05/05/2024
Us, birders, have got used to most birds being relatively easy to find, particularly so in recent years, for a number of reasons: more information on exact sites (ebird, etc...) and easy to download calls (xenocanto) available, more stake outs known, more feeders, more very knowledgeable local guides, more roads reaching formerly difficult to access sites, and so on.
Not only that, but actually a lot ot birders, including both tour participants and tour leaders, and especially so younger generation birders, nowadays more or less expect (note I mention "expect", and not just "hope"), to see just about every bird, even the most difficult ones, quickly and with as less physical effort as possible. Which I can't criticize, of course, because I also take advantage of it as a guide. And yes, before you ask me...I also prefer a warm hotel room over a cold and wet tent anytime, and an easy walk rather than a strenuous hike! Thanks to these advances, people can enjoy many birds that they couldn't even dream about just a few years ago. Which also has a positive effect on conservation and raises more general awareness, which is good for the birds and good for the environment.
Having said that, I think you will all agree that all of the above, together with the new "tools" such as AI voice and visual bird identification apps, etc...is making us birders as a whole more and more lazy, and possibly less skilled and knowledgeable, and not the opposite as it should be the case given all of the resources available. Although It might sound like a cliché, the reality is that the more you have to "work" for a bird (i.e: many hours or days or even years searching for it, especially in adverse weather conditions, major physical effort involved, plenty of research in order to know more about its habits, previous failed attempts, etc.., as well as the time put in identifying it), the better and more rewarding it will feel, and the more you will always remember it. So it's not really about it being the rarest bird on Earth, or about very few people having seen it before, but more of a personal thing and how challenging it was, at least to me. Each birder will have very different “special", unforgettable birds, for various reasons, although of course every single bird is special, and these might vary a lot between birders.
Anyway.... I've always been fascinated by tragopans, probably as a result of seeing an illustration of a displaying bird in a book I had when I was very little. Amongst the 5 world´s species, one definitely stands out: the mighty Western Tragopan. Restricted to high elevation and difficult to reach forests in the western Himalayas, it's a bird I had always dreamt with seeing, especially so after seeing a really stunning photo my friend Yann Muzika took some years ago in the Great Himalayan NP, Himachal Pradesh, India. This national park holds the only 3 valleys in the world where nowadays one can have a realistic chance to see it. I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to go there, although I played with the idea several times. Then it all changed last year, when my friends János Oláh, Bjorn Anderson and top indian guide Shashank Dalvi posted some truly stunning photos of the bird, although they admitted it was very hard work. And that actually set the ball rolling. I was determined to see it, and a good friend who was with me at the time, Jan Hillman, asked me to put a custom tour together for Ornis Birding Expeditions. Knowing I would be leading 2 tours in Nepal and then NE India during April 2024, I thought we could arrange it afterwards, during the last couple of days of April and the first week of May. That was supposed to be a good time of the year for them: most males would already be paired, and thus not calling as much as earlier in April, but the chances would still be good. So in no time the trip was organized, and finnish top birder Mika Ohtonen decided to join us too.
