The first pit-stop on the highway is at Karnal. This time we decide to ignore the modern multi-brand 'midway' for a popular dhaba that Somu remembers from earlier trips as being famous for its chicken paranthas.
And so chicken paranthas it is for all three of us. First, we find an empty table in the tepid winter sunlight. Quickly, the well-oiled dhaba-machine swings into life. One individual cleans our table (while constantly getting an earful from his immediate superior), another hands out a menu (given right back as we have already decided what we want to order), plates appear, chai follows, then a large dollop of butter each, and soon three large paranthas stuffed with chicken.
But not just any chicken parantha.
First, the filling is not the anticipated mince. No, there are different-sized pieces of tandoori chicken: succulent slivers mixed in with onion and green chillies, also larger orangy nuggets that ooze flavour.
Second, the parantha hasn't been heated on an oily tawa. Instead, it has been fired in a tandoor.
We are off to a great start to our birding trip to the Garhwal Himalayas.
Here is an Annotated Checklist of Birds from two trips in 2014.
Bookings at the Forest Rest Houses of our summer trip haven't come through this time. However, enquiries have established that a couple of 'hotels' are still open in the village of Sankri in the Govind National Park. We arrive in Sankri by nightfall. The two hotels are indeed open. We decide to compare the rooms available since the tariff is similar. A youngster leads us into the first. Unfortunately we walk straight into a rambunctious crowd of rum-swilling rowdies. It isn't clear whether they are staff or guests, but they are clearly not happy at being disturbed. Our guide is pulled aside by one of the revelers, and he in turn beckons us out.
We have no choice than to accept rooms in the other hotel. Our expectations, naturally, are not very high. But over the next week we grow to enjoy our lodgings. The building has charm. Newly-built from fragrant pine. With untreated wooden planks for the walls, carved ceilings, creaking floorboards, windows that not only let in the morning and evening sunlight, but also frame stunning views of Swargharohini. We have two small bedrooms with comfortable beds and clean sheets. I appropriate one for myself, letting Happy and Somu share the other room- my self-confessed snoring problem being the excuse (yes, I know that ploy won't work again!)
Another large circular common room is at our disposal.
This is our early-morning tea room, after-birding soup room, bird-guidebook and photos-reviewing room, sweaty socks and shoes airing room, and after-dinner yarn-telling room. I can still picture it in my mind's eye.
The hotel does have its peculiarities: the washrooms.
Picture this: a 3-feet wide by 4-feet deep area with the ceiling barely 5-feet (and a bit) high at the entrance and sloping down to 4-feet at the back above the throne.
No sink. A bucket that you must fill with ice-cold water. This either trickles out feebly or else simply jets out from a tap.
So, when you need to go, you enter the washroom backwards.
You barely have enough space to sit down and do your business.
When the wind blows it comes whistling through gaps in the eaves.
This is not a washroom in which to linger over your toilette.
And did I mention that most peculiar invention of the Indian plumbing industry - the 'jet'.
Our Sankri hotel washrooms are equipped with jets.
These are not the jets familiar to the average city-dweller - jets at the end of chrome-ringed tubes that you can take in hand, perfectly controllable for angle and flow of water if not the temperature.
No, here the jets are an integral part of the commode-seat.
The actual 'jet' is operated by a simple tap. That should be easy. But remember, just a half-turn of the tap could suddenly gush forth a fountain of glacial agony.
I think you know what I mean.
Now that I have appropriated a bedroom for myself, I feel guilty.
So, the job of fetching the early-morning tea from the dhaba across the road is mine. This is not an unpleasant task. The birds are around and about at this hour.
The very first morning, despite the not unreasonable hour, the dhaba's shutters are still down. Yet I can hear soft murmurs behind the corrugated sheets. At first thin wisps and then alarmingly thick black plumes of smoke start to pour out of the cracks of our dhaba's kitchen walls. All sounds from behind have now ceased. The street dogs, the early shop-cleaners and the taxi-wallahs pay not the slightest attention. I pretend not to notice though the thought uppermost in my mind is that if the dhaba burns down we won't have any place to eat. Just as I'm about to raise the alarm, the shutters are raised and the dhaba-owner emerges from the smoke with steaming cups of tea!
