Birding in Kaziranga National Park, Eastern Range Safari (Day 1)

March 4, 2023, Morning

This was day 1 of our Assam tour, beginning with birding in Kaziranga National Park.

Route from Kohora to Eastern Range

We were picked up at our hotel in Kohora around 6:30 a.m. It was bright already but the park would not open until 7:30 a.m. It takes roughly 30 minutes to reach the Eastern Range gate from Kohora. We had a quick breakfast and chai by the roadside en-route. Few restaurants, probably none, are open at this time. It was cold in the morning as we drove along the highway NH715 in the open jeep at high speed, passing by some beautiful tea plantations and early morning scenery. The village was waking up. I tried not to let the binoculars and camera rattle too much. Holding on to the ice cold metal bars in the jeep, we made it to the gate where the check-in was done by our guide while we waited in the jeep.

On entering the park, we took the dirt road along a large lake (probably Koladuwar Beel), then up to the Inspection Bungalow, and then reaching the Brahmaputra riverbank and turning back and returning the same way. Although the road skirted the lake, there was quite a lot of distance between us and the water, and most everything was very distant. It warmed up by around 8:30, but conditions remained bumpy and dusty all day. There was a layer of dust covering the binoculars and camera by the end of the safari, a trend that would repeat on every safari. We got around 3.5 hours inside the park on the morning safari, exiting the park just before noon.

Below the route we took.

Bird and Other Wildlife Sightings

We saw large numbers of waterbirds that were also very far away. 400mm on an APS-C body (Nikon D500) was too short to fill the frame with any of them; so most of my images are heavily cropped. We did see a few passerines closer to the jeep and then some Great Hornbills in a tree close by. Unfortunately, getting off the jeep to use a spotting scope is not possible for the most part. There are several large mammals here after all, not just tigers. One location where it was possible to setup a scope was a small watchtower that was manned by some forest guards. For the record, I wouldn’t consider the toilet here to be usable for any activity that involves squatting, and remember to pinch your nose when you enter.

Among the most common birds seen this morning were Bar-headed Geese and Darters. Highlights included a courtship of Great Hornbills and a pair of Red-breasted Parakeet mating which took a while surprisingly. Near the lake we got Gray-headed Lapwing, a bird I have only seen once before. By the end of the safari I had got 6 lifers, so not a bad start to the tour. The Brahmaputra river bank at the end of the path was barren of birds in the mid-day sun. The few rhinos we saw this morning were generally far away.

Here is the eBird checklist.

Audio Recordings

I managed a nice audio recording of a Crested Serpent-Eagle as it soared in the sky.

Photos and Media