Birding ! Driving ! Soul-searching !: 2025

How did it all start?

In 2006 when I finally fulfilled the 25-year-old dream of owing a car, life took a turn for good. I was madly deeply and passionately in love with my car and did everything to spend more and more time behind the wheels. That is how the DRIVING thing started. Moreover, my first job was into field-sales and that was another reason which catalyzed my passion for driving. Before I knew, I was already making those long driving trips across the various states of India.

In 2010, another life altering incident happened. I got married! Call it luck or call it destiny, both of us were interested in nature and all our vacations started happening around nature-oriented locations. We did love wildlife and maybe that was the reason why we went to Jim-Corbett National Park in 2012 but we were definitely not birders then.

In 2013, we decided to take a vacation which was a combination of both wildlife and a long drive. We decided to go to Gir National Forest, Gujarat and planned to drive all the way up from Hyderabad. It was the month of April, and in some way that worked to our advantage. The forest was all dry and naked and one could see right through the dense foliage without any problem. We stayed in Taj Gateway for 5 night and took safari drives for both Morning and evening, everyday. Incidentally, we spotted the pride of the Lions, right at the beginning of our trip. Now we still had 4 more days to go and numerous safari drives at our disposal. Luckily, we were staying in Taj and their naturalists are one of the best you could find in India. Since we already spotted the Lion, so now the naturalist started showing us the BIRDS. Here comes the life-altering role of a naturalist. They keep telling us about various things, plants, trees, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, etc. We may or may not be interested in everything they say, but some of those things might catch the attention and curiosity of people like us and it might turn us into what we are today. We can never be grateful enough to the Taj Gir naturalists to convert us into the hard-core birders that we are today. It was that trip of Gir that converted us from nature-lovers to bird-lovers and we were officially baptized as BIRDERS.

Although, after crossing the 800 life-list milestone, the huge craving for birding has come down significantly for both of us. We are now quite content with the birding that we have done so far. We decided that from now onwards we will not be going on core birding specific trips any more, instead we would try to go for leisure trips in India and abroad. This way we can start building memories and experiences for our old age too. I'm not very sure, how long will I be able to continue to drive. I'm not getting any younger every year and driving in India is not always the best experience too. However, till the time I have this passion intact and if my body keeps supporting me for these long drives, I'm going to continue doing it. After that it will only be leisure trips at luxurious stays combined with some casual birding.

What a great way for SOUL-SEARCHING isn’t it?

Pench National Park: Trip 2 (January-2025)

There were a couple of marriages to attend, one in Uttarakhand and the other one in Kolkata. Uttarakhand one was on 03rd February-25 and the Kolkata one was on 03rd March-25. The logical mind would say, take a flight to both the locations as one is in north India, the other in East India and I live in south India, alas that’s not the case with me. I saw it as a wonderful opportunity for a long drive.

In 2023, I already did the Hyderabad to Dhanachuli (Uttarakhand) trip so the route wasn’t new for me. However this time, situations were a little different than they were a couple of years ago. I wasn’t alone this time around, my mom was joining me on this whole trip. Secondly, because of the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, I cannot take the same route that I took last time, via Jabalpur. I had to find an alternative route. Moreover, I cannot just take one night halt between Hyderabad and Lucknow, since mom was with me, I had to take 2 night halts. Last time I took a halt in Jabalpur. So I started contemplating, looking at the possible options in google map, and the idea just stuck me like a flash. “Why not do jungle safaris on the way, that way we won’t feel the long drive like a job, it will be more like a vacation”. And that’s how the plan got conceived.

Day 1, we will drive from Hyderabad to Pench National Park, stay at Taj Safaris in Pench for 1 night, take the afternoon safari in Pench.

Day 2, after breakfast, we will drive from Pench to Panna National Park. Stay at Taj Safaris in Panna for 2 nights.

Day 3, take morning and evening safari in Panna

Day 4, after breakfast, drive from Panna to Lucknow.

Day 5, take rest in Lucknow

Day 6, drive from Lucknow to Dhanachuli and stay there for 15 days.

Got all the bookings done for both Pench and Panna, luckily managed to get the rooms and the safaris as per my liking, even though I booked it only a month in advance. Taj safaris have only 12 cottages in their property, so booking is usually not that easy. I guess I was lucky to get these bookings on time. Taj helps you book the safari from their end, so we don’t need to worry about that part, and they always manage it perfectly. I never had any complains, whatso ever.

