Pench national park - Oct 2015

The only possible solution to save our wildlife and forests is Eco-tourism. That was a theory I have been studying about, talking and discussing around. But it all came to life when I visited the Pench National park last weekend. It was an instant decision to go for this trip when last week my friend Anand asked me to join along for his family plan to do Safari in Pench National Park.
Pench national park is approximately in the middle of the country at Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh border. It is one of the most flourishing habitat of Indian Tiger and the place where Rudyard Kipling got inspired and wrote the famous tale of Mowgli. I wanted to visit Pench since a long time, so I was quite excited about this trip. I had learned a lot about Pench in recent past. First time I heard about its existence in 2013 when during a wildlife expedition in western ghats a friend mentioned about the E-Base there. I have been seeing her visiting Pench for voluntary work, which I also applied for later but it didn't happen. The Education base (E-base) in Pench is only the second one in India, apart from the one in Ladakh. Robert Swan as part of 2041 initiative built this sustainable E-base in the core forest area of this country to make aware the local communities of their forest and spread the message of renewable energy and sustainability to the world. Through my NGO I donated some 100+ books here few months back. I didn't knew I will be visiting it so soon. Since I was at Ladakh E-base in August, 2015 turns out to be my lucky year when I visited both the E-bases of India :)
It was a road trip with families of Anand and Ashwin, while me Ryetika and Siva made the bachelors gang of the trip. The 600km+ drive from Hyderabad was indeed tiring. I was in Ashwin's car who was happily touching 160kmph at times. So we were leading most of the times which gave us time to take breaks to spot and identify the birds we saw on our way.

We traversed on roads that cut through many forest patches so we kept seeing many birds, especially the Indian roller. It is state bird of Andhra and Telangana, but I saw it only once before. Today we were lucky to see atleast 10 while we travelled. We also saw the black winged kite sitting on a wire.

Ashwin and his ford :)

Good tea and road trip, great combo

Indian Roller in flight. Also known as Neelkanth locally.

Black shouldered kite

More dots connected when we passed through Kawal wildlife sanctuary. It reminded me of Imran Siddiqui, the founder of Hyderabad Tiger Conservation Society (HyTiCoS). He has been working for tiger conservation since 15years now. Few months back he gave a talk in Hyderabad about his efforts and current status of tiger population in Andhra region, and he mentioned about his work in declaring Kawal as a tiger reserve and how he fought to stop the traffic during the night through the forest (source)
We circled around Nagpur through ring road to enter Madhya Pradesh. I was navigating all way through towards Turia which had no existence on Map. We were at TigerNWoods resort by 9.30pm welcomed by a friendly staff, a cat and a huge beetle. As we walked towards the room, I could feel the beauty of this wonderful stay. It was a dense canopy of trees above, the sky barely visible.


A dung beetle

As we reached the wooden hut, our excitement increased manifolds. This was a full wooden hut, elevated about 10ft from the ground, with a cozy bed and wooden furniture. A balcony at the back with lean back chairs and a table, and a perfect view of forest behind it. Icing on the cake was the wooden bathroom, first time I saw in life.. It’s floor of wooden planks was a unique through which all water just seeped through below. All-in-all, it was the best place to stay ever!

Among the woods

Tired from the day journey we all quickly freshened up for the dinner. The ‘Roar restaurant’ was a fine dining place with a small collection of books around a corner, and few games to try your hands on. Alongside a mug of beer and our never ending talks, we had a wonderful meal. While Siva and Ritz tried their hands on chess, I was happy to cuddle the pet cat which slept in my lap. It was now time to go back to room as we had a Safari planned for next morning at 6.

Day 2

A knock on the door at 4.30am and the tea served to your room. I precisely remember the name of this very friendly staff guy, Niraj kumar, who served this tea. I asked his day schedule in curiosity, he seemed like a pretty hardworking guy.

