We had already spent 2 days at Kaziranga. The morning was spent in the Eastern Range watching new winter arrivals, the Bar-headed Geese. We also got a feeling of how huge the Bramhaputra river is and I can now imagine how the entire place would look when it floods during the monsoons. The evening safari was mostly to enjoy the sunset at Kaziranga. We headed back to the western range this time again for the evening safari. We finally got a decent sighting of the Water Buffalo in the water. A Common Kestrel was sitting just off the road and we had failed to notice it and got to see it only when it was taking off. There wasn’t much of wildlife to see around, the evening light was already setting in. The Alexandire Parakeets were getting back to their nests. We also spent some time at the water body watching the Assam Roofed Turtle (Kachuga Sylehtensis). These turtles would just come on to the dead branches of the tree and sun themselves.

Common Kestrel

Alexandrine Parakeet

Assam Roofed Turtle

Red-headed Vulture

As it got dark, we moved ahead. A Red-headed Vulture was just sitting on top of a tree. It was a lifer for me, but sitting on top of a tall tree also meant “pain in the neck”. The evening light was very beautiful and we went clicking for a while. We stopped by a watch tower and enjoyed the sunset. By 5pm, it was pitch dark and all we could do was to plan for the next day :)