The drive from Hyderabad to Pench was almost uneventful, until we crossed Nagpur. There was a terrible accident on the National highway and the entire highway was blocked with traffic for more than a stretch of 5 km. We had to reach Pench before lunch so that we could finish our lunch and leave for the safari. It was constantly playing in my mind, that any delay on the highway will make me miss the safari drive that afternoon. So, I started referring the map of north Nagpur and tried to figure out an alternate route that could take me past that traffic jam. Finally managed to drive through the outskirt villages of North Nagpur and got a chance to skip and go ahead of that blockade. It took me an additional 45 minutes I guess, but it was much better than getting stuck in that traffic for who knows how many hours, and end up missing the safari that afternoon.

Left Hyderabad: 5-15 am
Reached Taj Pench: 2-15 pm
Total driving time: 9 hours (It could have easily been 8 hours if we didn’t face that unfortunate traffic problem on the highway)

We were just in time for lunch and exactly on time for the afternoon safari. In my usual experiences, the morning safari is always more fruitful than the evening one. However, this time I was completely surprised to see the activities even on the evening safari. Both in Pench and Panna. I will talk about Panna in my next post, but here is what we saw in Pench, in just a single afternoon safari. Our guide on this drive was Erik Thomas, a wonderful fellow, who was a pro shotput player from Dehradun. His passion about wildlife brought him to Taj. He was a new addition to Taj team, but we had a great time with him. I mentioned to him before the safari that we are not here targeting the tiger, instead we will be more than happy if he can help us see birds and any other wildlife in the forest. If we get the tiger, well and good, but we won't be wasting our time chasing it. He happily obliged to our request and we managed to see some amazing wildlife in a matter of couple of hours. At this stage of my life, I won't be finding any lifers so easily, but if I manage to get a beautiful photograph of a bird, which is sharp and in focus, in a good light, I guess that itself gives me such immense satisfaction, it's worth every penny you spend.

I have clicked the Stork-billed many time before, but this pic turned out to be the best for me. Perfect angle, perfect light, perfect bokeh, the bird was not even very far, and a clean subject with a clean frame. What more can you desire.

Stork-billed Kingfisher

Lesser Whistling Duck

Indian Grey Hornbill

I have never seen the Crested Serpent Eagle on the ground and that too near a water body. This was an exception I guess.

Crested Serpent Eagle

This is always a difficult bird to spot it for the first time, but once you know the location then it will be super easy to spot it every other day, as it usually doesn't change its roosting location unless disturbed.

Sykes's Nightjar

Green Bee-eater

My luck with leopard sighting hasn't been very good until now. Every time i saw it, it was always behind the bushes, or on top of the cliff, never got a good and clear sighting. There was a cheetal kill everyone came to know about and most probably it was a leopard kill. We all saw the cheetal kill but the predator was nowhere to be seen. The crows were not even bothered to come near, so we took a guess that maybe the leopard is somewhere near but out of our visibility angle. While our jeep was standing near that kill, all of a sudden the leopard popped out its head. Maybe it was trying to watch us and guess if we were a threat for its food or not. It saw us for just a couple of seconds from behind the tree, the guide told me that he could see the head, I saw the head through my viewfinder and managed to get that one elusive shot. And then it was gone. Just 2 seconds of fun, 1 second to dial the settings, autofocus and click. I had the best shot of a male leopard till date. Who would know that in the next 48 hours, in Panna i will be jumping with joy about the leopard click of a lifetime. But that post will come in my Panna page, for now this male leopard was itself a treat to watch.

Leopard male

With this our safari drive ended for the evening, a very successful one. Predator sighting always adds an icing on the cake. I was already content with the Kingfisher shot that I got, leopard was a bonus for me that day.

After a safari drive, coming back to that exceptional luxurious accommodation in Taj pench just adds to the overall experience. The accommodation is very nice, I would even go the extent of saying that out of all 4 Taj Safaris, the Pench property is the best of all, if i only consider the cottage in itself. The bedroom and washroom are separated by an open air walkway. There is a bed on the terrace also but on both my stay occasions I prefered to stay inside the AC room, although the charm of sleeping in the open surrounded by only wilderness, could be enticing for some. Nevertheless, the rooms are very well maintained and there is an open air shower area too, which is connected to the washroom, that adds to the beautiful jungle experience.

Trip 1: March-2021

The details of this trip can be found in this post, however I will post the pictures that we clicked during that trip here as well.