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Red Panda Tour: Eastern Nepal

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RED PANDA TOUR: EASTERN NEPAL TRIP REPORT DECEMBER 2019 By SANJIB ACHARYA This Family of Red Panda was the major highlights of the trip www.asianadventures.net [email protected] 2 | T R I P R E P O R T Red Panda Tour: Eastern Nepal- December 2019 Travel Date: 15th-22nd December 2019 Participants: Marcelo Galleano Sanjib Acharya (Tour Leader) Dinesh Ghimire (Guide) Location: Sandakpur, Ilam, Nepal Overview Eastern Nepal holds abundance of birds, mammals and bio-diversity. The region is one of the richest part of Nepal in floral and faunal diversity. Maximum area of the region lies within Central Himalayan range and some eastern parts lie in the Eastern Himalayan range; a secure home for globally threatened birds and wildlife. Some districts of eastern Nepal including Ilam, Taplejung and Panchthar holds subtropical and lower temperate forest with maximum rainfall, which are very important habitat for Red Panda Airulus fulgens. Red Panda is one of the major attraction for tourist in eastern Nepal. This tour has been one of the exciting tour for us. Five nights stay in high hills was very productive in many aspects. The first day of the trek; we had wonderful view of magnificent Red Panda family; mother with two juvenile cubs. Second day we collected full bucket of colorful Himalayan birds including the fascinating male Satyr Tragopan Tragopan satyra, flock of skulking Brown Parrotbill Cholornis unicolor, beautiful Golden-breasted Fulvetta Lioparus chrysotis, noisy Great Barbet Psilopogon virens, very shy Rufous-breasted Bush-robin Tarsiger hyperythrus, highly gregarious Black- throated Thrush Turdus atrogularis, an endemic to central Himalayas Hoary-throated Barwing Sibia nipalensis, Three different species of Yuhina; Stripe-throated Yuhina gularis, Whiskered Y. flavicollis, Rufous-vented Y. occipitalis, and different varieties of tits and some skittish warblers. On third day we again encountered with the same Panda family of the first day with better weather and lights. Fourth day we luckily get close distance view of another family consisting one mother and two juveniles. The fourth day has quite interesting story, we sent our all four trackers to different locations and waited for one hour taking sunbath on open slope of the hill, suddenly Dinesh noticed some movement in distance and slowly moved forward and did scan around the area and whispered us to take camera with us. We followed him and he took us to the place. It was very close view of Red Panda in my life. The weather was clear and sunny and Pandas are very close in eye-level height, absolutely a splendid view! Last day we had good morning walk in warm sunshine around the village. The morning walk was very productive in birding aspect to find out these colorful beauty of Himalayas: Dark-breasted Rosefinch Procarduelis nipalensis, Maroon-backed Accentor Prunella immaculata, Little Bunting Emberiza pusilla, Blue-fronted Redstart Phoenicurus frontalis, White-collared Blackbird Turdus albocinctus, Golden-throated Barbet Psilopogon franklinii were major attractions including varieties of sunbirds, tits and warblers. During our trip we saw total 6 Red Pandas and 224 species of birds; which made our trip very successful. www.asianadventures.net [email protected] 3 | T R I P R E P O R T Red Panda Tour: Eastern Nepal- December 2019 Red Pand Tour: Eastern Nepal th Day 1, 15 December. Bagdogra Airport-Birtamod Marcello had connecting flight from Delhi to Bagdogra in the afternoon and we directly moved to Indo-Nepal border to enter the eastern Nepal. After visa formality in Nepal immigration office at Kakarvitta we drove further west to Birtamod city for overnight stay. After short refreshment we discussed about next morning plan including excitement of whole trip and possibilities of bird varieties and indeed the Red Panda. Due to the long air journey Marcello was quite tired so we decided to take early dinner and went to the bed. Blue-fronted Redstart Phoenicurus frontalis; a commoner one in Himalayan range www.asianadventures.net [email protected] 4 | T R I P R E P O R T Red Panda Tour: Eastern Nepal- December 2019 Day 2, 16th December. Travel to Dobate homestay As planned as last night. We started our drive after warm breakfast and coffee at hotel. We slowly drove to the north from the city watching the typical village settlements in eastern lowland of Nepal. After 30 minutes' drive we saw people shouting at arable and chasing something grand. I asked our driver to take a corner to stop and we jumped out from the jeep. Suddenly a huge male tusker appeared from the small irrigation canal due to irritating noise by the villagers and striding slowly towards forest in own peace. It was good start for the trip with sight of God