Auli -> Rishikesh -> Corbett National Park -> Varanasi -> Agra
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To sum up everything about the place, Corbett is a great place for wildlife viewing, of great variety including tigers as well as birds! It has great landscapes to offer too.
Tiger sightings are common, especially in summers. Other mammals include four type of deer(chitals, barking deer, hog deer and sambar), otters, wild boars, elephants, etc. When it comes to birds, Corbett is a heaven for seeing raptors(birds of prey) and has sightings of more than 40 species! The common ones include Crested Serpent Eagle, Changeable hawk eagle, and Pallas fishing eagle. I sighted several vultures too. Overall, more than 400 species have been sighted in Corbett. You also get to see Gharials and crocodiles in Ramaganga River.
Deer crossing! The waterbody see behind is the Ramaganga river
With Ramaganga River and several small streams flowing in the park surrounded by Himalayan foothills, Corbett has great landscapes to offer. It is especially beautiful during winter mornings.
HOW TO REACH
Corbett is just 6-8 hour drive from Delhi via Moradabad, Kashipur and Ramnagar. Ramnagar is the nearest town head to Corbett. If you are taking a bus from Delhi, there are several buses plying directly to Ramnagar, or you can change buses at Moradabad to Ramnagar. You can also take a train to Ramnagar.
ACCOMMODATION
There are a couple of budget hotels in Ramnagar on Ranikhet road, which also hosts the CTR(Corbett Tiger Reserve) office.
There are many resorts spread all along the Nainital highway outside Ramnagar and on the way to the reserve. The forest department runs a tourist complex in the heart of the park at Dhikala. Dhikala is a great place to stay as well as for wildlife viewing. It is located on a large grassland, with Ramaganga to one edge of the complex and thick forest on another side. Tigers are often spotted walking on the riverbed close to the tourist complex. There are many other guest houses in the park at places like Sarapdhauli, Khinnanauli, Gairal and a few more. Except for Dhikala, other places do not have food and other conveniences and you need to make your own arrangements. All these places have to be booked at CTR office at Ramnagar.
SIGHTSEEING AND SAFARI
As I mentioned earlier, Dhikala is a good base for roaming around the forest. Access to Dhikala is restricted to those who are staying in the forest department guesthouses. For those who do not stay in these guest houses, only way to go to Dhikala is to take the CTR group safari van, which leaves everyday early in the morning(approx 8 hours, 100kms). But there are other places like Bijrani area where you can take your own vehicle with a guide along. Permission can be taken at CTR office for this. If you opt to stay in Dhikala, you may have to hire a jeep to travel into Dhikala and for roaming around the forest once you are there. No other transport is available to reach Dhikala. When you are on the way to Dhikala, don’t miss giving a visit to the museum at Dhangadi gate. You can also opt for elephant safaris(twice a day, morning and evening) at Dhikala.
Tourist at Elephant Safari
Best time to see animals in Corbett is summer. But keep in mind that it will be very hot there in the summer. Winter mornings are a great time to see beautiful landscape of Corbett. The reserve is closed for visitors during the rainy season between June and November.
More on Corbett National Park at paintedstork.com
* Images from Corbett
* Arriving at Corbett
* First day at Corbett: safari day trip to Dhikala
* Corbett: In the nature – A struggle between fear and love
* The desperate tourist’s tiger hunt
* Photo Essay: Landscapes of Corbett
* My Days in Corbett
* Encounter with Pachyderms
* Information about Corbett National Park
* Moving on from Corbett
Auli -> Rishikesh -> Corbett National Park -> Varanasi -> Agra
+Previous: The days in Corbett
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+Go to beginning of the series
One fine evening, we were exploring the grasslands of Dhikala looking for birds, and anything else we could come across. Summer was then just setting in and some elephants were starting to come out of the jungle and graze in the grasslands. We hoped to find some of those. I was especially keen to see some baby elephants. And lucky that we were, just before we decided to return we saw a mother elephant with calf.
As it always happens, the mother saw us before we saw them and it was cautious. It decided to move a little further from us, just to be safe. I was aware that I should not disturb them, especially with the calf around, as the mother will be extra careful. But I hoped to get a little closer without troubling them and get some photographs. Our jeep was noisy and there was no place to hide in the planes, so the mother, always aware of our presence, kept moving away as we pressed forward. Seeing that the she was uncomfortable, we did not press forward, but decided to just wait and watch them.
Mother elephant watches us wearily
We watched them for a few minutes as the mother grazed and the kid was just hanging around, not straying too far. After sometime, mother grew weary again and they decided to move away to some place more peaceful. We now decided to follow them from a distance. But seeing us behind them, it looked back, stood firmly, raised it trunk trumpeted loud enough to make it clear that it did not stand our presence. The message was clear now and we did not want to trouble them any further and retreated back to where we started from!
