The land of passes is one region which is not for the faint hearted. The high altitude landscape can effect even the fittest of us. This beautiful Himalayan region is situated at a minimum elevation of 3000m.
In the summer of 2018, we decided to take a short 10 day trip to see the birds and wildlife of the region. We landed in Leh around 10am on the 19th from Delhi . One tip for this trip would be definitely pre book your seats and pay extra for the window, you won't miss out. This is one flight that you definitely would want the window as the view when you come into Leh is incredible. Unfortunately we didn't book our seats and couldn't look out properly.
The moment you land you will immediately feel the effects of the atmosphere. It is not recommend to over exert oneself on the first day, so after we got to the hotel we meet up with our guides and rested in the hotel. In the evening we took a small trip to the market.
The market was a typical market you would find in many himalayan foothill towns such as Shimla, Mussoorie and elsewhere.
Day 2
The next day we still were in acclimation mode and so decided to only go birding in the nearby Hemis National Park. This is one park that we have been wanting to go for a while and is known for it's Snow Leopard sightings in the winter.
Hemis is also very popular with foreign and local hikers who usually hike for days on end in Hemis. Some even hike from Hemis to Spiti valley in Himachal. While in Hemis we saw a few high altitude bird species including Eurasian Magpie, Red Fronted Serin, Chukar , Blue Whistling Thrush and Upland Buzzards. Of this, the only shots I got were of the Eurasian Magpie and Chukar. The Chukars were having around in the open air stables of the horses and mules which are used by the hikers .
We were still tired from the altitude change and we did not spend too long here.
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| Eurasian Magpie |
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| Chukar |
We went to the monastery but didn't explore as again, we were still acclimatising to the altitude. We didn't; want to risk over exerting ourselves as the monastery was built on a hill and has many steps within.
Day 3
The third day was the day our journey truly began. We set off for Pangong Tso early in the morning around 6am to avoid the military convoys later on. We would be stopping along the path so we factored this into to our early start.
We left for pangong via Chang La, one of the highest motarable roads in the world. It is up there in the top along with Tanglang La and Khardung La. These three passes are very close to each other in terms of hight.
On the way we stoped at multiple places, where ever we saw some wildlife. We were hoping to see Tibetan snowcocks and Tibetan partridges , but unfortunately we did not. In our opinion it wasn’t cold enough for them to appear. However we did see Chukar, woolly hares and a lifer for us a pair of white capped redstart. I got a record shot of the redstart and hope to get a better shot in the future! I made a few mistakes in picture, 1) I had to crop more then I liked, 2) I under exposed it slightly and 3) the feet are cut. But the bird is still clear nonetheless.
This was all before we reached by peak of Changla La. We reached the peak and stopped there for a while as we ate some food and let our drivers also eat. While there we saw some a few more White Winged Redstart's and Brandt's Snowfinch. We didn't stay for too long as we wanted to avoid getting stuck due to traffic. While, on the way down of Changla we did have to stop due to a covey of Shaktimans transporting our brave men back from the border. This brought back fond memories for my dad as his father, my grandfather, was a part of the Army and my dad and his siblings had to go to school in Shaktimans as there weren't really any buses at the time.
Eventually the convoy passed and we went on our way. We did not stop much after that until we reached a point near Pangong Tso where there were multiple Large Tailed Marmot dens. This species is found only in J&K in India and so we spent a good hour with them. This was a really good stop and fell in love with them.
Eventually we finally made our way to Pangong Tso. Honestly I fell in love immediately my eyes fell on it! The blue-turquoise colour of the lake is actually real! I was totally awestruck !
Day 4
We spent the morning birdwatching as well as the previous evening. Some of the most notable species we were looking for were Gulls, Grebes, Plover, Larks, Pigeons and Snow-finch's. We did get most of our target species, mainly the Horned Lark, Greater Crested Grebe, Snow Pigeons and Brandt's Snow-finch. We saw other species such as Lesser Sand Plover, Robin Accentor and Black redstarts but there photos weren't really that good. One notable shot I got was that of a Tibetan Ass. I managed it to get it with Pangong Tso in the background and that too with the sun shining as it brought out the blue colour :)!
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| Brandt's Mountain Finch |
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| Great Horned Grebe |
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| Common Tern |
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| Brown Headed Gull |
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| Snow Pigeon |
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| Horned Lark |
Honestly, this area of Ladakh is surreal. It feels like a martian planet, on one side you have barren land which resembles the surface of the moon while on the other you have this mystique blue lake. This is a sight to behold if you want end up going there. One thing to note is that other then about 2 hrs in the evening, there would be almost no electricity or connectivity. This definitely adds to the mystique ! As we wrapped up our stay in Pangong we moved on to Hanle
Day 4,5,6: Hanle
Hanle is a place which not too many Indian's know about, but it is one of our most important scientific areas. It is home to one of the worlds highest space observatory, which sits on top of Mount Saraswati. It is run by The Indian Institue of Astrophysics. Hanle has some incredible surroundings with high mountains surround a vast swath of flat land. This gave us the opportunity to see some amazing sightings of both birds and mammals.We had incredible sightings of Red Foxes. There was a den and the cubs were friendly. They would regularly be seen in the evenings when they would come out to hunt.