Ganesha. We got some wetland birds including vulnerable Asian Woolyneck, Black-headed Ibis, Grey-headed Lapwing, Red-wattled Lapwing, White-breasted Waterhen and also picked up other species including Lesser Coucal, Black-headed Bunting, Yellow-footed Green-pigeon, Hill Myna and Brahminy and Chestnut-tailed Starling in the lowland. We then started to drive uphill and enjoyed the beauty of verdant tropical/subtropical forest. We stopped shortly in a place and managed to picked up Black-throated Sunbird, Scarlet Minivet, Common Green Magpie, Red-billed Blue-magpie, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Common Rosefinch and a nice male Crimson Sunbird. After crossing the forest section we entered into the tea plantation area. We felt the chilled air stroked on our nose with fresh green tea smell. We enjoyed Black Kite, Booted Eagle, Black Eagle, Mountain Hawk Eagle and some Himalayan Vultures soaring overhead. We then stopped for the lunch in a hill station called Ilam bazar. From here we had another four wheelers pick-up to go to the Sandakpur. A narrow and rather bumpy gravel road took 3 hours to take us to the homestay. After Short discussion for tomorrow programs in the evening we enjoyed our first dinner at homestay and went to the bed to give rest to our exhausted body. Fire-breasted Flowerpecker Dicaeum ignipectus; Male www.asianadventures.net [email protected] 5 | T R I P R E P O R T Red Panda Tour: Eastern Nepal- December 2019 Day 3, 17th December. Dobate Finally started the much anticipated day where we would spend the first Red Panda tracking morning around the beautiful Sandakpur community forest! Our four trackers were allocated in four different routes including one who was with us. Our first sighting of the morning was Yellow-billed Blue-magpie in early morning. Then we encountered a party of Stripe-throated Yuhinas calling from the rhododendron tree by the trail in a distance. Moist subtropical forest with a few bamboo bushes was the next habitat we walked through; here the highlights were Green-tailed Sunbird; a colorful male posing just a meter in distance, and an elegant rather very capricious male Slaty-backed Flycatcher. Tracking for Red Panda can be rather stressful and more physical, walking through the small trail will be a quite easy till find out the Panda spot. If trackers located the Panda then the real adventures begins with much difficult uphill and downhills in wet bamboo thickets. We were waiting for trackers information; suddenly a tracker came to us and told the good news and our real adventure began. We followed the very difficult path through the bamboo thickets, after hard ups and down walk we reached to the spot in hurry. Three Pandas were sitting together on a branch then a moment later a young came for latrine in a particular place and went up to his mother again. We enjoyed their activities and movement but not good photos due to the poor light and worst background. We then climbed uphill in snowed trail, the temperature was very cold, fog started to cover the hills and cold wind blown in the afternoon. We had hot noodle soup and coffee at a tea house on the way back to homestay; which made us little warmer and gave energy to walk downhill. Evening at leisure. Slaty-backed Flycatcher ficedula erithacus www.asianadventures.net [email protected] 6 | T R I P R E P O R T Red Panda Tour: Eastern Nepal- December 2019 Day 4, 18th December. Dobate Community forest After breakfast we took some cookies and water and walk along the trekking tails to the different parts of the forest to track different Pandas. The plan was same like yesterday. We sent our three trackers in different areas of the hill and kept one with us. After a while we encounter with two male Satyr Tragopan feeding inside the thick forest undergrowth. We attempted for photo but my camera couldn't focus it properly. We had very nice walk till the top of the ridge and quite gentle downhill walk. We slowly moved down and got a flock of Brown Parrotbill. A moment later we picked up a group of colorful Golden-breasted Fulvetta, Rufous-breasted Bush-robin, Hoary-throated Barwing, Red- headed Bullfinch, Great Barbet, Black-throated Thrush, Coal Tit, Buff-barred, Chestnut-crowned and Ashy-throated Warblers. We then returned to the homestay and enjoyed our hot coffee. Although it was a nice birding day. Female Red-headed Bullfinch Pyrrhula errythrocephala Day 5, 19th December. Dobate Today we sent all our trackers in early morning to find out the Pandas. Because we want to take good photos before the weather changed. We spent the full morning with Red Panda family to get better shots. They were still in top of the tree and the background was still poor. We kept quiet and waited for long time and finally two young came for latrine and poses for some good shorts.
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