India July - August 2011, Srinagar

We left Ladakh by the only other motorable road. This road leads through the Zanskar area, which is just as marvellous as the previous valleys we visited, and leads in the end to the capital of Kashmir: Srinagar. We spent a couple of days in this disputed area, but remained unfortunately only inside the city. The lake in the city, on which one can sleep in boats (quite expensive though), offers fairly decent birding and we enjoyed our stay there.

Birds observed on the lake included many Indian Pond, Black-crowned Night, Little, Cattle and Great Egret, Common, Pied and White-throated Kingfisher, Black, White-winged and Whiskered Tern, Citrine Wagtail and Clamorous Reed Warbler. The biggest surprise however was a 1kj Red-headed Bunting male in between a dozen of House Sparrows. The yellow rump was seen well and it also had a red-brown hue on the head, excluding Black-headed Bunting.

1kj male Red-headed Bunting (Emberiza bruniceps). Note the reddish hue on the head and the still very fresh plumage.

Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)

White-throated Kingfisher (Halcyon Smyrnensis)

Pied Kingfishers (Ceryle rudis)

I hope I can come back to this disputed area to try for the three endemics. I regret I did not have time to search for them during this trip, so I highly recommend that people visiting Ladakh, don´t forget to give Kashmir a try, because the people here are very nice and we had no problem at all during our stay and the birds here included some endemic and mythical species! The best trip would be of course to start in the Great Himalayan National park for Western Tragopan and Cheer Pheasant, than go to Ladakh and finish in Kashmir with an Orange Bullfinch. We keep dreaming!

India July - August 2011, Khardung La and Nubra Valley

Khardung La is one of the (often falsely claimed as the) highest motorable passes in the world. The highest point of the pass is above 5.600 MASL. We wanted to check the pass out and combined it with the stunning Nubra Valley, that lies behind. We did both by bicycle, however, if you want to so you need a van to take you up to the pass, unless you are extremely fit (ascending from 3.500 to 5.600 is no joke) and so we did and it was extremely enjoyable.

Besides the scenery we also enjoyed some decent birds, especially on Khardung La. Goodies included Tibetan Snowcock (up to a meter next to the van) and a female Grandala (Unfortunately no male). Other birds which were also observed on other high altitude passes included White-winged (or Gueldenstaedt´s) Redstart and Horned Lark (ssp. longirostris). Around the pass we also observed several groups of Wild Yaks.

 A crappy record shot of a Tibetan Snowcock (Tetraogallus tibetanus), but a reasonable picture when considering it was taken with a 55 mm lens. Yes, we were close!

In the Nubra Valley we did not do much birding, but some interesting birds were still observed like Hume´s Whitethroat, Common Rosefinch and Chukar. I think there are good birding spots in this area, for BirdQuest also visits this area, but none were known to me at that time, so better research might yield better species.

Common Rosefinch (Carpodacus erythrinus)

India July - August 2011, Tso Kar

After doing some research I found out that Tso Kar, one of the three largest lakes in Ladakh, might yield some very good species. Local people confirmed this, so we tried to set out to this site. This is a very remote site and we therefore tried to find other backpackers to join in, but since Pangon Tso is much more popular with the "normal" tourists we failed to find anybody wo was interested. In the end we had to rent a van for two days for the price of roughly $100. The price is this high, because it takes four to five hours to get there and the worlds second highest pass is on the route, making it not the easiest way to drive.

We birded the area for an afternoon and a morning and this yielded some stunning and rarely seen species including the rare Black-necked Crane and the seldom-seen Tibetan Sandgrouse, which turned out to be rather common here! Other species included Ruddy Shelduck, Brown-headed Gull, Upland Buzzard, Lesser Sand Plover (in breeding plumage and performing the famous broken-wing strategy to distract me from its nest!), Hume´s Lark, Spotted Great Rosefinch (split from Great Rosefinch in the Caucasus)  and Hoopoe.Tibetan Snowfinch and Tibetan Wagtail were surprisingly common. Waders were also common with Red-wattled Lapwing, Common Redshank, Green Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper and Temminck´s Stint amongst others. Apparently Groundpecker can also be seen in the area, but we did not find them unfortunately. We however did see some very large larks flying in the distance, but the were to far away to indentify them. This site is also an interesting site for mammals. Kiang, or Tibetan Wild Ass, is common in the area. The site is apparently also good for Grey Wolves.