While watching the foxes we actually came across a track of a wolf! Hanle is known for tibetan wolfs, pale's cats and foxes and so it was exciting having the chance to see these creatures. Unfortunately we saw none of them. Some of our main targets were Upland Buzzards, Larks and Mongolian Finch's. Here were some of the photos we got from the area. We also saw the rare to see Eurasian Eagle Owl ( Grey Morph). Eurasian Eagle Owl's are rare in India and mainly found in Kashmir in India. The Grey Morph is even rarer to see. We weren't allowed to go closer and this is the best picture I could get. We are in Changtang Wildlife Sanctuary and the Forest Officials have cameras monitoring the Eurasian Eagle Owls, just to protect them from people. We got a few good images but a lot of good memories ! We stayed in padma homestay and would recommend staying in the hotel !
Day 7 : Tso Kar Tso Kar is a short trip from Hanle and we left for Tso Kar on the last Day of our stay at Hanle. Tso kar is a lake with religious importance for Buddhists. It has a small are to stay with various hotels. Tso Kar has too different lakes, one small fresh water lake and a larger salt water lake. Tso Kar is very close to the Leh- Manali Highway and is very easy to access. We had various targets here in Tso Kar and got some them but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to get everything. Some of the key species we got were the Hume's Ground Pecker, Little Owl, Blandford's Snowfinch and Tibetans SnowFinch. The first three were pretty high up on our target species list and getting each three had a unique story and would be unforgettable.
1) Hume's Ground Pecker The HGP can be found in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Nepal and China and is a very common sight to see but not so easy to photograph. We saw multiple HGP in Hanle and in Leh, but they weren't close enough to get a good photo. This sighting reversed our bad luck and we saw 6 individuals on the side of the road. These 6 individuals were coming back to the same hole in the mountain on the side of the road. At first we though it was a nest, but as we observed them for a few hours we realised it was not a nest but rather these birds were storing insects. We concluded this because at one point we saw 5 of them together going in one by one and secondly we never saw any chicks and nor was any parent protecting the nest. Because of this, these individuals were not scared and let us come close and spend hours with them. We got these ground peckers in various different backgrounds and it was literally a photoshot.
2) Little Owl Little owls are a common species of owl found all over Europe, Northern and Eastern Africa, Parts of the Gulf, Central Asia, China and Mongolia. In India and Pakistan, the little owl is only found in Khasmir and Northen Khyber Pakhtunkwa. Since Tso Kar is known for little owls, we were determined to find them. They were on the same mountain as the HGP, so while we were looking at the HGP, we kept an eye out for the Little Owl. On our last day in Tso Kar we were lucky and saw a few individuals high up near the top of the mountain. This was spotted in fact by our driver ! So we were determined to see these owls. We counted 6 individuals and we started the climb up the mountain. Unfortunately, every time we got to about 30m near the owls they would fly off, higher up the mountain. This was very challenging mainly due to the thin air. Even though i was getting tired, I still carried on. After about 1.5 hrs of climbing up slowly, one owl stopped flying off and started preening. This was a Golden opportunity and the lighting was perfect! We got to within 10m before it flew of and finally got some shots! This was an amazing climb and I think we gained roughly 500-600m in elevation over 2 km. The final image was worth it !
For reference this is what it looked like close to where we saw the owl. I took this while we were defending and for reference, the two dots on the road are our toyota innovas :)
Although we didn't see every bird we targeted, we still had a great time here. We also had food sightings of Kiand and Ladakhi Pikkas here. The birds we missed here were the Tibetan Sandgrouse and Lesser and Greater Sand Plover. Also on our way back to Leh from Tso Kar, we were on the Leh Manali Highway and passed through Tanglang La. This bird is one of the few vultures that eats bones and bone marrow. When we reached the peak we were lucky enough to see and photograph the legendary Lammergeier. This bird has unfortnuelty become extinct in most of it's range in Europe and Africa. Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Northern South Asia, Ethiopia and Lesotho are the last strong holds of these bird. I was so lucky to get a bird in flight shot of this bird showing off it's wingspan!
Lat 3 Days The last 3 days were spent in and around Leh. We where thinking of going outside but the weather outlook was not too good for birding outside Leh. We spent the next few days around Hemis and Shey Marshes. Our targets were getting some of the common Himalayan birds. Some of the birds we managed to photograph were Citrine Wagtail, Common Jackdaw, Red Fronted Serin and Chukars. We also saw Ibisbills but they were too far to photograph.
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