Snow Leopard Expedition Day 6

Watch No 4 – there’s a Leopard tracker guiding a couple from Australia here now and he claims to have seen a Snow Leopard whilst scanning this morning. The only thing is that none of us actually saw it and he was only standing 30 yards away from us at the time. So a close call or pure string – I don’t know. 

Rumbak Village

The scenery around the village is stunning

Yours truly

View from above the village

So after breakfast we walked up the valley for a kilometre to Rumbak Village. It was an easy, slightly uphill walk, which we all enjoyed and the highlight for me was seeing a Solitary Snipe, albeit a relatively brief view. I'd definitely like to come back and getter a longer view as it's a lifer for me. In the village they had recently harvested the local crop of grass & wheat, and the remaining seeds were drawing in 10+ Streaked Rosefinches, a couple of Great Rosefinches, lots of Common Rosefinches and numerous House Sparrows. We also came across a flock of Robin Accentors, a few Red-fronted Serins, Black Redstart, Woolly Hare and Tickell’s Leaf Warbler, which made a very pleasant change to the practically birdless lower valley where we are based. I spent some time taking photos and despite the harsh light managed a few decent images.

Chukar

This Robin Accentor was too close...

Female Streaked Rosefinches

Male Streaked Rosefinch

Juv Common Rosefinch

After lunch back in camp we had a break in the lovely sunshine before doing Watch No 5. We again failed to see any Leopards. But now there are lots of Blue Sheep spread across every hillside. I certainly feel a lot more optimistic about our chances now! Have to say that Ganesh’s rum was much appreciated tonight! And it now seems that the temperature is dropping every evening and it’s much colder tonight.

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 5

Had a poor night’s sleep (maybe 4 hours tops) but the temperature wasn’t too bad and was a few degrees above freezing. But sharing a tent isn’t my idea of fun and there’s not much room inside. Anyway, we all woke up feeling crappy but having a baby wipe wash was a godsend and I was ‘good to go’. There was a bowl of hot water waiting for us later to wash in. A good tip is to keep your nightwear (thermals etc) just for wearing at night, as it’s nice to get into clean bed clothes each night. 

Masked Wagtail - the commonest bird up here

Another common bird here - Chukar

Anyway, we made our 2^nd Leopard Watch from 5.45am – 8.45am, had breakfast and then resumed from 9.15am – 11.00am. But no Leopards. We did see many Himalayan Snowcocks, flocks of Chukars, Himalayan Griffons, Masked Wagtail, Blue Sheep, and not a lot else.

More scanning

During lunchtime the temperature soared to 22 degrees centigrade. As we sat eating lunch a Blue Sheep with a large bite taken out of its side was seen running along a nearby track. Our immediate thoughts were that there must be a Leopard nearby and we jumped up to scan the huge expanse of mountain slope in front of us, but there wasn’t any sign at all. So instead of our planned hike up to Rumbak Village we spent the whole afternoon scanning from the watch point above camp, but to no avail. It gets dark just after 6.45pm so we walked back to camp just before sunset.

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 4

Left the hotel at 7am and drove down to the Indus River where we were greeted by light rain and a strong wind, so we didn’t spend much time birding here. 

Looked like we were in for bad weather along the indus River

From here the road wound its way through a scenic, steep-sided valley and we began to realise the enormity of the task ahead. At Zinchan we reached the end of the road and then had to trek 4kms on a rough track through an amazingly steep-sided river valley. The scenery was very impressive and at this altitude of around 4000m we took it very slowly indeed.

The start of the Rumbak Gorge

Here's the horses carrying our camping gear & luggage

This is a view of the other side of the Rumbak Gorge

We made it to the camp around midday and found out that the 4 of us would have to share as there were only 2 tents, despite prior requests for us to have a tent each! I was not very happy at all..!! But there was nothing for it but to get on with it as we were in such an isolated location. Lunch was great and then we began scanning from the small meadow above camp. 

Here's the view all around us from our scanning place

Realisation set in as we now knew how practically near-impossible it is to find a Snow Leopard. We had a vast area of stark, grey mountains, slopes, scree etc to scan all around us. The weather was getting warmer this afternoon, despite having had snow, sleet and rain on the walk up the valley. So we scanned, and scanned, and scanned. But no Leopards. We did get Golden Eagle and Lammergeier, Red-billed & Alpine Choughs, Blue Whistling-Thrush and 3 Himalayan Snowcocks found by Pete.