We have a full week of birding in mid-November 2014 and we revisit all of our familiar haunts from our trip in May 2014: the river valleys of the Rupin and Supin, the Tons river valley at Taluka and all the forests accessible around Sankri. The birding in summer had been excellent, and it is even better in winter.
Here are links to earlier posts from our trip in May 2014
Garhwal Part 1
Garhwal Part 2
Garhwal Part 3
Many bird families which were common here in summer have moved down to the foothills and the plains. So we encounter no flycatchers, rockthrushes or minivets in winter. Yet there are other delightful species that were missing in the summer, but observed now: accentors, finches, redstarts and raptors. These winter migrants have not just moved down here from even higher altitudes, but some are visitors from much farther afield.
The chaffinch being an example of the latter.
Now, the chaffinch is a common enough bird in Europe but some individuals are also occasionally sighted in the himalayas in winter. Just what on earth are these migrants doing here? Our understanding is that these birds are sometimes swept in here during winter storms.
Happy first makes the sighting of a solitary bird in a fallow field just off the dusty track near Sankri. He has an earlier photo, possibly of the same individual, from another location some miles away ...
In fact, the immediate outskirts of the villages of Sankri and Taluka, where the forests have been cleared for patchy cultivation and struggling orchards, are full of birds. And there are some lovely species: the luminous gold of a male golden bush-robin (we get gorgeous multiple views of the bird surprisingly in the open), the (common) pink-browed rosefinches mixed in with beautiful rosefinches and dark-breasted rosefinches (quite different shades of pink all), a tiny speckled piculet and a winter wren feeding together with bar-throated sivas and other delights.
But what of the cold?
We are, after all, in the high himalaya in winter. Yes, the first of the snows haven't fallen, but remember we are within a day's march of snow-clad bugyals. Glaciers and a couple of 6000M peaks (Swargharohini and Bandarpunch) are only a little further away.
The weather is glorious, so it is comfortable during the sunlit days. Nights we are well-sheltered indoors.
But an early start one morning catches us out.
The difference is the wind. Even though it is only a gentle breeze.
We are on an exposed hillside where the sun arrives late. I am clad in several layers of warm clothing. Yet the wind niggles away at the body's defences: the fingers and toes start going numb first.
The trick is to pretend you aren't that cold. And wait for someone else to suggest that the birding is a little thin and say - 'why don't we move on to another location'.
Of course, all of just want to find some sun!
One birding hotspot we discover is the 'nursery'.
A few clicks from Sankri towards Taluka. Here the track winds through a particularly dense broad-leaf forest.
We have encountered a mixed-hunting party of large forest birds: pairs of chestnut thrushes and white-collared blackbirds, a eurasian blackbird, several white-browed shrike babblers, a white-tailed nuthatch and others. As the birds move up the steeply forested hillside we follow. Soon tall deodhars appear. There is a mixed flock of vocal grosbeaks - both black-and-yellow and collared - flitting through the tops of these cedars. Moving higher we are suddenly in the open. There are a couple of derelict buildings behind a fenced enclosure. It appears to be an abandoned government nursery. Fruiting trees have attracted some new species (new for the trip, that is): blue-capped and blue-fronted redstarts. Nearby, a fresh spring trickles through a small rocky clearing surrounded by dense bushes and nettles.
This spot is swarming with birds - drinking, bathing, and preening.
We visit this area over three days and each time it throws up additions to our birdlist.
Some of the bolder species are tits (both spot-winged and green-backed), chestnut-crowned laughingthrushes, himalayan bluetails and rosefinches.
Cameo appearances are made by a skulking scaly-breasted wren babbler - this curious tail-less bird reminds me of a Faberge egg!
Flocks of plain mountain finches perched on bare trees scatter when an accipiter rushes noisily past jinking through the branches.
This is birding as it should be: watching quietly as the rhythm of the forest changes with the shadows lengthening.
