Birding Trip Report Kashmir
Date July 2017
By Deepak Kumar – Naturalist & Guide Asian Adventures
Day- 1: Delhi – Jammu – Srinagar
I took an overnight train from Delhi to Jammu in the morning. From there I proceed towards Srinagar via sharing Innova in which I made some good friends. I arrived at Ibrahim houseboat at 5 pm.
Overnight stay at Ibrahim Houseboat.
Day- 2: Srinagar
Today after sunrise at 6 am I left for a full day birding tour in the forest near Shankaracharya Temple and returned back to my houseboat by 7 pm.
Overnight stay at Ibrahim Houseboat.
Day- 3: Srinagar
Today at 7:30 AM I reached the airport to receive guests and escorted them to the houseboat where they took a rest for a while. After having lunch, we embarked on a half-day birding tour to Dachigam National Park. During the tour, we spotted many beautiful birds such as Chestnut-eared Bunting, Spotted Forktail, Brown-flanked bush warbler, Hangul, and a lot of Jackdaw birds. We return back to our houseboat in the evening with loads of photographs that day.
Overnight stay at Ibrahim Houseboat.
Day- 4: Srinagar – Gulmarg – Srinagar
Today we continued our birding trip to Gulmarg and left our houseboat around 5 AM. The weather of Gulmarg was cloudy but luckily we were able to sight spot-winged tit, Coal tit, Rufous-naped tit, Fire-capped tit, Himalayan Woodpecker, and Brown fronted woodpecker. After a long drive of 10 km, we reached Army Tower and began looking for our targets but couldn’t find any of them till lunch. Finally, after some time we tracked our first target Tytler’s leaf warbler followed by Kashmir Nutcracker which we saw after a small hiatus. We completed 2 targets at Gulmarg and returned back to our houseboat.
Overnight stay at Ibrahim houseboat
Day- 5: Srinagar – Sonmarg – Srinagar
We commenced our birding trip early in the morning and left our houseboat at 5 AM but due to Amarnath Yatra, we had to stop at a few places for a while. After driving for 2 and half hours we reached Sonmarg and started looking for our targets. European goldfinch, Fire-fronted Serin, Pink browned rose Finch, Rock Bunting, White-capped Redstart, Plumbeous Water Redstart, Brown Dipper, Kashmir Flycatcher, Himalayan Woodpecker, Brown-fronted Woodpecker, Golden eagle are some birds we encountered here. Due to safety reasons, we had to leave Sonmarg a bit early around 2 pm. By evening we reached Srinagar, it was amusing to see Whiskered tern, Common kingfisher, and lots of black-eared kites around our houseboat.
Overnight stay at Ibrahim Houseboat
Day-6: Srinagar – Gulmarg – Srinagar
Today we left for Gulmarg again at 5 am, unlike earlier the weather was nice and clear, as we arrived we completed our targets starting with Kashmir nuthatch followed by white chick nuthatch, near and a big flock of Long-tailed Minivet. As we were doing our lunch suddenly the weather got cloudy and started to rain. We waited for some time enjoying tea and Maggie. Around 3 PM as the rain stopped we resumed our birding immediately. We saw Greenish warbler, Tytler’s leaf warbler, and Brown-flanked bush warbler, we also saw Eurasian hobby male and female and finally, we ended our trip by sighting the much sought Kashmir Nutcracker along with Kashmir nuthatch sitting on two different trees at the place. Then we returned back to our houseboat.
Overnight stay at Ibrahim Houseboat
Day- 7:
Today is the last day of our trip we checked out from Ibrahim Houseboat. I escorted the guests to the airport and then I proceeded on the onward journey to Delhi.
This trip was full of adventures and never forgetting memories. And especially I can’t forget the hospitality which houseboat offered to me.
Latest Travelogue
birding_in_bharatpur
A Confluence of Birding and Culture