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| Greater adjutants and people on the dump |
The taxi arrived at the hotel’s deserted streets bang on
time and after a short drive we arrived at Delhi’s domestic airport. Check-in
was straightforward for most of us......but there’s always one that insists on their
luggage being searched - isn’t there Rachael? At the gate for our 5.50am flight
Paul remarked that we were the only westerners on the flight...which added to
the sense of adventure. A clear dawn broke as we were bussed out to the plane and
we realised that if it stayed like this, we should get eyeball to summit views
of most of the high Himalayan peaks including Everest!
Landing at Guwahati, we were greeted by our guide Abid and our
driver Kanik. I’ll never forget the sense of excitement and anticipation as we unpacked the optics on the car park at the airport, the smile
on our faces said it all! With luggage on the roof, daily essentials and birding gear now unpacked, the four wheel drive vehicle was just about perfect and we set off in search of birds!
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| Spotted owlet outside our cabin |
First birding stop - the inevitable dump, a
sprawling mass of refuse, birds and (sad to say) people eking out a living on
the acres of rotting food and refuse. Our target bird, greater adjutant was
soon ticked off along with hundreds of cattle
egrets and black kites. The next few hours were spent driving until by mid afternoon we had checked into the comfortable Nameri Eco Camp.
Our accommodation consisted of a couple of cabins in an
elephant proof enclosure, two hundred metres from the camp headquarters. Basic
but entirley adequate, we did some unpacking and organising before setting out
on an exploration of the nearby fields. Striated grassbird, Indian roller and long tailed shrike were seen and a pair spotted owlets nested in the tree just outside the cabins.
It was soon time for our evening meal and we had some fabulously tasty traditional
Assamese food which was a feature of our stay at Nameri. The checklist was done
in the open air restaurant, with an early night to follow....it was a pre-dawn
start next day complete with armed guard for our trip across the river into the wildlife park proper! Serious birding!!
Images from the rest of today
here.
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