Nepal delivered incredible views of male Satyr Tragopan, while NE India produced fantastic views too of both Blyth´s and Temminck´s, thanks to Rofikul Islam. However, I knew Western was going to be a different matter. So after so much time dreaming with this trip, we finally landed in Chandigarh on the 28th of April, together with our Indian guide Dhanish. The forecast for the next few days was not promising, at all, with an orange alert (!!) for the area forecasting major rains and snowfall due to a weather system coming from the west. Not ideal conditions, but what can you do...We then drove for around 7 hours to the base of Tirthan valley, which would be the area where we would be searching for the ultimate chicken. We had a short, but very good nights sleep, at a fantastic accommodation by the river, and were awaken by singing Western Crowned Warblers under gloomy skies. We then drove for a short distance and met with our team of 10 porters and our excellent local guide, Shyam Lal, as well as his dad, Dhnai Ram, who at 63 was much fitter than all of us! After organizing everything, we started hiking at around 10 in the morning. Due to a cancelled morning flight the previous day, we were almost a day behind schedule, so the plan was to try to do the entire hike in one go. It would be strenuous, climbing almost 1800 m of altitudinal height, but we thought we could manage. The first bit was quite easy and nice, but unfortunately by the time we reached the first camp, Rolla, the heavens opened. Pouring rain and a heavy thunderstorm meant we wouldn't be able to do the very steep second part of the hike that day. The rain and thunder never stopped until well past midnight, so we were all damp and wet, although a fire made by our porters was most welcome. Very little birding could be done around the camp due to the weather, but a pair of Long-billed Thrushes found with the thermal by Mika, quietly feeding near the river, were a great bonus. Nepal Cupwing was heard, but wouldn't come out in such adverse weather, while a female Kalij Pheasant was found sheltering from the rain. We hit the sacks after a nice dinner and hoped for better weather.... At 03:00 we woke up and started hiking again, under an amazing sky full of stars and a bright moon, hoping to reach the first tragopan area right after dawn. I packed my camera in my heavy rucksack, as I knew it was going to be a very tough climb, but as expected, 10 minutes after leaving the camp, we spotted a fantastic Leopard Cat sitting on a rock just by the trail! I managed to get the camera out in time to snap some shots before it walked away... what a great start! We then carried on, and tackled the very steep slope for the next 4 hours. It was a brutal climb, gaining around 1000 m in just over 3 km. By dawn, we started hearing roding Woodcocks and multiple Koklass Pheasants and Himalayan Monals, and managed to see a few. However, we didn't want to lose time, as we wanted to reach the second camp early enough. We made several stops to catch our breath, and the views were simply sensational. Pristine forests and high mountains all over, in perfect weather too! By around 7 am we had almost reached the second camp, "Shilt", when we heard a tragopan calling. Wow, that was quick! (little did we know...). We walked on a narrow trail towards the source of the call, positioned ourselves and after a short wait, I found the bird, which had come in quietly. However... it was a young, female-like, male, not the regal male we were hoping. Quite disappointing! Mika saw it well but Jan couldn't get on it, and after a few seconds the bird disappeared. We waited for a while but it never came back. Well, not bad, of course, but not what we had came here for...We finally made it to the camp, where our cook prepared a delicious and badly needed breakfast for us, while watching an Alpine Thrush, a smart Ultramarine Flycatcher and a pair of White-throated Needletails. We rested for a bit and afterwards we decided to walk all the way to the last camp, still a couple of hours away, as that was supposed to be the very best area for the tragopans. With our hopes very high, we reached our final base, where the scenic views just outside of our tents were simply breathtaking. And not forgetting the pair of rare White-throated Bushtits nesting next to our meal table... The afternoon was spent trying various spots and gulleys which were supposed to be good, but we didn't even hear a tragopan.
So for the next 3 days we worked very, very hard, waiting with our camouflage nets at favoured areas still in the dark, well before dawn, hoping for a male to call or walk in, to no avail. We hiked up and down, put all the time and effort, without giving up, and tried every possible good place, but no luck. James Eaton, Shashank, Lieven De Temmerman and Yann all offered invaluable help and shared the spots where they had seen them a few years ago (yes, believe ir or not, I had a bit of signal in one spot near the camp!), and I am most grateful to them for that. However, no tragopans were found in spite of all of our efforts. On the second day, we had heavy snowfall, which made for a very picturesque scene with all the forest and surrounding mountains covered in a thick layer of snow. Fairytale world! The nights were very cold, and I was happy to have brought my very warm sleeping bag (thanks Janos for the tip!), but our team of porters and cook made sure we ate very nice and warm food every day, which sure helped. The afternoon when it was snowing we finally heard some tragopan calls from uphill, but in spite of waiting for almost 2 hours at the same spot, almost freezing to death while it snowed