Tuesday 21 February 2012

Pachyderms and Pallas’

15th February


This morning’s visit was to the charming, if dusty, eastern range of the magnificent Kaziranga National Park. This park is a humbling conservation success story, where more than 2,000 of an estimated world population of 2,600 greater one-horned rhinoceroses live. These curiously nimble pachyderms take pride of place in the park’s fauna, but only by a whisker; for here there are also great herds of Asian elephants, the majority of the world’s population of the northeastern subspecies of barasingha, a very significant population of Asian wild buffalo, numberless thousands of hog deer and the densest population of tigers known anywhere in the world. We saw all these, bar the tigers.

But did I mention the birds? Today the silk cotton trees were ablaze with flowers and full of sugar-hungry birds: jungle mynas, chestnut-tailed starlings, spot-winged starlings, and a single northern hill myna, giving his loud plimsoll-on-gym-floor call. Here too were hoary-bellied squirrels while a flock of grey-chinned and scarlet minivets wove through the trees like strings of gaudy decorations. Green imperial pigeons flapped their lumpish wings over a Pallas’ fish-eagle who yelled his grating song. Nearby a pair of grey-headed fish-eagles yodelled from the treetops as a rhino bathed in the mud and round him swam a family of smooth-coated otters.

Rose-ringed, alexandrine, red-breasted and oh-so-pretty blossom-headed parakeets shrieked their species-specific shrieks and glowed bright in the happy sunshine of the morning. At a marsh grazed countless hundreds of bar-headed and greylag geese, while in the water were gadwall, pintail, shoveler, wigeon and a beautiful drake falcated duck. Among them strode gangly black-necked storks, scruffy lesser adjutants and, scruffier yet, a single greater adjutant. In trees nearby a young eastern imperial eagle and an adult greater spotted eagle watched the comings and the goings of herds of buffalos, a long train of elephants with their dome-headed youngsters, and several bow-winged ospreys. Kaziranga is a fine place indeed.

In the afternoon we sailed once more, towards Silghat, our point of access to the central, western and Burapahar ranges of the park. Pallas’ gulls in perfect spring plumage sat on the wet silt bank of the river and with them was a crisp-plumaged steppe gull. Small pratincoles darted over the water and there were still more ducks, hundreds upon hundreds of ducks. Tomorrow we enter the park anew for more adventures. Dare we hope for an even more exciting day than today?


Cast in order of appearance

Mammals

21
Asian wild buffalo
Bubalus arnee
22
northeastern barasingha
Cervus duvaucelii ranjitsinhi
23
hog deer
Axis porcinus
24
smooth-coated otter
Lutrogale perspicillata
25
Asian elephant
Elephas maximus
26
greater one-horned rhinoceros
Rhinoceros unicornis

Birds

253
greater coucal
Centropus sinensis
254
Pallas’ fish-eagle
Haliaeetus leucoryphus
255
eastern imperial eagle
Aquila heliaca
256
greater adjutant stork
Leptoptilos dubius
257
falcated duck
Anas falcata
258
grey-headed woodpecker
Picus canus
259
grey-capped pygmy woodpecker
Dendrocopos canicapillus
260
velvet-fronted nuthatch
Sitta frontalis
261
grey-headed fish-eagle
Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus
262
Himalayan griffon vulture
Gyps himalayensis
263
green imperial pigeon
Ducula aenea
264
slender-billed vulture
Gyps tenuirostris
265
kalij pheasant
Lophura leucomelanos
266
red junglefowl
Gallus gallus
267
Daurian redstart
Phoenicurus auroreus
268
green sandpiper
Tringa ochropus
269
blossom-headed parakeet
Psittacula roseata
270
woolly-necked stork
Ciconia episcopus
271
great pied hornbill
Buceros bicornis
272
oriental pied hornbill
Anthracoceros albirostris
273
Abbott’s babbler
Malacocincla abbotti
274
grey-chinned minivet
Pericrocotus solaris
275
oriental turtle dove
Streptopelia orientalis
276
spot-winged starling
Saroglossa spiloptera
277
crested serpent eagle
Spilornis cheela
278
striated grassbird
Megalurus palustris
279
northern hill myna
Gracula religiosa
280
rufous woodpecker
Celeus brachyurus
281
changeable hawk-eagle
Nisaetus limnaeetus
282
striated heron
Butorides striatus
283
great thick-knee
Esacus recurvirostris
284
steppe gull
Larus (heuglini) barabensis

2012 Totals
Mammals: 26
Birds: 284
Reptiles: 0
Amphibians: 0
Fish: 0

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