It's starting to get colder...

Once the sun had dipped below the mountain tops the temperature dropped dramatically and we quickly donned our fleeces! Oh boy, I’m not looking forward to tonight..!

Snow Leopard Expedition Day 3

Flew at 9am to Leh and what a spectacular flight. On arrival we met our local guide Ganesh and went to the Lotus Hotel, which turned out to be a very nice, cosy hotel. We talked about the tour programme and decided on having 7 nights in Hemis National Park and 2 nights at Tso Kar. Must admit i'm disappointed to find out we haven't been able to arrange a professional Leopard tracker like everybody else gets - apparently there are none available, despite us being the only group going there right now! So that doesn't bode well!!!! Anyway, whilst talking in the garden a Mountain Chiffchaff appeared in the flower bed next to us – LIFER! 

A typical house in Leh

We then had a nice siesta after lunch before taking a walk around the town. It’s important to rest upon arrival here as its 3500m and you need to acclimatise by taking it easy, but we had itchy feet! We didn’t see much really apart from Masked Wagtail (very common here), Cinereous Tit, Common Magpie etc.

Snow Leopard Expedition Days 1 - 2

Met up with David, Pete, Graham at Heathrow for the 8 hour direct Virgin Atlantic flight to Delhi and the start of our Snow Leopard expedition. It’s been a hectic build-up and it’s definitely not something to take lightly. I mean, the idea of camping at around 3500m – 4500m for 9 nights is definitely going to be testing for me, but I’m in love with the adventure of it all and the excitement of looking for Snow Leopard is overpowering. But whatever happens it will definitely be easier camping at this time of year than in the peak period of Feb/March when temperatures can drop down to -25 degrees Celsius and you've got 3 feet of snow. Although it’s meant to be easier to track them then and heavy snowfall pushes the Leopards and their prey lower down the mountains – so it might mean we have to trek higher! I’ve been looking at maximum and minimum temperatures currently around the town of Leh in Ladakh leading up to the kick-off and reports differ wildly. Some websites give it up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit dropping to 50 degrees overnight, whilst others range from 60 degrees down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and others have it dropping down to freezing point. I’m just thinking that our camp is 500m higher than Leh, so it’s going to be cooler than the reported Leh temperatures. Anyway, I have just received news that a group of Swedish guys have had 3 sightings of Snow Leopard last week, which is very encouraging.

So we arrive on 20^th September (my birthday) at around 11am and quickly drop our bags into the nearby Shanti Palace Hotel and then drive to a nice little wetland. We want to see Bristled Grassbird here but upon reaching the correct habitat of tall grassland there’s nothing calling at all, which isn’t very surprising considering its 90 degrees and very humid! But there’s plenty of other birds around such as Western Osprey, Black-necked Stork, Black-headed Ibis, Purple Heron, along with some recently returning wintering birds such as Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Black Redstart and Garganey. Plus Eurasian Cuckoo and 3+ Pied Cuckoos.

Eventually, our persistence is rewarded when a grassbird is located bringing food to a nest hidden somewhere near the base of a small bush in the grassland. So we watch an adult Bristled Grassbird for some time going to and fro across the grassland, noting its thick, long tail and very thick bill. Pete & Graham also seemed pretty pleased with the close views of Red Avadavat and Indian Silverbill nearby as well. But by now I was feeling extremely overheated and maybe suffering mild sunstroke so was very happy to get back to the air-conditioned vehicle. But it took nearly 2 hours to get back to the hotel due to the crazy Delhi traffic and upon arrival I met up with Mohit & Iqbal from Asian Adventures who had brought along a birthday cake – a nice touch and very tasty! Thanks guys.

Sichuan June 2016

Well it's been a while since i've uploaded anything to my blog but been having a great summer and preparing lots of new tours for 2017/18. Anyway, here's a few photos from the first half of our last Sichuan tour in June this year. We've still a few spaces left on next year's tour, go to: http://www.zootherabirding.com/sichuan-birding-tour-2017.html

As always the scenery is stunning - this is magical Balangshan

Brandt's Mountain-Finch

Crimson-browed Finch - cracker!

Himalayan Rubythroat

Grandala

Golden Bush Robin

Firethroat

Red-fronted Rosefinch

Rufous-tailed Babbler (Moupinia)

Sharpe's Rosefinch