India – Birds, Tigers, Wolves & the Taj Mahal

Saturday 12^th – Tuesday 22^nd February 2011 (11 days)

Cost per person according to group size:

This tour is run using our unique sliding price scale, where the more people who come on a trip, the less you pay – this makes our tours truly
great value as our starting price for 6 participants already compares favourably to that of similar trips.
Also, if you have travelled with Altiplano before you will receive a 5% reduction on the prices below.

9-10 participants - £1,565

7-8    participants - £1,595

5-6    participants - £1,695

The tour begins with a visit to the Keoladeo National Park – formerly known as Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary – which justifiably holds a reputation as one of the great birdwatching sites of the world.
We also go on wildlife safari drives at Kanha National Park, where Tigers are our main focus, and at the very different habitat of the Nauradehi Sanctuary.

This tour, rather than focussing just on birds, offers a more general wildlife watching experience as we shall also be looking for Tigers, Wolves and some of the other large Indian mammals. But that is not all, as we shall also combine this with a day’s sightseeing in fascinating and bustling city of Delhi and a visit to the stunningly beautiful Taj Mahal at Agra

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness – ignorance, credulity – help your enjoyment of these things.

                                                                                                                                                                      Henry David Thoreau

Tour Itinerary

Day 1 – Depart London Heathrow

We leave London on an overnight flight to Delhi.

Day 2 - Delhi to Bharaptur

We arrive in Delhi in the morning and then drive to Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary (now the Keoladeo National Park), about four hours away. Bharatpur holds a great wealth of bird species and it is possible to see 100-150 species of birds here in a couple of days and the afternoon will give us the chance to get our list underway!

 

Day 3 - Bharatpur

We shall go birding in the park both on foot and by rickshaw.

Birds we’ll be looking out for are include Ruddy-breasted, Brown and Baillon’s Crakes, Sarus Crane, Jacanas, Long-tailed Shrike, Little Heron, Yellow and Black Bitterns, Grey Hornbill, Great White Pelican, Yellow-browed Warbler and a huge number of waterfowl.

Day 4 – Bharatpur and Agra

We shall spend the early part of the day birdwatching and then, in late afternoon, will set out on the ninety minute drive to Agra where we shall visit the Taj Mahal – and however familiar we may be with it from photographs, it is one of those magical places whose true beauty can only really be appreciated by standing before it.

In the evening we board a direct train to Jabalpur, spending a comfortable night in its 1^st Class air-conditioned individual berths.

Day 5 Jabalpur to Kanha

We arrive in Jabalpur and freshen up before heading off to Khana where we take an evening game drive in search of our first Tiger.

Days 6 & 7 – Kanha

Kanha has a reputation as one of the best places in India to see ‘the King of the Jungle’ and we shall spend these two days taking morning and evening game drives in search of these magnificent animals, with, hopefully, some very good photographic opportunities.

Between the drives there will be time to relax over lunch, with the opportunity to do some birding around the lodge.

Day 8 Kanha and Nauradehi Sanctuaries

After an early morning safari drive, we set off for Jabalpur, arriving there round about noon and in time for lunch, before heading on to Nauradehi Sanctuary.

While Kanha is good Tiger country, Nauradehi is a new find with a different eco-region promising sightings of new bird species and mammals not common to Kanha.

En route we shall spend some time wildlife watching at Chewla Lake. In Nauradehi Sanctuary we look for Indian Wolf, Indian Gazelle and Nilgai, while some of the birds on our target list will be Spotted Creeper, Painted and Lesser Adjutant Storks and Long-billed, White-rumped and Egyptian Vultures.

Nauradehi offers a very different experience from Kanha with many bird and mammal species that are uncommon or absent from the latter.

En route between the two we spend some time wildlife watching at Chewla Lake and make some other stops at good birding spots looking for falcons and other raptors, parakeets, storks, starlings, mynas, larks, bushchats and many others.

In the late afternoon we make the return journey to Jabalpur, arriving there by 19.30hrs in time for dinner at the Krishna Hotel, before turning in for a good night’s sleep in anticipation of tomorrow’s early start.

Day 9 Nauradehi Sanctuary

We have an early start this morning and will need to get up some time around four thirty as we aim to be on the road by 5am as we head again to the Nauradehi Sanctuary.

We reach Nauradehi in time for breakfast, probably having had a couple of stops en route, and then indulge in an extensive birding and wildlife watching session as we look for wetland birds such as waders, wagtails, migratory wildfowl, grebes, ibises and raptors. We’ll also spend some time scouting the forests for orioles, shrikes, warblers, babblers, minivets, parakeets, choropsis, flowerpeckers, prinias, iora, flycatchers, owls and many more.

We drive back to Japalpur for a latish lunch before catching an overnight train to Delhi

Day 10 Delhi

We spend all of today sightseeing around the historic city of Old Delhi as well as visiting the centre of the British Raj in New Delhi with plenty of time to browse through the shops and markets and perhaps buy a souvenir or two to bring home from this fascinating land.

Day 11 Delhi to London

We transfer to the airport for our return flight to Heathrow