Pachyderms and Pallas’

15^th 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