Corbett National Park

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Hi again...
This blog is specially to remind myself of this exotic forest land and the undisturbed wilderness I experienced back in May 07.
Dusty narrow mountain-edge paths, white round pebbles of the Ramganga River, Forests rising beyond sunsets, Mountains touching the sky and a herd of Wild elephants and Spotted deer grazing lazily on this backdrop on the grasslands of Dhikala…is how I remember this nostalgic National Park based in the North of India.
The feel is completely unique as compared to the other forest reserves in India , such as the Kanha NP, Tadoba, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Periyaar in the south, Mudhumalai NP etc

April-May-June (Summers) are the best months to visit the park. Post October - till almost March, this haven on the outskirts of the Himalayan range of mountains in Uttaranchal goes freezing cold…Animal Sightings become scarce. All you can do is keep drinking hot tea/coffee and wrap up in dozens of warm woolens. Towards the end of June...beginning July the annual monsoon sets in and makes the terrain absolutely impenetrable.

A little more on the landscape and vegetation of Corbett -
The safari paths insider the park change direction and altitude ever 5 minutes or crosses a stream…Your open jeep is either 45 degree climbing or even more steeply descending….and then you reach the famous ‘Dhikala Chaur’ (Chaur stands for grassland in the local language) We wondered how the elephants manage this contrast ! It is located at the edge of the broad Patli Dun valley through which the Ramganga flows in numerous channels. Dhikala offers an awesome uninterrupted panoramic view of the valley, with the Kanda ridge in the backdrop. This sight appears all the more imposing from the watchtower near Dhikala. The Tourist Complex overlooks Dhikala chaur (one of the largest remaining grasslands of the Park) and Phulai chaur. A drive through the numerous trails through chaurs is rewarded with sightings of wild elephants, chital, hog deer and numerous grassland bird species and raptors. The old rest house at Dhikala is a historic structure, having been built over a hundred years ago.
This is a kind of a central hub for official forest activities and a resting place for tired tourists. A small canteen provides for a sumptuous lunch/snacks and benches under trees to rest a while. During peak seasons, a mid-day at Dhikala may look like a fair, with at least 40 jeeps parked and noisy tourists munching away. Thankfully cluttering the place with plastic and garbage is well taken care for and so is honking of jeeps. The forest officials are pretty strict about this.
Corbett Tiger Reserve has a great variety of fauna on account of habitat diversity. In the Jim Corbett National Park are found 110 tree species, 50 mammals' species, 580 bird species and 25 reptile species.

Vegetation -
Corbett National Park comprises of the evergreen Sal (Shorea robusta) and its associate tress, the Sheesam (Dalbergia sissoo), the Kanju (Holoptelea integrifolia)-found extensively on the ridges-, the ber (Zizyphus mauritians), dhak (Butea monosperma), and bael (Aegle marmelos). Other important trees in the Corbett National Park are the occasional simal (Bombax cieba), jhingan (Lannea coromandelica) and khair (Acacia catechu) that blossom in the spring season, just before the starting of summer season.
The Sal and the Sheesam, the two most important timber trees of north India, is the abundantly grown flora in the Corbett National Park. The green leaves of the rohini (Mallotus philippinensis)- an associate of the Sal -are hot favorite with wild elephants of the park.
Another significant floral characteristic of the Corbett National Park is the 'chaurs'- a flat grassy blank full of herbs and short and tall grasses - providing most of the grazing to the herbivores. The brakes of bamboo and thick shrub growth on the margins of the nullahs and ravines provide both fodder as well as cover to the wilds of the Corbett National Park. Another important plant found along the nullahs is Ardisia solanacea, which provide a source of life-giving water to all herbivores during the driest months of the year. In addition, there are many forest trees such as palas (Butea monosperma, the flame of the forest), the lovely amalatas (Cassia fistula, the Indian laburnum) and kachnar (Bauhinia variegata) that burst into bloom during spring season, providing an enchantingly beautiful look to the Corbett National Park.

