Showing posts with label Kaziranga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kaziranga. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2024

Assam Day 6 & 7 - The wonderland that is Kaziranga

16th January 2020

Continued from here.

Kaziranga!  A dream visit for me, for the last fifteen years, and I was actually here.  Wishing Sekar was here, and of course Raji, my dear friend, how I missed her on the trip.  

It is a UNESCO world heritage site.

“Criterion (ix): River fluctuations by the Brahmaputra river system result in spectacular examples of riverine and fluvial processes. River bank erosion, sedimentation and formation of new lands as well as new water-bodies, plus succession between grasslands and woodlands represents outstanding examples of significant and ongoing, dynamic ecological and biological processes. Wet alluvial grasslands occupy nearly two-thirds of the park area and are maintained by annual flooding and burning. These natural processes create complexes of habitats which are also responsible for a diverse range of predator/prey relationships.

Criterion (x): Kaziranga was inscribed for being the world’s major stronghold of the Indian one-horned rhino, having the single largest population of this species, currently estimated at over 2,000 animals. The property also provides habitat for a number of globally threatened species including tiger, Asian elephant, wild water buffalo, gaur, eastern swamp deer, Sambar deer, hog deer, capped langur, hoolock gibbon and sloth bear. The park has recorded one of the highest density of tiger in the country and has been declared a Tiger Reserve since 2007. The park’s location at the junction of the Australasia and Indo-Asian flyway means that the park’s wetlands play a crucial role for the conservation of globally threatened migratory bird species. The Endangered Ganges dolphin is also found in some of the closed oxbow lakes.”

Highway 37 cuts through and the Karbi Anglong hills are the highlands needed during the high monsoon floods as highlands for the animals from the Bramhaputra flood plains.  Now this migration land is cut by the highway.

A lot happened on the road even before we entered the sanctuary gates.  


We started our Kaziranga exploration at the eastern gate - Agaratoli.  These Owlets were at the gate, as we registered to enter the Gates.

A grey-headed fishing eagle surveyed the plains,  sitting harmoniously with the parakeets!


.
Wild buffaloes eyed us.

I would never tire of the river, the grasslands and the swamp deer.

The rhinos were there everywhere.



What a lovely sight of the northern lapwing.

The news of Kaziranga was that a “lesser white fronted goose had been spotted!  And Gudung knew exactly where to take us   - to see this “foreigner”, who was hanging around with the bar-headed geese, who didn’t seem to mind its presence, and all continued to forage in an amicable fashion.  Its white face and barred chest made it stand out among the bar-headed geese.

The LWFG (Anser erythropus)was most unbothered at this paparazzi status, as the shutter bugs clicked away. What was it doing here?  In 1968, an Englishman McKenzie had recorded it in Kaziranga in a different range.  The bird is a native of Scandinavia and Siberia.  It was a vagrant.  And endangered vagrant.  

Gudung was excited at having showed us this rare sighting.


He took us to the house of his mentor Manoj Gogoi. These are the experiences on MNS trips that are amazing, humbling and something that has opened my mind time and again.

He narrated the story of his meeting with a man from BNHS and then growing and rescuing snakes and birds, and now working in tandem with the forest dept.  Recounting stories of Kaziranga then and now, over a feast of local delicacies.

 

A quick lunch stop at Dubori, wash, battery charge and it was off to the western range with Gudung.  Bagori.

Hornbill sightings




A satisfied soul inside a tired body, as we headed back.  Dinner and chatter - always fun - sitting with Yuvan trying to make a list - jaggery ginger candy from Mr NS.  A throat thats feeling super raspy and painful.


So much to learn still, so little do I know.  

17th January 2020. Off to the Bura Pahad range - Hoolock Gibbon morning it was.



On the road, even before entering the Bura Pahad range, we stopped by some fig trees as Gudung spotted the gibbons, and this was my first sight!  What lovely eyebrows!


There was something so contented and peaceful about the way the gibbon took a fruit at a time, and ate with deliberation and “mindfulness”?  

One of Kaziranga’s signature primate, India’s only ape. As I watched the male’s long arm go out and pick a fruit, I learnt that they can brachiate at high speeds - close to 50kmph, and in one swing, something like 6m!  

