco Heron does. Gajendra says that for this reason they are called “fairy herons” locally; they seem to turn into completely different birds when they fly.

As the sun got low in the sky, I began to get chilled, so I was somewhat relieved when we began driving toward the exit. We weren’t far from it when a passing jeep delivered the message that a male tiger had been seen sitting out “on the pipeline”. That resulted in our driver going in reverse at high speed for about half a mile to where he could turn around and then heading off at higher speed for the pipeline area, wherever that may be, in a queue of careening jeeps and lots of dust. We were apparently almost there when the word came down that the tiger was gone. By then it was almost closing time, so the whole gang sped toward the exit bouncing their passengers rather unmercifully. It was not a whole lot of fun. I was somewhat reluctant to hand over the 100 rupees I’d brought along for a tip. But then we were back on the paved road and driving along at a reasonable rate, and Gajendra called for a halt when he spotted a Common Hawk-Cuckoo perched singing above the highway, which gave us a good look at a new bird. I was in better spirits when I got back to our room and found Lee looking rested.

Common Hawk-Cuckoo (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

which is believed to have evolved to be a visual mimic of

Shikra (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Lee and I joined the others for a really excellent dinner that ended with gulub jamuns in a cream sauce. The news was that the park will be closed all day tomorrow because of Holi, so we will do a bird walk in the garden in the morning and a drive around the area in the afternoon. Lee and I are both ready for some downtime, so this is not a disappointment. We were able to get to bed by 9:30. My birds for the day: