An idyllic trip into the Garhwal hills

The place (like last time when I wrote about it here) will go unnamed. Sorry if that bothers you, but I prefer it that way and its not that I am being rude, its just that I am a bit concerned about the numerous "jeep safaris", "wildlife treks" and "nature hikes" being offered to a variety of city-bred, consumerism-cultured, gadget groomed groups of nouveau-rich Indians.

All of whom, (like most urbanized Indians, to be honest) care a shit about nature or environment; and this is something I am qualified to talk about (and even rant on) as I have been around in what remains of Hyderabad's outdoors and cannot really say much about the cleanliness or aesthetics of these spaces.
 
So there, the place will remain unnamed. Not that it really matters, you could mail and ask me and I will tell you :-)

I guess, "idyllic" is a bit of a misnomer, because the last thing I did was relax or luxuriate in any kind of idyll; rather I more or less walked the skin off my feet and the ankles and knees off my legs (there were some killing inclines involved) and was on the move from almost 6.00 in the morning to 6.00 in the evening...but I guess it was still an idyll, because mentally I was at absolute peace and even feeling "blessed" as I was in the company of innumerable trees and a lot of birds were repeatedly straying into my consciousness.

What else would a self-confessed poet of nature (and birds) and a simpleton with notepad skills (and bum ears) consider idyllic?

******************

Like the last time I was here, I was again put up with the Army guys, in fact at the very same Mess. As such, I remembered the trees and the lay of the land and which way is east, which west, etc, etc

These are all very important from the viewpoint of birding, because these are what go into getting your eye in. In my case, I am happy to say that I could start shooting barely 10 minutes after getting to my room and dropping off my gear. And I am also happy to say that the first bird I photographed was one of my "firm favorites", a Blue Whistling Thrush, a bird that is fairly common here but yet needs a lot of skill to get close to (as it always wears a habitually suspicious air), a bird that I had laboured to photograph through fog and rain the last time I was here...

Speaking of fog and rain, it did rain the second evening, for around 30 minutes or so and there was the low rumble of thunder over the valley (surprisingly -- more than three years after Moving On and a poem where I have celebrated the "fact", I can still hear thunder, and most of the time it is a low rumble to my ears...and a very welcome, atavistic and wild rumble too!) that I for an instant took to be the boom of artillery guns being fired in some field exercise. But then, this was after it was already dark and when I was going through the day's catch of photographs on the laptop that I had lugged along.

That (apart from a couple of false alarms) was the only time it rained this time, as opposed to the last when the rain / fog would again and again literally come out of the blue and put paid to my hopes of gathers keepers / lifers.

For some reason that I just cannot fathom, this time, I did not get to see / photograph a single Greater Flameback -- a species of woodpecker that is as common here as the moss grown pines and deodhars that it favours.

That, let me tell you was one big, big let down. Because, I had set my heart on an intimate encounter with at least a couple of Greater Flamebacks, to make up for not being able to photograph them properly the last time I was here. Something that was more or less guaranteed if I could have sighted them -- considering the abundant sunlight and my enhanced (read higher ISO, faster shutter speed) capabilities, thanks to the D600 (AND my enhanced understanding of woodpecker behaviour as well).

But then, maybe the Greater Flameback likes this part of the hills and frequents these trees where I had seen so many of them only when it is is rainy / foggy...or else it likes to go down into the valley during the "winter" (something that technically speaking hasn't ended for more than half a month and was very very severe).

Who knows, after all -- we know so less about birds anyway.

***********************

I did run into a lot of other woodpeckers and in fact (in retrospect) I spent too much time photographing them, while I should have been more after the Verditer's Flycatchers, the Minivets, the Lammergeiers and the Himalayan Kingfishers (in the valley down below -- in fact, I did not even go down to the valley for any birding). But then, woodpeckers are nothing if not mesmeric to watch as they traipse up and down a tree's bole or branch and let me tell you both the Yellow-fronted Woodpeckers (of whom I saw two nesting pairs almost on a daily basis) and the Indian Black-naped Green Woodpecker (of whom I saw both the male and female, again on a daily basis) are positively hypnotising when watched through a lens.

So, maybe you will understand if I say that I did not get to photograph much, apart from these woodpeckers and a Lesser Yellownape that I saw on my last morning.

That "much" being -- a pair of Eurasian Blackbirds, a couple of Spangled Drongos, the highly elusive Great Barbet, a Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher, some Verditer's Flycatchers some Eurasian Jays and a lot of other birds that I still need to properly look at and ID.

All in all, a nice idyll, I would say. Especially if you are a self-confessed poet of nature (and birds) and a simpleton with notepad skills (and bum ears).