Another significant zone of Corbett NP is ‘Sitabani’. The forest guest house of Sitabani is over the edge of an abruptly vertical rock cliff overlooking the Ramganga river. The fencing is hence a favorite sit-out of birdwatchers and for wild life viewing. You may often see a tiger, herds of deer and elephants and If lucky , at night - a leopard crossing the river beneath…Raptors flying over these high altitude mountains are now at eye level. The guest house is a cozy wooden bungalow with some 5/6 basic rooms and a big hall. Don’t expect luxury or room service and commercial extravagance hotel here. Silence is the key word. Getting permission to stay here is quite a process, but worth. There is dense forest all around. Sunrays passing by these tall sal forest are blissful.
A morning at Sitabani begins with peeping out of the guesthouse window to confirm the absence of elephants and other curious wild animals. Then carefully stepping out with a mug of hot ginger tea and finding your way to the cliff fence looking for animal sightings. The Racket Tailed Drongo starts it’s mimicry with the first rays of Sun and the musical notes flow through the deep forests with a resonating echo. Wow !! Can’t get any better at Sitabani.

A typical safari ride would start at 6am - stop for breakfast/rest rooms at Dhikala at about 10am - rest - and begin again. Jeeps are supposed to be inside the safe premises of hotels/guest houses at the closing time - at 6pm (or they get penalized heavily). Common tourists choose to begin the day with breakfast and the ride at 10am - till may be 2pm and ride out.

Now on to my Corbett camp !...............

We were a herd of 20 campers, travelling with this Wildlife/environmental group called ‘Foliage Outdoors’ based out of Pune (Maharashtra, India)(www.foliageoutdoors.com). I have been travelling with them for years now, and have travelled a lot. Wild life camping with like minded people is crazy fun, if you have ever experienced!
We took a train from Pune to Delhi, and then another one to Ramnagar station. Ramnagar is a small town but the forest stretch is measureless. We stepped into this forest rest house ‘Ramnagar Chatravas’ (meaning student-stay hostel, literally). A rustic place made of wood and with a backdrop of the woods. Sitting in the porch of the guesthouse it-self was a great birding experience. We reached around mid day and had the rest of the day free to rest/bathe/relax and introduce ourselves to those new. The next morning wake up call went up at 4am, and we rushed out of the hostel with our camera kits/binocs and water bottles towards the woods. This patch of the woods is dry of unsafe wild life…more exciting for birds and smaller herbivores.
Back in the hostel at lunch time. We started out jeep ride towards the Dhangari gate of Corbett national Park. Anxiety and excitement was overshadowing fatigue clearly…
Dhangari gate issues you passes for each entrant. Don’t miss the t-shirt shop here on your way back. Quite nice. We took crazy pics with a larger-than-life-size stuffed tiger-toy, with the pretext that we may not see a real one inside (Yes!! Though Corbett boasts a healthy population of Bengal Tigers, spotting one in the dense canopy is extremely difficult, unless you are the chosen one, and a Tiger crosses your jeep and walks by to drink water at the near by stream…and adding to the problem, the Corbett landscape doesn’t go dry/brown like the deciduous forests of Central India, in summers…)
We were at the gate at 8am, discussing the day ahead as our entry passes got processed. A casual forest guard passed by mentioned that the weather is good for travel and park visits. Just minutes later we saw a shade of grey in the sky. Excited that it will only add a good backdrop to our landscape pictures, we finally entered the dense forest towards our station. The entire scene turned grey & black within seconds. We felt as of the ‘Forest God’ was angry and wanted to keep us away. It poured in barrels and buckets, making it impossible for our jeep drivers to ride. Visibility was zero and it felt as if it was 10pm. Frightening ! Scary ! They rode us to the nearest forest station to stop till the hail-storm subsided. We naughty brats played in the poodles and tried catching/eating hailstones. But, this rain was a terrible omen, a bad news for wild life enthusiasts like us - meaning no sighting - no wilfe life and zero photography. Stranded for more than two hours, we had started feeling hungry/sleepy and tired from our journey. We reached our Guesthouse only by 5pm that day, and headed straight into the blanket. Foliage used all its dedication to book this particular forest guesthouse inside.