It was a good start for the day with a hot cup of tea and we got ready in good time. Our breakfast was also packed and jeeps had arrived. We headed to the Turia gate of Pench where a queue of 2-3 other jeeps waited. Pench has two other gates, Jhamtara and Karmajhiri, but Turia is most famous one. Getting Safari route and a forest guide took some 15-20 min, but it was a big surprise for us when they told that our 2 jeeps will go to 2 different routes.

In one jeep were me, Siva and Ritz, While Ashwin and Anand with their families, were in other. Our guide was Miss Deepika and our driver Mr. Rajesh. Our Safari started and I could already feel a different world of Pench. The forest was quite silent with hardly any wildlife visible, but a lot of trees and tall grasses. After about a km Rajesh stopped the jeep to show us the jungle fowl. I missed to capture a shot, so I reaffirmed myself that it is a common bird so we’ll spot it again. While Deepika sat quietly at the back seat, our driver was mentioning a lot about the forest, like the ghost tree. This magical tree changes its color from pink to green to white, during different seasons, and it glows in the night (does it? I could not found any information on net so it maybe just a good reflector of night light)

GHOST TREE

 And then we saw a small group of spotted deers, very tolerant I would say as they were not much concerned when we stopped our jeep near them. As Rajesh mentioned, there are more than 25-30 thousand deers in Pench which means a great prey population to support the tigers.

Few spotted deers 'spotted' by us :P

Tigers on the other hand have a stable population of 59 in this national park. It was also worthy to note that, Pench is accessible for 7-8 months in a year, that too only 20% of its full area. This gave me a lot of satisfaction as more or less we are disturbing the natural habitat and behavior of these precious animals. But by keeping it restricted we are allowing the natural instincts to remain and by tourism creating enough lobbying and support for their sustenance.

Rajesh moved very slow and kept stopping every now and then. We silently waited for any activity around us that signals for its presence. We saw a spotted owlet that flew by, the a few common doves, a lot of deers and langurs, but sadly no tigers. Sometime later Rajesh observed few pugmarks on the road. These were fresh pugs of a tiger, few hours old maybe.

Tiger pugmarks

This was the most flourishing forest I ever visited. I was standing in this roofless jeep with a camera around my neck, looking around for signs of wilderness. The idea of protecting a forest patch seems a huge success considering the population of prey (for tigers) that resides here. The balance yet fragile as too many deers also mean not enough time for the grasslands to replenish, so there were protected areas with fences to restrict deers from grazing in.

The tall grasses among the canopy of trees makes it a perfect place for the tigers to camouflage and stalk their prey to reach as close as possible. It is all a sudden surprise for the deers to run for their life or be a victim.

The Safari track. Tall grasses make a good hide for tigers to hunt their prey.

A symbiotic relation between the langurs and deers, that Rajesh mentioned, was interesting. Langurs will give warnings calls to deers as they are at an advantage with much better visibility from the tree tops. But as they also come to ground at times for food, the deers return back the favor providing them protection.

Lot of Langurs

jungle fowl

Finally spotted the jungle fowl which I was able to click, alongside few peafowls. We saw a small group of jackals as we moved out of the forest to this open patch.



grey jackals

At a distance was an elephant chained to a tree, used by forest guides to move through the forest, and a group of drongo birds (never seen so many together).

The tamed elephant. Not a friendly sight.

It was time for a break now at this open patch of grass, where many other Safari jeeps waited. An Indian roller bird happily sat on a fence which gave me few good shots. After a session of photos around our Jeep we now brought our packed breakfast out, the paranthas and the sandwiches. We pulled out our Frisbee and played for a while. Suddenly I heard a call of a bird from top of a tree. It was a pied cuckoo, first time saw it that close.

a Pied Cuckoo



Another Indian roller

Ryetika trying Frisbee with our own Mowgli, Anand's 2yr old daughter Sia :)

The three musketeers, Ryetika, Me and Siva

I expected the same disappointed faces when Anand and Ashwin's team arrived, but no! They spotted a tiger already. The short video that Anand captured was a fantastic one and how he described the scene was even more fantastic.

