Photobirder: Assam & Arunachal Pradesh, India 18th March-3rd April 2023

Sunday 30 April 2023

Assam & Arunachal Pradesh, India 18th March-3rd April 2023

This birding trip was originally conceived in 2019 and scheduled for 2021 before the Corvid epidemic delayed all travel plans. Originally it was planned for five birding companions and a trip organizer-guide to do all the logistics for us in India. During 2022 when it became apparent it would be possible to travel in 2023, the itinerary was finalized, and the number of participants increased to eight for economic reasons. The itinerary was carefully planned together with our trip organizer-guide at Tiger Travel to include several important localities for some key species and sufficient days were allocated for visiting Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctury in Arunachal Pradesh for the recently described Bugan Liocichla. In addition, we visited Manas National Park, Nameri National Park, Sela Pass and Kaziranga National Park as well as several sites for rare species. All transport from Guwahati airport in Assam was by four vehicles including one 4x4 with a maximum of three participants in each vehicle plus driver. One vehicle was used primarily for baggage as everyone had a fair amount of photographic equipment. We were accompanied during the whole trip by one or two local birding guides, and driving within the national parks was by open safari jeeps often accompanied by extra local guides. Accommodation varied from several luxury hotels at the start and end of the trip but mostly economical lodges and hotels. However, accommodation at Eaglenest was very basic, first in a very basic house at Lama Camp then in tents at Bompu Camp with outdoor toilet facilities both camps being situated at a rather chilly ca. 2000 meters. Food dishes at all but the luxury hotels were vegetarian although a 'meat' dish was often available at some. Kingfisher beer was readily available at most accommodations although at Eaglenest we had to bring it with us. The weather we generally experienced at the higher altitudes was cool overcast and often rainy conditions. At lower altitudes it was warm and sunny but with some overcast and thunderstorms at Kaziranga. Because of the weather conditions throughout, bird photography was not always optimal and there was no priority or time for proper bird photography.

Our birding guides had good skills at finding birds, but identification was occasionally incorrect, and we therefore only counted species we personally saw or documented with photography. Likewise, we didn't accept their identification of birds calls without seeing the birds ourselves. These guides were not updated with all bird localities, and we missed some important species because of this. We met at least one European bird guide that seemed to have better knowledge of these bird sites and best times to visit them than the local guides we employed, which was unfortunate.

We recorded 407 species of birds but also several rare mammal species and all in all, a superb birding tour with many new species seen and photographed although the following is a very small selection of these.