The guest house rooms were self-sufficient and ours had 10 beds in it, loaded with fat blankets and carpets underneath. Cozy indeed !
The forest keeper could manage some hot rice, daal, veggie and phulkas for us.
The next morning, as the typical timetable goes, we were off to our Safari in the dark at 5am. Its then we realised that we were actually staying in the core of the forest, along the river. What an exotic location. Our super excitement was rewarded with our very first sighting, a mummy elephant and her little calf. We then saw larger herds of Elephants lead by their matriarch, followed by Sambar deer, Spootted deer, jackals, pug marks of a tiger and birds like the Crested Serpent Eagle, Kestrels, Owls and some species of Vultures as well.
An exciting day followed by 2 more , before we moved to Sitabani.
Our guide made it a point to show us ‘Gharials’ (Aligator species) and the rare ‘Golden Mahsheer’ fish, which are not to be seen anywhere else in the country now.
Gairal, Sitabani, Dhikala were clearly the benchmarks of Corbett. The elephant herd crossing us at Sambar Road was yet another experience worth the mention. I remember our driver frantically reversing the jeep when we accidently landed face-2-face with a young and angry male in his prime stage (was in his ‘mast’) Trumpeting along and pulling down enormous bamboo was a demonstration of strength and power I guess. Our guide made a casual remark that these bulls can definitely run faster than any of our jeeps if they decide. (I wanted to smash that guide there itself)

Another such memorable tie was at the 3 floored Dhikala - watch tower (which we still call as the DWT). We were at DWT at 9am the other day. The plan was to stay there for 10-15 min and move ahead. We had no idea of what was destined to happen later. DWT gives you a 360 view of the forest and its never ending stretch of grassland. We were happy to see some elephants grazing at a distance, and a flock of bright yellow Golden Orioles flying by. It took less than 10 min for the black clouds stuffed with water to come and stand right above us. No umbrellas (after all it was summer)! Just fortunate to find some polybags to wrap our cameras….and there it was. Lightning struck the plains right before our eyes in the most amazing shades of colour and shapes. The wooden planks of DWT hardly gave any shelter. All I could hear were teeth shattering with cold as the clods passed by and breeze came. It was so dramatic and felt like a movie’s special effects team working on us. We had sunlight upon us within 1 hour. Wow !!! Not to mention the rest of the day went in laughing at ourselves and our state (wet, freezing and worn out) and telling the rest of jeeps the event.

The next day was even more memorable. We were passing by Dhikala Chaur towards Dhikala lake. The guide asked our driver to stop as if he had heard something. It was an alarm call from a monkey. (They say Langoors never give a false alarm, and there has to be a predator around). 20 min pass by and no sign of anything around. Suddenly there was a series of loud trumpeting and some growls answering these. The guide told us that it was that typical clash between a Tiger and a herd of elephants, and that there must be an ele-baby at stake. The guide’s excellent judgement placed us right in the centre of the tremors. It felt like an earthquake when these 20-30 odd angry elephants reached the main road, where ours was the only jeep witnessing. The huge mommy-elephant was the first to cross (and click click went our cameras)…followed by noisy youngsters, young mommies, tiny and a little-lost new borns, adolescents and again 3-4 large females. There was an hour of trumpeting and drama, and we thought we were done. The guide however told us that this particular herd had more elephants. An amazing judgement again! From just over 10 feet behind our jeep came an horrendous trumpet. She wanted to cross over from behind, and wanted to warn ‘us’. Three cameras fell off our hands, one camper started weeping and rest of us crouched on the floor of the jeep with fear….because we could not see her. The thick undergrowth made it impossible to guess - where !! The guide stepped up on the roof-bars of this open gypsy to look…and told us that she was rubbing her trunk to the tree next to us. The drier moved further behind to give her way and to avoid any risks…and there she came within minutes of our retreat. THIS was the angry matriarch of the group. Even larger than all the earlier females. (and again click click went our cameras)…She was the one fighting with the predator. Between her feet walked her little one, shy and protected. No doubt she was warning us. Animal behaviour is so much like us in a way…
No sign of the Tiger though.