A pair of Black-necked Cranes (Grus nigricollis) with a single chick

Male and female Tibetan Sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes tibetanus)

Tibetan Sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes tibetanus) in flight

Lesser Sand Plover (Charadrius mongolus)

Male Spotted Great Rosefinch (Carpodacus severtzovi)

Kiang (Equus kiang)

This site is truly spectacular. The numbers and the tameness of the Tibetan Sandgrouse alone make this place worth visiting. Beside that a lot of other good birds and mammals can be seen here. However when visiting this site, be prepared to either camp out or sleep in a very basic hut, which, in my opinion, makes the entire experience even better.

A swamp and lake lined by 7.000+ mountains, what more does a man want? (picture taken by Guido Bonthond)

India July - August 2011, Hemis National Park

Once in Leh we set out to do a multiple day trek into Hemis National Park to enjoy the vastness of the Ladakhi area. We decided to do a trek through the Rumbak area. This is a four to five day trek, but managed to this trek in three days although this required a considerable amount effort. At first we wanted to do the eight days Marka Valley Trek, but we did not have enough time to do this. We skipped the first day of the trek, by taking a taxi into the mountains, for the first day of trekking goes from Leh to the first village inside the national park and during that first day the area that you pass through is rather dull and not very interesting birding wise. The same goes for the way back to Leh at the end of the trek. Once you exit the National Park, the scenery is still stunning, but the trekking is not as nice, so we hitched a ride back to Leh.

During the three days of hiking we enjoyed a lot of good birds and mammals as well as absolutely breathtaking scenery and amiable Ladakhi locals. Birds observed during those days in the Hemis area included Himalayan Snowcock, Himalayan Griffon,Golden Eagle, Lammergeier, Wallcreeper, Chukar, Robin Accentor, Brown Accentor, Alpine Accentor, Asian House Martin, Grey-backed Shrike, Tickells Leaf Warbler, Plain Mountain Finch and Streaked Rosefinch. During second and last day of the trek we also passed through some areas that looked pretty good for Himalayan Rubythroat and White-browed Tit-warbler, but we had no succes in finding these superb birds.

Plain Mountain Finch (Leucosticte nemoricola)

Robin Accentor (Prunella rubeculoides)

Female Wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria)

Male Streaked Rosefinch (Carpodacus rubicilloides)

Part of a group of Himalayan Snowcocks (Tetraogallus himalayensis)

Brown Accentor (Prunella fulvescens)

Tickell´s Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus affinis) of the newly described perflavus subspecies

Mammals observed here included real (!) Wild Yaks, Blue Sheep, Himalayan Marmot and Ladakh Pika. This is also the best place in the world to look for Snow Leopards and even BirdQuest has started to organise tours to this area to see this incredible creature. We looked for three days for this species, but according to the locals the Snow Leopards can only be found above 5.000 MASL during the Arctic Summer, so the best time to go would be in September or October, when the mountain peaks are starting to become colder. Even though, during our second night in the area we heard a large cat attacking cows in a local village at night. So it must have been either a Snow Leopard or a Lynx, Lynxes are apparently much rarer in this area..

Blue Sheep (Pseudois nayaur)

Himalayan Marmot (Marmota himalayana)

This area is absolutely one of my favorite places on earth. It is wild, remote, full of life if you know where to look, barely populated and the people that do live here are incredibly nice. So when visiting the Ladakhi area a trek through the Hemis national park should be considered as a must!

Trekking in Hemis is not always easy, but the scenery never disappoints!