They live in small family groups and are monogamous we heard their calls within the forest later as well.  Their calls - haunting and amazing and a lifetime experience as it echoes through the forests.  

For a creature that never comes down to the forest floor, the need for a contiguous canopy is so crucial.  How would it cross a road, if the canopy was broken for more than 6m?

“Populations of western hoolock gibbons have declined by almost 90% over the last 30 years, and it is now considered to be one of the most endangered 25 primate species in the world. In India, it is listed on Schedule 1 of the Indian (Wildlife) Protection Act 1972. Enhancing protection for the species, the Government of Assam upgraded the status of the Hoollongapar Reserve Forest in the Jorhat District of Assam to a Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in 1997, making this the first Protected Area ever named after a primate species.”  (WWF)

A skirmish and movement in the tree and we thought it was another family, but no it was a Giant Malayan Squirrel also feeding and going up and down the tree.  What a tail!  And it did one spectacular jump from one tree to the next.  (Ratufa bicolor).  I thought the malabar squirrel is more good looking, but this one is just large and dramatic.  (Suresh's photo)


Lovely drive in the forest.  Beautiful trees, lianas, a water monitor lizard and whistling ducks in flight.  A group of black capped monkeys above.

A patch of water, and we saw more bar-headed geese.  There were egrets, cormorants, OBS all cheek by jowl, minding their own business.  

A watchtower close to the river.  We got off the vehicles and took a walk along the river Diphlu.  The stories that silting would tell.  Many feet deep.  There were a couple of ruddy shelducks on the bank. that caught the sun so beautifully, they were like burnished copper..


The squelchy mud revealed tiger pug marks!  It was a long and hot walk, and we came back quite hungry.  Dried fruits and kakhra to the rescue in our backpacks - and  Suresh discovered a love for kakhra hitherto unknown.  Pritam had some interesting fruit bars - mango and guava…I preferred the guava I remember.

As we drove back and out of the sanctuary, we saw swamp deer - unique to Kaziranga.  Eastern swamp deer.    Rucervus duvaucelii ranjitsinhi.  Dolhorina in Assamese

 


 Even better was the sunbathing otters we saw!  What a delightful sight that was.  We were the lone jeep on that path - and in a blink of an eye, they were all off the bank and into the water.  Showing how easy it us to disturb wildlife, how sensitive to human activity.  Shantharam got a great picture, I remember.

An adjutant flew overhead, stiff and stern.  And suddenly there was a rhino eyeballing us from behind the grass.  And vultures overhead!


Back for lunch and a short rest


Afternoon ride was to Kohora - the gate closest to us.  We were in the last jeep.  Sudar and his camera seemed to be magnets for the unexpected.  A whole host of wagtails later, we saw a fishing eagle and most importantly a night jar.  Spotted by Sudar.  Even our jeep driver was awestruck at the spotting!

We went over this bridge I don’t think was meant for jeeps - it protested loudly. But the driver was cheery and confident.

And that evening, we waited for the tiger, whom the guides and driver felt were in the vicinity.  I didn't mind.  It was such a beautiful magic spot.

Instead we saw a baby elephants in the swamp - it waddled across, stumbling and moving quite clumsily and endearingly - the mother gently nudging him/her with her trunk.

As we watched, the rains stuck to a path they make.  We saw a rhino midden as well.

Another beautiful Kaziranga sunset.

That evening, we went into the markets.  I picked up two wooden rhinos as souvenirs.  It was good fun to hang around with Bhuvanya as she looked for some kind of local Assamese knife, which she didn’t find, but she found a kutty little dish made from some alloy, which was a big hit with the other ladies - so much so that we had to return and buy some more!  So many things I came to know - that Bhuvanya loves to paint, is a cheerful chatterbox and has a wonderful joie de vivre. 

We would depart for Pobitara the next day.  

Kaziranga - I could go back again and again.  (I did go back, with Sekar, and I would be happy to revisit.)  The flood plains, the grasslands, the vastness, the magnificent rhinos and elephants in such plenty, the gibbons, langurs, squirrels and all those birds.


Thursday, February 23, 2023

Assam Day 5 - First glimpses of Kaziranga

Heading towards Kazi again, yay! And i see that this has not even been posted.

