Animal Planet

At the Corbett National Park, it’s difficult to miss the call of the wild, be it reclusive tigers, drifty deer, scrambling otters or rare birds

It’s a bird’s paradise. There are so many of them, 530 varieties at last count. But as they do not have great stories around them, most prefer to visit the Corbett National Park to have their first dekko of a tiger in its natural habitat. And as the tigers here are very reclusive, don’t subscribe to the idea of paisa pheko tamasha dekho; most visitors return home heart-broken unable to have had a glimpse of the four-footed striped animal. I have a soft corner for the two-legged flying creatures, but that doesn’t mean I belong to the tiger-haters’ club. I adore tigers for their massive bodies, their awesome strength and the majestic way they carry themselves. Like many others it makes me feel bad when I read about them being poached for their skins.

It’s one thing seeing them on a telly and a totally different experience coming face-toface with a T-I-G-E-R! On the second day of our visit, I heard the fortunate ones shouting: ‘Sher…dekho...sher’. At that instant, an excerpt from M Krishnan’s book Nature’s Spokesman came to my mind: ‘One morning, as I sat in the dark, I heard a distant musical sound, a vibrant and somewhat nasal longdrawn twang, like a taut length of steel wire sharply plucked. It was repeated several times, and then followed by the unmistakable ‘aaoonh!’ of a tiger.’

The Corbett National Park (CNP) is named after celebrated hunter-turned-naturalist, Jim Corbett, the man who immortalised the area through his famous books. Corbett is India’s first national park and was established in 1936. It lies 280 km northeast of New Delhi in the Nainital and Pauri Garhwal districts of Uttaranchal. We took the Delhi Transport Corporation’s bus and reached Ramnagar eight hour later. The thick Sal forests in the Bhabar zone and the chaurs (open grassland) are intersected by river valleys and streams. Tributaries of the Ramganga and Kosi rivers have created primeval forests which are a hotspot of bio-diversity. Most of the core area of 330 sq kms at its heart remains out of bounds and many visitors are disappointed to find that safaris on foot are strictly forbidden, though permissible in the fringe areas of the forest. While CNP is justly famous for its healthy population of large mammals, including the Indian Tiger and the Asiatic Elephant, it also harbours a rich species of birds. Lesser Fish Eagle, Cinereous Vulture, Pallas’

Fish Eagle, Tawny Fish and Spot-bellied Eagle Owl, Great Slaty Woodpecker, Ibisbill, Wallcreeper, Hodgson’s Bushchat, Bright-headed Cisticola, Rosy Minivet, White-tailed Rubythroat are just some of the species that are regularly seen in and around the park. I have not seen such a vast variety of small birds at a single point. In fact, the number of avian species surpasses even the birds’ paradise, Bharatpur in Rajasthan.

We stayed at Kanda forest resthouse, run by Project Tiger, which stands on a hill above the Ramnagar reservoir and Dhikala. The resthouse doesn’t have electricity and has no facilities for food. We had the option of either bringing our meals from the dhabas in Ramnagar or surviving on bread, dry fruits and packet milk. We woke daily, at around 5.30 am, with the early morning cries of birds, though it was babel to our ears. Having lived a major part of our lives in cities, most bird cries sounded unfamiliar. We played games with each other trying to identify the bird cries and failed miserably, at least that’s what our guide told us. With a light drizzle, there was freshness, fragrance and cool in the air. This was the time of hectic activity for the denizens of the forest. We came across a herd of spotted deer, chital, which ran ahead of our jeep. I chanced upon a lone barking deer, jackal, otters running for fish in the waters of Ramganga.

On a muddy trail, we saw fresh pugmarks of a tiger and scanned the whole area for its presence. Chance and luck play a major role in tiger sighting and we were just once lucky to come across a tiger, though it’s said that some 50 tigers inhabit the CNP. As the western sky began to turn crimson, we retired to the bungalow which was surrounded by deep forest. We were warned not to stray out after sunset as wild animals stray close to the compound. With no satellite TV and mobile phones put off to save batteries, we lived in candlelight, enjoying the sights and sounds as darkness began enveloping the trees, the hills and the skies. We drifted to sleep while the crickets took over and the night was filled with an occasional howl or the moan of a wild animal.