On our way out of the National Park we visited Jim Corbett’s residence. They have made a nice museum of it now. His pictures, his guns and his stories.

Some data for Ornithologists -

• Water-birds and Waterside-birds: The water-birds and the waterside-birds in the Corbett National Park comprises of both resident and migrant species. The commonly noticed resident species include Cormorants, the Darter, the Grey Heron, Egrets, the Cattle Egret, the White-necked and Black-necked Storks, the Spotbill, the Large Pied Wagtail and White-capped Redstart.

• The migrant species of water-birds in the park include the Great Crested Grebe, Graylag Geese, White Storks, Black Storks, Sandpipers, Snipe, the Great Black-headed Gull, about 15 kinds of ducks, and a variety of Wagtails. Another occasionally noticed water-bird in the park is White or Rosy Pelicans.
• Birds of Prey: The resident birds of prey include Crested Serpent Eagle, the Black-winged Kite, the Indian Shikra, the Himalayan Grey-headed Fishing Eagle, Himalayan Vultures and Lesser and Greater Spotted Eagles. Other resident birds (not very commonly found) are Hawk-Eagles, the Crested Honey Buzzard and the Black Eagle.
• The migratory birds of prey include the Osprey, the Peregrine Falcon, the Booted Hawk- Eagle and the Steppe Eagle.
• Night Birds: In this category come the owls, the nightjars and the thick-knees. There are over 18 kinds of owls identified in the Corbett National Park including the Spotted Owlet, Fish Owls, and the Scops Owls. The nightjars in the park include the Jungle Nightjar, the Franklin's Nightjar, the Stone Curlew and the Great Stone Plover.
• Woodland Birds: In this category come the Green Pigeons, Parakeets, Cuckoos, Hornbills, Barbets, Woodpeckers, Orioles, Drongos, Pies, Babblers and Thrushes. Among the ground-birds (woodland) are the Peafowl, the Red Junglefowl, and the White-crested Kalij Pheasant.
• Grassland and Open Ground Birds: The birds included in this category are the Black Partridge, Doves, Bea-eaters, Rollers, the Hoopoe, Shrikes, Larks, Mynas, Bulbuls, Warblers, Tailor Bird, Robins, Chats, Redstarts, Bayas and Finches.
• Air-Birds: In this category belong the Swifts including the famous Indian Alpine Swift, Crested Swifts, the Dusky Crag Martin, Striated (or Red-rumpled) Swallows, the Indian Cliff Shallow, and the Wire-tailed Swallow.
No, we haven’t seen all of these during our camp…saw many though.

This was the Corbett experience for us ! ..

Some donts that I want to re-iterate:
•Carry camouflaging clothes, in shades of green, brown, grey.
•Don’t litter the forests.
•Avoid noise/music systems and talking loudly when in forest zones. (Even hotels on the outskirts of the park will warn you)
•Carry loads of water on Safari rides and some snacks. There aren’t any places to eat inside.
•Don’t use the camera flash.
•Always listen and obey your forest guides. They are licensed to throw you out and have great judgement and learning of animal behaviour.
•Learn about the weather and carry warmers accordingly.

We didn’t see the tiger at Corbett ! But there was so much more to carry back u c ….!!
We still get goose bumps when we remember the ‘trumpeting’ experience….

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