15th January 2020


Goodness, I am picking up the threads of January 2020, which I last wrote about in August of 2020....Let me see what I remember.

I remember my excitement on reaching the animal corridor.  



The flood plains of the Brahmaputra.  During the monsoon all these areas are under a sheet of water I believe.  The highway cuts through the highland.  It was some sight seeing the tall grasslands, with all the mammals, grazing, beds, and all.  What a magical treat - bar-headed geese flocks, elephants and rhinos, cheek by jowl,

and the monkey of course

...so close we could have shook hands....

..and he walked away disdainfully.

Dubori homestay in Kohora - a cozy little place with a lovely tropical garden - we were upstairs, nice little verandah that went all around.








 We met Gudung aka Pallab.  An interesting young man of the region.  He was to be our guide for Kaziranga.  He came by as the sun was going down, a smile on his face, unkempt hair and an inner beautiful enthusiasm that I see in so many naturalists.

A free evening - walked around on my own, just up the lane, soon it was dark.  A child on a tricycle, a severally handicapped adult and what looked like his caretaker mother in a verandah, baya weaver nests, red spikes, and quarrelling goats.  Hathikuli tea estate around the corner.

A little bonfire, and puppy dogs under the stove enjoying the warmth until one of the pieces of firewood exploded with a loud crack, sending the little fellow yelping to his mom, and then feeling sheepish and standing behind her and barking loudly!!

Dinner was a nice cosy affair, with the poor kitchen staff having to deal with the MNS way of eating - if you don’t set out all items on the dinner table together, then whatever is there will run out - so while the dal and veggie came first, these were done, when the rotis came, so there was this mad scurrying back and forth by them to keep it all together, and an equally brisk up and down by the MNS members.  Hot rotis moved faster than the rice, and MNS members moved the fastest!

There was just some cheerful banter, as we wound down for the evening.

Monday, July 20, 2020

Kaziranga in the monsoon



https://epaper.thehindu.com/Home/ShareArticle?OrgId=GHF7JOSQT.1&imageview=0


A booster diet stirs Kaziranga’s flood-hit ‘road rhino’


GUWAHATI
All rhinos have poor eyesight. Some, like the one that has made a highway beside the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR) its temporary home, have even poorer vision.

The male rhino, about 30 years old, was thought to be ill or injured when he swam laboriously out of the flooded KNPTR, hauled himself onto the highway and lay on the asphalt on the evening of July 17. Barring the twitching of the ears, he was motionless as vehicles whizzed past.

He has refused to budge three days later, earning the ‘road rhino’ moniker. But he has been venturing out a few feet on either side of the highway after some doses of sweetened multivitamin were given in bundles of grass and antibiotic eye drop sprayed from a high-pressure water gun.

The rhino had emerged from the Bagori Range of the 1,055 sq km KNPTR that has a core area of 430 sq km and more than 55% of the world’s population of the one-horned herbivore.

Security cordon

“Our men threw a security cordon around the rhino. From experience, we knew the rhino was really tired after swimming for hours in search of dry land, but we sought the help of veterinarians nonetheless,” said P. Sivakumar, KNPTR director.

A team of veterinarians led by Shamsul Ali of the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) nearby began observing the animal. The “crisis situation” prompted Kushal Konwar Sarma, head of College of Veterinary Science, to rush from Guwahati, 200 km away.

“We were prepared to take the rhino to the zoo in Guwahati, but he was in good health other than suffering from partial vision. We could sense he was not confident enough to swim back probably because of uncertainty in figuring out what lies ahead although he has been venturing further from the road with the water level receding,” Dr. Sarma said.

Dr. Ali said his team embedded multivitamin pills in jaggery wrapped in bundles of grass and threw them from a distance. As the animal lay on the road on Saturday, they sprayed the eye drop mixed in saline water from five metres.

“Rhinos have blurred vision and tend to attack based on smell and hearing. We had an animal too weak to react and with corneal opacity in the left eye and conjunctivitis in the right,” he told The Hindu on Sunday. Rathin Barman, who heads the CWRC, said the rhino was expected to melt into the forest soon.


Andaman Day 4 and 5 - Rangat scrub and open forests

Continued from here.  Click here for the previous post.  Feb 13th 2024 - Our Post lunch wander The post-lunch session is always one that req...