There were sudden calls of langurs all around. All of them and the birds shouting crazily as if telling “it’s here, It’s here”. Then a roar, loud that all the deers ran for life except a few that were stunned and shivered, clueless, which direction to go. Anxious, the jeep driver and everyone else kept looking around but couldn’t see it. Then another roar call which implied it’s hardly 30feet away somewhere in the tall grasses. The other jeep driver then indicates to drive back. After a minute of drive they saw it finally, the royal predator. It seemed little annoyed though as if not wanting any limelight.

I remained positive we will also see one today. Our driver decided to take us to the same route (although not part of the original plan). When we started we saw a pair of Great Malabar hornbills (they always remain in a pair), they flew across a tree. A rare sighting indeed, the noisy flapping signified the inefficient flight they have.

A Malabar hornbill, lucky sight



Mahaouts preparign the big chapatis

Close to them we say few forest workers preparing the huge chapatis for their pet elephants. It is quite an effort to raise and feed these huge animals. Few minutes later we entered a much denser section of forest. It had few climbs and descends and the terrain around was more rocky. We saw a more uncommon species of deer here, the Sambhar deer. This guy was big, stood tall on a rock surrounded by fellow spotted deers. Some more langurs and deers, but no tigers. We waited quite a while at the said spot.

A beautiful Sambar deer

While we were going through the last stretch of forest, Rytz asked the driver to stop the Jeep as she noticed something inside the tall grasses. When she said it’s possibly a Lion, we all burst in laughter. It wasn’t even a dear, but just a rock she was looking at :D

The Safari was over now. Near the Turia gate was the Pench interpretation centre, designed by my friend Murthy (a conservation biologist and my co-partner for EGWS). 

Rytz and our guide Deepika

Siva was hunting for his tea outside the gate, while me and Ryetika did our shopping from the souvenir shop, and checked out the interpretation centre.

I observed a fight near the gate between the Pench tour guides. I then asked and got the situation. Recently the government hired many new guides (our guide Deepika was one of them). I was happy about it because creating local employment seemed very logical if we want to save the forest. The old guides were not happy with the decision so they were on a strike. The scenario got cleared in evening when we went for another Safari. Our experienced guide told how the government hired too many new guides, mostly not qualified and without increasing the number of Safari’s. This was really not a friendly scenario.

After a cup of tea we were back to our resort. It was 11 am and our next safari was after 2pm, so we had ample time to relax, talk and explore the resort’s greenery itself. The tickell’s blue flycatcher was omnipresent here, it’s call you can listen throughout the day. So were the babblers and grey wagtails. What excited me was this unknown bird, very colourful, a couple inside the dense shrubs under another wooden hut. I got some really good shots. Later I checked it is an orange headed thrush, my first for life.

We came back to hut to fresh up and then sat in the balcony of our hut overlooking the forest beyond it. The comfortable reclining chairs made it a perfect place to relax. On a distant tree I curiously observed few small birds, some minivets maybe but could not identify them. We talked for a while on random stuff before leaving for lunch which was so much fun!

a moment of laughter worth capturing

 At 2pm, our jeeps had arrived and it was time for our next Safari for the day again through the Turia gate. Our bachelor gang left first from resort to take permissions. Near the gate were two villagers selling some local berries and custard apple. To support these poor and old men, we bought plenty of berries and fruits. Those sour berries reminded me of my childhood, I was having these after a really long time. We had a small game of ‘Spit the seeds as far as possible’, also maybe creating a chance for some of them to sprout and grow into a tree.

The berries and custard apples

 Our guide was allotted, this time Mr.Rajaram ji. A much better guide with a 15year experience in Pench National Park, he was aware of numerous species of trees in Pench, all the wildlife that existed and some really interesting instances to share. The evening Safari was not that silent as the bird calls were plenty, mainly the rufous treepie which as per our guide is a friendly bird for tigers. It helps the tiger get rid of the flesh stuck in its teeth (did not find any publication whatsoever confirming this behavior though). We also saw a fresh scratch on a tree by a tiger, which they do to mark their territory.

Scratch mark  on a tree  by a tiger

We later observed a pair of black headed oriole and few parakeets.