Except that you always want to search wider afield, or to move a little closer for a better photo, or to follow that unfamiliar butterfly that refuses to sit... and that is when you accidentally clutch at a dry bush to prevent yourself from taking an ignominious tumble.
Just like I did.
Knowing fully well that stinging nettles (bichhu-booti) are rife here.
But this was a dry stalk (it should have been dead!)
Immediately the itching starts ( I know not to scratch it).
The skin breaks out in tiny boils (spit on it, unthinking, from memory, and it helps).
And I can just contain the agony.
Raptors are a special part of any birding trip. And this time is no different.
An accipiter puzzling us is later photographed and positively identified as the eurasian sparrowhawk.
Golden eagles are (alas) always observed flying high, near the very top of crags, occasionally harassed by choughs.
Lammergiers give us a better 'darshan'. Their huge wings almost brushing a buff grassy hillside as they glide past, the flickering shadow larger than the vulture itself.
Large buzzards there are two: a smaller, rufous, himalayan buzzard and a larger brownish-plumaged buzzard on which the jury is still out - whether a long-legged buzzard or an upland buzzard.
For me the best raptor sighting of the trip is that of an adult mountain hawk-eagle.
On evening driving back to Sankri from Taluka we turn a corner of the track and there is a large raptor perched on a dry branch of a pine tree.
Almost at eye level, and close.
Its prominent crest waving jauntily as it turns to look at us.
It is a stunning sighting and one that will remain in my memory for long.
This owlet is quite diurnal and we see it several times at daytime at its usual haunts.
Asian Barred Owlet
Other unexpected roadside encounters are with the long-billed thrush. Driving past we flush several solitary individuals feeding in dank leaf-litter in vegetation-choked rivulets at different locations.
Not unexpectedly we struggle with the warblers. Our birdlist has been augmented by the warblers that we were later able to positively ID from photographs and notes. Thanks to Somu for the PDF with his warbler photos from which the warbler list was added to on our return.
Hope to post next about some of the other creatures and interesting sights from our trip.
Cheers,
sahdevsingh2004@yahoo.co.in
And so chicken paranthas it is for all three of us. First, we find an empty table in the tepid winter sunlight. Quickly, the well-oiled dhaba-machine swings into life. One individual cleans our table (while constantly getting an earful from his immediate superior), another hands out a menu (given right back as we have already decided what we want to order), plates appear, chai follows, then a large dollop of butter each, and soon three large paranthas stuffed with chicken.
But not just any chicken parantha.
First, the filling is not the anticipated mince. No, there are different-sized pieces of tandoori chicken: succulent slivers mixed in with onion and green chillies, also larger orangy nuggets that ooze flavour.
Second, the parantha hasn't been heated on an oily tawa. Instead, it has been fired in a tandoor.
We are off to a great start to our birding trip to the Garhwal Himalayas.
Here is an Annotated Checklist of Birds from two trips in 2014.
Bookings at the Forest Rest Houses of our summer trip haven't come through this time. However, enquiries have established that a couple of 'hotels' are still open in the village of Sankri in the Govind National Park. We arrive in Sankri by nightfall. The two hotels are indeed open. We decide to compare the rooms available since the tariff is similar. A youngster leads us into the first. Unfortunately we walk straight into a rambunctious crowd of rum-swilling rowdies. It isn't clear whether they are staff or guests, but they are clearly not happy at being disturbed. Our guide is pulled aside by one of the revelers, and he in turn beckons us out.
We have no choice than to accept rooms in the other hotel. Our expectations, naturally, are not very high. But over the next week we grow to enjoy our lodgings. The building has charm. Newly-built from fragrant pine. With untreated wooden planks for the walls, carved ceilings, creaking floorboards, windows that not only let in the morning and evening sunlight, but also frame stunning views of Swargharohini. We have two small bedrooms with comfortable beds and clean sheets. I appropriate one for myself, letting Happy and Somu share the other room- my self-confessed snoring problem being the excuse (yes, I know that ploy won't work again!)
Another large circular common room is at our disposal.
