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Indian Days ...a wander to the east (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Jos Stratford
- Start date
Larry Sweetland
Formerly 'Larry Wheatland'
corbett
Hi Sussex bird man. I birded Corbet a couple of years ago but a little earlier in the year. Check all the Stonechats around the main camp for Hodgson's Bushchat (maybe some around) .Some of the guides will know more specifically where to look. You have to have a guide as well as a Jeep driver but we changed ours at the camp for one that we discovered who was really into birds. Large-tailed Nightjar is easy around the camp but Savanna harder. I had to run out into the savanna (not allowed) just before dawn to see them, or would just have heard them. Ask about Tawny Fish Owl, there was one roosting where the road crosses the river near Kumeria when we were there. Try and find a Jeep driver who knows about this in Ramnagar ! If like me you're after Streak-throated Woodpecker, don't bother checking all the Grey-headeds in the Sal forest cos it took us a while to discover that they're in the more open stuff. Hope even a bit of this might be useful !
Sussex bird man said:
Hi Sussex bird man. I birded Corbet a couple of years ago but a little earlier in the year. Check all the Stonechats around the main camp for Hodgson's Bushchat (maybe some around) .Some of the guides will know more specifically where to look. You have to have a guide as well as a Jeep driver but we changed ours at the camp for one that we discovered who was really into birds. Large-tailed Nightjar is easy around the camp but Savanna harder. I had to run out into the savanna (not allowed) just before dawn to see them, or would just have heard them. Ask about Tawny Fish Owl, there was one roosting where the road crosses the river near Kumeria when we were there. Try and find a Jeep driver who knows about this in Ramnagar ! If like me you're after Streak-throated Woodpecker, don't bother checking all the Grey-headeds in the Sal forest cos it took us a while to discover that they're in the more open stuff. Hope even a bit of this might be useful !
One rather sad thing I've picked up from Jos' great report is the lack of vultures. One of my abiding memories of a trip to Nepal and India in 1996 was lying on a deckchair on the roof of a hostel in New Delhi whilst my gut fauna was involved in some kind of biodiversity explosion. What made it bearable was that overhead were clouds of white storks, black kites and vultures circling around and around. There must have been thousands of birds with a good proportion of them vultures (not sure what species, probably Indian white-backed). Sounds like all these are gone now but hopefully the promised changes to the drugs used on livestock will allow them to return in the fantastic nuumbers I saw.
pica pica said:
Of the gyps vultures, I did indeed see very few ...about 8 or so at Rhanthambhore, four at Gir and slightly higher numbers on the Great Rann of Kutch (one flock of aout 16). Need to check my notes, but more or less I saw only about 30 or so on the trip - a tragically low number - and, on top of that, I found two freshly dead vultures.
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