incessantly, no birds were seen. Then the next morning we tried at the same spot. After a while a female actually flew in (!), but landed behind us and just out of sight, not to reappear after 2 hours. We carried on searching and combing the whole area, climbing to some steep ridges, and even getting a bit lost (don't ask...), but not even tragopan feathers or droppings could be found. Gun shots were heard a few times during the course of our stay, we found the remains of two monals which were most likely shot, and we also came across a couple of local hunters who supposedly have killed tragopans recently. So even here within the national park illegal hunting seems to be a real problem, and possibly the reason behind the lack of tragopan males in areas where they had been quite easy to find just five years ago. By the evening of our third full day up in the upper camp we were beginning to feel very frustrated and dissapointed, thinking we were not going to see any males. A Nepal Cupwing showed very well at 3150 m - very high for the species -, while other nice birds such as White-cheeked Nuthatch, Collared Grosbeak or Variegated Laughingthrush, although no Spectacled Finch, were seen amidst some spectacular scenery, but not our target... Not really being sure what else to do, our senior guide Dhnai and his son Shyam, both very skilled and helpful, suggested to try at the bottom of the very steep valley below our camp, given one bird had been heard in the distance briefly the previous evening. They checked the area and found a suitable spot, and mentioned they had even flushed a bird, so as our last shot, we decided to trust them. We hiked down a very tricky slope, falling a few times, in the dark, next morning, and hoped for the best. And as soon as we reached the area, a tragopan was heard close by! I tried to assess the place in the semi darkness, thinking of the best spot to sit down with our camouflage nets, and placed Jan and Mika. Once we sat down I realized some good small clearings where the bird could walk by were a bit obscured, so I decided to change seating location even if that meant scaring the bird... We finally sat down at what seemed to be a very promising place, partly concealed by a tree trunk, and waited... It started getting light, but the tragopan wasn't calling anymore. We then heard it quite distantly, and I thought our chance was gone... But patience and not losing hope is the key, and after perhaps 15 minutes of a very tense wait a stonking, monster of a male Western Tragopan appeared from the bamboo on the right, and slowly walked through the hoped-for clearing just below us, for a good couple of minutes, allowing for some absolutely mindblowing views. The intrincate body plumage with its fine spots and the stunning head and neck pattern could be seen very well. Wow, we couldn't believe our eyes! What an unforgettable moment after all of our efforts, and what a truly incredible and special bird!! Almost in tears, we decided to wait a bit more. The bird ended up calling from a branch, partly hidden, before it walked out of sight, and then after maybe 45 minutes another male crossed the clearing, a bit further down. This time, perhaps as a result of more light inside the forest, this individual seemed very shy, in spite of our camouflage gear, and ran away pretty quickly. It seemed clear that these were two different unpaired males. To confirm our suspicions, after around half an hour we started hearing some low grunting noises which we thought were coming from the tragopans, as well as broken branches. And then at the bottom of the clearing we briefly saw the reason: the 2 males had found each other and were putting on a serious fight and also displaying to each other, with the wattles hanging down and quickly moving the wings, which produced some odd sounds. They were mostly obscured by the bamboo, but the whole visual and audio experience, in such an amazing forest, while monal calls echoed through the trees, was magical, and one none of us will ever forget. Beyond happy, thanking again our local guides for their efforts, we started hiking down, finding Himalayan Langurs, Leopard s**t in the ridge and a few birds under fabulous weather. Our team of porters caught up with us, and prepared a very nice breakfast, which for me included 4 fried eggs and crepes with local honey that tasted like glory! After a few hours, seeing Little Forktail and Brown-fronted Woodpecker, we finally made it back to the road, and drove back to our hotel, where a badly needed hot shower awaited. And, to finish off, the next morning we were treated to wonderful views of a pair of Cheer Pheasants.
So, all in all, I can say that Western Tragopan has been the most challenging bird I've ever seen, and the one I've put more effort for. I knew it would be difficult, but never thought this much... However, it feels good to have worked so hard and this is a reminder of how hard work usually pays off, as long as you don't give up! Although I have several closer photos, this one, not cropped at all, showing the bird in its fantastic habitat with huge fallen tree trunks covered with moss on the forest floor, is my favourite, and it definitely means a lot to me! I hope you like it.
I am heading back home today after 30 days away and 3 back to back tours, but... should I make a quick detour on the way to see Cabott´s Tragopan to make it a 5 (all of the world´s) tragopan trip? :)
And again, big thanks to everyone I mentioned above for their help and efforts, I truly appreciate it, and, above all, to the local community and local guides, as well as the tragopans, of course, which I hope can survive for long in this valley.