This is our early-morning tea room, after-birding soup room, bird-guidebook and photos-reviewing room, sweaty socks and shoes airing room, and after-dinner yarn-telling room. I can still picture it in my mind's eye.
Sankri
Swargharohini
The hotel does have its peculiarities: the washrooms.
Picture this: a 3-feet wide by 4-feet deep area with the ceiling barely 5-feet (and a bit) high at the entrance and sloping down to 4-feet at the back above the throne.
No sink. A bucket that you must fill with ice-cold water. This either trickles out feebly or else simply jets out from a tap.
So, when you need to go, you enter the washroom backwards.
You barely have enough space to sit down and do your business.
When the wind blows it comes whistling through gaps in the eaves.
This is not a washroom in which to linger over your toilette.
And did I mention that most peculiar invention of the Indian plumbing industry - the 'jet'.
Our Sankri hotel washrooms are equipped with jets.
These are not the jets familiar to the average city-dweller - jets at the end of chrome-ringed tubes that you can take in hand, perfectly controllable for angle and flow of water if not the temperature.
No, here the jets are an integral part of the commode-seat.
The actual 'jet' is operated by a simple tap. That should be easy. But remember, just a half-turn of the tap could suddenly gush forth a fountain of glacial agony.
I think you know what I mean.
Now that I have appropriated a bedroom for myself, I feel guilty.
So, the job of fetching the early-morning tea from the dhaba across the road is mine. This is not an unpleasant task. The birds are around and about at this hour.
The very first morning, despite the not unreasonable hour, the dhaba's shutters are still down. Yet I can hear soft murmurs behind the corrugated sheets. At first thin wisps and then alarmingly thick black plumes of smoke start to pour out of the cracks of our dhaba's kitchen walls. All sounds from behind have now ceased. The street dogs, the early shop-cleaners and the taxi-wallahs pay not the slightest attention. I pretend not to notice though the thought uppermost in my mind is that if the dhaba burns down we won't have any place to eat. Just as I'm about to raise the alarm, the shutters are raised and the dhaba-owner emerges from the smoke with steaming cups of tea!
We have a full week of birding in mid-November 2014 and we revisit all of our familiar haunts from our trip in May 2014: the river valleys of the Rupin and Supin, the Tons river valley at Taluka and all the forests accessible around Sankri. The birding in summer had been excellent, and it is even better in winter.
Here are links to earlier posts from our trip in May 2014
Garhwal Part 1
Garhwal Part 2
Garhwal Part 3
Many bird families which were common here in summer have moved down to the foothills and the plains. So we encounter no flycatchers, rockthrushes or minivets in winter. Yet there are other delightful species that were missing in the summer, but observed now: accentors, finches, redstarts and raptors. These winter migrants have not just moved down here from even higher altitudes, but some are visitors from much farther afield.
The chaffinch being an example of the latter.
Now, the chaffinch is a common enough bird in Europe but some individuals are also occasionally sighted in the himalayas in winter. Just what on earth are these migrants doing here? Our understanding is that these birds are sometimes swept in here during winter storms.
Happy first makes the sighting of a solitary bird in a fallow field just off the dusty track near Sankri. He has an earlier photo, possibly of the same individual, from another location some miles away ...
Happy's photo of Chaffinch
In fact, the immediate outskirts of the villages of Sankri and Taluka, where the forests have been cleared for patchy cultivation and struggling orchards, are full of birds. And there are some lovely species: the luminous gold of a male golden bush-robin (we get gorgeous multiple views of the bird surprisingly in the open), the (common) pink-browed rosefinches mixed in with beautiful rosefinches and dark-breasted rosefinches (quite different shades of pink all), a tiny speckled piculet and a winter wren feeding together with bar-throated sivas and other delights.
Alpine Accentor
But what of the cold?
We are, after all, in the high himalaya in winter. Yes, the first of the snows haven't fallen, but remember we are within a day's march of snow-clad bugyals. Glaciers and a couple of 6000M peaks (Swargharohini and Bandarpunch) are only a little further away.