A black headed oriole

We explored new areas, mainly a huge lake beyond the breakfast point. I saw few grey hornbill birds and cormorants, and a beautifully setting sun.

The sunset

On the way back we met our other mates. Ok they have seen a leopard and what not, but I do not believe unless you show me a photo :P But they did saw a beauty I wanted to see since long, the racket tailed Drongo. And they heard it mimicking calls of other birds. 



While we crossed each other, on the restricted grassland on a side I a peculiar behavior of black shouldered kite. There were two of them circling this field and then hovering at a particular point for seconds, seems aiming a prey. One then dived to catch its prey but returned with no success. This they kept repeating for quite a while and it was a totally new experience for us observing this bird’s behavior.

A black shouldered kite that hovered

The show was over as we headed towards the Turia gate. After a cup of a really good tea we went back to TigerNWoods to relax and refresh. The plans for next day’s Safari were cancelled as it would mean a wake-up call at 3am for which we all refrained. Better idea was to go check out a reservoir lake nearby and see few birds. This was our night and we were in no hurry to enjoy each bit of it. We circled around a bonfire set-up (which was never lit to remain green friendly for the trip). Few strums I tried on my guitar which we all enjoyed. Siva also tried a few and then we started the game of RST. In one line, in RST you sit in a circle and you have to say a word related to last word but it should not start with, yea u guessed it, R or S or T :). It was a great session of laughter alongside the beer mugs which the gentlemen enjoyed. After a while another nice dinner followed by a walk out of the resort to stargaze. Although a clear night, we couldn’t identify any particular (or I should say popular) constellation, so we went back. Back to our rooms, no one was in a mood to sleep so the card game started. I should admit, I do not remember when did I laughed so much last time. Thanks to the saas bahu drama that was going on alongside the game :)

We slept around 2 again and tomorrow wake up was at 6am for the bird-watching session. I was counting the number of hours am deprived of sleep in last few days and I was well aware of the consequences.

We woke up in time and after a quick morning tea, we all drove in Ashwin’s car for the birding session. As we were driving through that empty road along the dam, we could already see quite a few birds around us. A male and female rose ringed parakeet just sat on branches of a plant, and few munias hopped on the road, then a shrike flew by. It all made it quite exciting scene. We got down of the car sometime later to check around. The doves, a magpie robin and other common birds were very much there, but what excited me and Ashwin was this orange tailed bird near the water plants. I was ready to spent some time to wait for a good photo of this and I finally got one. It was a black redstart.

a black redstart

An Indian bush-lark

I clicked photos few larks as well, and a lonely lapwing that waited for us to move somewhere.



common tit

We then walked ahead towards the lake and the forest patch beyond. We agreed on a time to return but to see more birds we kept moving ahead. We saw another roller on our way and inside the forest I got a ‘not-so-good’ shot of a tit.

We all gathered back at the car point to head back. It will be a long day we knew as Hyderabad was about 650kms away. We started at around 10am after a round of fun-filled and experimental breakfast, I mean the upma sandwich and tomato ketchup in tea! (just me of course :P)

After about 20km from Turia on main road, we were suddenly stopped by few workers. Our curiosity got answered in a while when a huge tree of teak fell in the middle of the road. Few labors then very quickly started to chop it off into pieces.

It was a really sad scene when this huge tree fell on ground, and many more chopped as we traveled further. What the night was hiding the other night when we drove was a massacre. A massacre of tree kill, many of them hundreds of years old, belonging to this heaven I recited as Pench. 

All for expansion of this road (NH7) to a double lane to support more traffic. With more traffic I can vision more road kills as well and a bleak future for this wonderful place where Rudyard kipling wrote a tale of a jungle boy raised by forest called Mowgli. Hope it not confines to just books and many more like me in future can still witness and imagine this one of the few flourishing patch of forest.

The journey ended at about 8Pm after a day long drive in the hot sun. Too less sleep for me in 3 days (I think just 12hrs) resulted in a high fever of 102 which took a day to recover.