More on Corbett National Park at paintedstork.com
* Images from Corbett
* Arriving at Corbett
* First day at Corbett: safari day trip to Dhikala
* Corbett: In the nature – A struggle between fear and love
* The desperate tourist’s tiger hunt
* Photo Essay: Landscapes of Corbett
* My Days in Corbett
* Encounter with Pachyderms
* Information about Corbett National Park
* Moving on from Corbett
Auli -> Rishikesh -> Corbett National Park -> Varanasi -> Agra
+Previous: landscapes of Corbett
+Next: An encounter with pachyderms
+Go to beginning of the series
After my tryst with the desperate tiger hunters during the day trip, I decided to go and stay inside the forest for a few days. Corbett Tiger Reserve has several guesthouses inside the forest for tourists. And staying in one of these is definitely the best way to see the park. Of the several guesthouses spread all around the forest, Dhikala tourist complex is the only place that has restaurants to serve tourists. In all other places, you need to take care of your own food.
Next morning, I went to Corbett Tiger Reserve office and booked for a stay for three days at Dhikala. I hired a jeep and a driver to accompany me for these three days. My driver, it turned out had a decent knowledge of birds and helped me spot and identify quite a few of them. With a jeep exclusively for my own use and a chance to explore the park as I wished, it was far better than the chaos I experienced during the day trip.
DHIKALA TOURIST COMPLEX
Dhikala is a small fenced tourist village, with a few buildings for tourist accommodation and to house the park staff. There are two restaurants to serve the tourists, a library that hardly gets used, a couple of machaans for viewing the riverbed and nothing much else. The whole complex is now protected with electric fence – something they had to install after a tiger made a failed attempt to maul a tourist! A few domestic elephants with their Mahouts are often seen wandering in and around the complex. A sambar deer with an injured leg, which would have never survived in the wild has cleverly moved into the complex and made the place its home. You could often find it walking right next to you hoping to find some food to eat.
A whistling thrush at Dhikala
The tourist complex, located next to magnificent grassland, is located right on the bank of river Ramaganga. Its landscape is beautiful and views of the river and the far off mountains on the other side in the early morning fog alone makes a trip to Dhikala worthwhile. Facing thick Sal forest on one side, Ramaganga flowing besides it and huge grassland on the other side, Dhikala is heaven for wildlife viewing. You can often see elephants wandering in the grassland, wild boars moving around, deer grazing and even occasional tigers walking by the river bed, all this without even leaving the tourist complex! A good pair of binoculars can even help spot crocs in the river.
WANDERING IN THE PARK
I was keen to use my time in the park judiciously. I roamed all around the grass land, along the river bed, into the forest – anywhere where we could go, looking for great vistas and some wildlife. Etched in my memories are the beautiful mornings when it would still be foggy, and the golden rays of the sun would fall into the earth on the banks of Ramaganga, making the whole world appear beautiful orange. The mild and soothing cold wind enhanced the experience of the late winter mornings.
A vulture, I am yet to figure out its name.
Wildlife viewing was also equally fruitful. Corbett is a heaven for raptors(birds of prey), and I did manage to see my share of them including changeable hawk eagles, Pallas fishing eagles, crested serpent eagle, few vultures and some more I could not identify. And then there were other birds on the riverbed like the river lapwing and white-capped redstart, which were shown to me by my driver. The grasslands were primarily inhabited by larks, partridges, bay backed shrikes and common stonechats. I also saw some larger birds like the egrets, cormorants and white-necked stork.
An elephant having dust bath
Mammals were in plenty too. Elephants often wandered in the grasslands and I took pleasure in watching them as much as I could. And then there were smaller herbivores like the wild boars, several type of deer such as the barking deer, chital, hog deer and sambar deer and then of course the tiger.
Northern Rhesus Monkeys at Dhikala
At the end of three days, I felt that the trip to Corbett was worth it. It was saddening that I had to leave, and could not afford to stay on any longer. I fell in love with the place so much that I wished to relocate here and work in or around the park for a few years. I even discussed working as a naturalist and happened to receive some positive feedback on it. I am not sure if I would ever manage to make such a jump, but I know I will definitely return to Corbett again and savour more of its beauty.
More on Corbett National Park at paintedstork.com
* Images from Corbett
* Arriving at Corbett
* First day at Corbett: safari day trip to Dhikala
* Corbett: In the nature – A struggle between fear and love
* The desperate tourist’s tiger hunt
* Photo Essay: Landscapes of Corbett
* My Days in Corbett
* Encounter with Pachyderms
* Information about Corbett National Park
* Moving on from Corbett