After walking for a while into the forest, we stopped to look around for the Hoolock Gibbons. They move around in groups. They move around calling out loudly probably restating their territory. I loved their call. So based on their we would go tracking them into the forest. There were leeches all over the place. I had heard such horror stories about leeches in North-East but at that point of time, the only thing I had in mind was to get a glimpse of the Gibbon. Based on the calls, we tracked a pair sitting high up on a tree. The male is darker while the female has lighter fur. There were sitting there looking out for things to feed on but they also kept an eye on us. They move so fast. Their long arms help them brachiating from one tree to the other and within no time they disappear. We had multiple sightings of the gibbons. At one time, we just kept following the call of a group. The forest was echoing their calls continuously. We saw one of them doing all the acrobatics and just jumping into a tree. Konwar, our driver cum guide who was with us asked them to stand still and watch the gibbon take a leap. He was so sure that it would. And there it is ….

the leap

just before the leap

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After the Golden Langur sighting, we headed straight into the sanctuary. The Gibbon looked really thick like the Western Ghats forests. After getting our permits to enter the forest, we started walking into the forest to try our luck with the Hoolock Gibbon. We had to walk for about 2 kms. But we saw a lot of interesting things all along the way. There were lot of beautiful butterflies and there was a lot of bird activity too. We had a good look of the Green-billed Malkoha but very high up in the canopy. Another awesome sighting was of the Sultan Tit which is not very common to see. It came out in the open, fluttered around for a while and again went back in a few seconds. It was so beautiful to watch them.

Archduke (male)

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On the 4th day, we headed off to Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary mainly to see the Hoolock Gibbon. We left early in the morning at about 4am to reach Gibbon. The drive was quite beautiful with open fields and small towns all along the way. Just outside the sanctuary, we saw this troop of langurs playing around. They were the Capped Langurs. Even though our driver said that we would get more sightings of this, we insisted that we stop there for a while. We spent quite some time observing and photographing them. They were just feeding on various things in the tree.

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After 2 days of Central, Western and Eastern range, we decided to explore the other parts of Kaziranga. It was the. It is farther from other ranges of Kaziranga, so we had to leave quite early to make it there. But unfortunately out jeep broke down while we had driven a few kms. So our driver had to drop us somewhere on the road, go back and get another jeep. It took some time, but was still okay. While driving on the highway, we saw a Malayan Giant Squirrel (Ratufa bicolor). It was on top of a tree skulking there.

Malayan Giant Squirrel (Ratufa bicolor)

Malayan Giant Squirrel (Ratufa bicolor)

When we reached the Burrapahar forest office, there were hardly any visitors there. Probably not many people visit this place. The forest is dense and wild comprising of both thick forests and grassland. On one side, there is the Bramhaputra river too. We got 2 more sightings of the Malayan Giant Squirrel inside the Burrapahar forest. We stopped the jeep when we reached the Bramhaputra river bank. This river is so vast. We walked along the bank looking for birds. The view was really beautiful. There were birds calling out from all sides, some of them I couldn’t even identify. There were River Dolphins which we could occasionally see creating ripples. On the rocks by the bank, we saw a few turtles too. Our guide said that it was the Indian Tent Turtle. There were pied kingfishers , River Lapwings, Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher, Black-hooded Oriole, call of the White-rumped Shama and many others . I spent quite some time watching the River Lapwing. We could see the Otters den all along the bank. When we walked along, we also saw a recent pugmark of a tiger. More than anything, we enjoyed the habitat. The butterflies were in plenty mostly unknown to me.

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Black Ibis

It had just rained the previous day and Valley School looked all green. I had walked ahead when a friend who was behind me said that there was an owl. I walked back all the way again and fortunately, the owl was still around. It was the Collared Scops Owl popping out of its tree hole. It took a while for me to locate it even after being pointed at it. And I wasn’t surprised about missing it when I walked past the same area. It was an incredible camouflage. I stood there watching it for a while. It seemed quite safe in that tree hole, totally camouflaged and not easily visible. It was visible only from one side and there was no way to locate it otherwise. Once in a while, it turned around and seemed to be on high alert. After a while, we found something popping out in the background and this one would just push it down. We realised that there was an young one there trying to come out in the open creeping out behind the adult. The adult owl was very strict and would just push it down. But still, the young one slowly came out in the open and was there for a while for us to see.

the first look

Young one coming out

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

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I feel in love with the butterflies of Assam. I clicked as many I could and here is a commoner from Kaziranga National Park. And thanks to Karthik for helping me with the identification.

We were trekking to the Tadiyandamol peak. It was hot and we had trekked a bit. It was thick everygreen forest everywhere. Suddenly we see a large raptor soaring. From one look, it looked like a Booted Eagle. We watched it for a while and went ahead with the trek. After a while, on the same path we saw the same bird taking off from the ground. We had failed to notice it on the ground. It was just above our head soaring and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t even need my binocs to see the bird. It is easily one of the best sightings of the bird I’d ever had.

Right above me

This was really the bird which I badly wanted to see. Malagar Trogons are not early morning birds. So we finished our breakfast after our first round of birding and walked back mainly looking for this bird. We looked around in the wooded area carefully but didn’t yield any success. For a while we heard the Trogon calling but we were not able to locate it. We kept walking and after a while, our guide Pankaj just walked off the track looking for it. And after a while, he was back and he pointed his digiscope at the bird and show us this beautiful bird. It was there for a while in the thicket and then flew away.