The weather is glorious, so it is comfortable during the sunlit days. Nights we are well-sheltered indoors.
But an early start one morning catches us out.
The difference is the wind. Even though it is only a gentle breeze.
We are on an exposed hillside where the sun arrives late. I am clad in several layers of warm clothing. Yet the wind niggles away at the body's defences: the fingers and toes start going numb first.
The trick is to pretend you aren't that cold. And wait for someone else to suggest that the birding is a little thin and say - 'why don't we move on to another location'.
Of course, all of just want to find some sun!
One birding hotspot we discover is the 'nursery'.
A few clicks from Sankri towards Taluka. Here the track winds through a particularly dense broad-leaf forest.
We have encountered a mixed-hunting party of large forest birds: pairs of chestnut thrushes and white-collared blackbirds, a eurasian blackbird, several white-browed shrike babblers, a white-tailed nuthatch and others. As the birds move up the steeply forested hillside we follow. Soon tall deodhars appear. There is a mixed flock of vocal grosbeaks - both black-and-yellow and collared - flitting through the tops of these cedars. Moving higher we are suddenly in the open. There are a couple of derelict buildings behind a fenced enclosure. It appears to be an abandoned government nursery. Fruiting trees have attracted some new species (new for the trip, that is): blue-capped and blue-fronted redstarts. Nearby, a fresh spring trickles through a small rocky clearing surrounded by dense bushes and nettles.
This spot is swarming with birds - drinking, bathing, and preening.
Himalayan Bluetail - female
Some of the bolder species are tits (both spot-winged and green-backed), chestnut-crowned laughingthrushes, himalayan bluetails and rosefinches.
Cameo appearances are made by a skulking scaly-breasted wren babbler - this curious tail-less bird reminds me of a Faberge egg!
Flocks of plain mountain finches perched on bare trees scatter when an accipiter rushes noisily past jinking through the branches.
This is birding as it should be: watching quietly as the rhythm of the forest changes with the shadows lengthening.
Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush
Just like I did.
Knowing fully well that stinging nettles (bichhu-booti) are rife here.
But this was a dry stalk (it should have been dead!)
Immediately the itching starts ( I know not to scratch it).
The skin breaks out in tiny boils (spit on it, unthinking, from memory, and it helps).
And I can just contain the agony.
Raptors are a special part of any birding trip. And this time is no different.
An accipiter puzzling us is later photographed and positively identified as the eurasian sparrowhawk.
Golden eagles are (alas) always observed flying high, near the very top of crags, occasionally harassed by choughs.
Lammergiers give us a better 'darshan'. Their huge wings almost brushing a buff grassy hillside as they glide past, the flickering shadow larger than the vulture itself.
Large buzzards there are two: a smaller, rufous, himalayan buzzard and a larger brownish-plumaged buzzard on which the jury is still out - whether a long-legged buzzard or an upland buzzard.
For me the best raptor sighting of the trip is that of an adult mountain hawk-eagle.
On evening driving back to Sankri from Taluka we turn a corner of the track and there is a large raptor perched on a dry branch of a pine tree.
Almost at eye level, and close.
Its prominent crest waving jauntily as it turns to look at us.
It is a stunning sighting and one that will remain in my memory for long.
This owlet is quite diurnal and we see it several times at daytime at its usual haunts.
Asian Barred Owlet
Other unexpected roadside encounters are with the long-billed thrush. Driving past we flush several solitary individuals feeding in dank leaf-litter in vegetation-choked rivulets at different locations.
Long-billed Thrush
Not unexpectedly we struggle with the warblers. Our birdlist has been augmented by the warblers that we were later able to positively ID from photographs and notes. Thanks to Somu for the PDF with his warbler photos from which the warbler list was added to on our return.
Hope to post next about some of the other creatures and interesting sights from our trip.
Happy, Sahdev, Somendra (L - R)
Rather grim expressions because this is on the way back home at the end of the trip!
sahdevsingh2004@yahoo.co.in
Wow.. Really enjoyed your trip report. Specially the vivid description of the parathas ��
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