As we ran in the rain to check out tents, we found out that the 1234 car had another birding party in it with Lobsang leading it. And remember the angrez in the tent above at Lama Camp? They turned out to be a birding party led by none other than Craig Robson of Grimmet Inskipp Babbler page fame. Out of sheer respect we maintained our distance the first evening (first being the operative word) while Shashank had we believe deep birding discussions with him. He found out what Craig and his group had seen, what they planned to do the next day and so forth. Lobsang's party turned out to be a quiet couple who seemed taken aback by our group's gregariousness initially. Dinner time was early with Lobsang's guests' table being laid first, followed by Craig's party food being served in their dining hall, followed by our dinner being put on table for self service. A pattern that was to follow for next two day. In fact on one occasion we were informed that they had run out of bananas for breakfast when they served us pancakes but later we saw 'leftover bananas' appearing from another serving. I do not know what will it take for our service industry to understand that all guests are to be treated equal!
That aside, Bompu turned out to be rockstar place. We began the day with a short walk down the hill before breakfast in search for Sikkim Wedge Billed Babbler that managed to elude us. 'Taped out' was Shashank's conclusion. After breakfast we headed in another direction towards Sessni which literally means Nettles. What a ride it turned out to be. First big sighting turned out to be Mountain Tailorbird and then we learnt another term - Tape Virgin - a bird that does not respond to playback, this we learnt as Shashank spotted a Streaked Spider Hunter. Helpfully we added our term Tape Frigid - bird that responds to playback initially but later decides enough is enough and goes silent!
So here's what we saw - Scarlet Finch, Fire Breasted Flowerpecker, Orange bellied leafbird, White Breasted Parrot Bills, Sultant Tit, Rufous Backed Sibia, Silver eared Leothrix, Blue winged Minla, Golden babbler, Slaty Belied Tesia, Barred Cuckoo Dove. Ashy Drongo and Himalayan Swiflets abound as did Great and Golden Throated Barbets. yellow trotted Fulvettas kept us interested and Barred Cuckoo dove played hide and seek with us as we learnt to use geometry for bird spotting. Bharati "look through the circle that I am making with my hand, right in the centre, the dove is sitting", later the circle became triangle, quadrilateral and even a cylinder to spot birds. Soma wanted to know when someone referred to 3 o clock or 11 o clock whose clock was it? Sated and full of laughter we came back to camp. However as is wont to be it was not the end of the day as we thought we'd give the Wedge Billed Babbler another dekko. It turned out to be the best decision for us. 4 great birds in about an hour - Blue Fronted Robin - right in the middle of the road, Large Niltava - hopping around giving good views, Steak Throated Barwing, and Coral Billed Scimitar Babblers made us miserable by not giving us full views.
The evening was by no means over as we decided to gherao Craig for an autograph and what Sanjay described as a squiggly in our books and notebooks. He of course had no idea that he had such a big fan club. Encircled he gave in graciously and even consented to a selfie. Soma who was resting felt completely left out and sent Sanjay on a mission to get her book autographed and next day walked across to him and met him in person. Rofl - that's the reaction I have every time I recall what followed, but reasons for laughter shall remain between the B7.
We ended the day with Soup, Noodles and Momo dinner, followed by the usual entertainment of 'scare Vineeta by making cat noises and scratching her tent' and late night laughter and giggles as we recounted our sightings of the day.
Next day was even better as we decided to descend to Khellong. Shashank resorted to his reference to the mystery bird and all us started guessing at the type of bird that it might be. Given that very few birders had seen the bird including Shashsank who had his last sighting almost 5 years ago added to our excitement.
But before all that, the most important matter of Food must be addressed. Rule one, instructions for food must be given clearly by one person alone, two, only one instruction shall be give, three in the eventuality of more than one instruction only the last one shall be followed! So we informed that we needed packed lunch. So far so good, then they said that we will pack dal chawal, then Sanjay made his usual demand 'boss anda curry milega kya' they responded of course and promptly forgot all about the dal chawal mentioned earlier! For two days they had been serving vegetarian/vegan food to us but quite obviously it had made no impact on their memory, so when we opened our lunch box, we only had Anda and aloo curry rice! We were able to get through it because a Black throated Sunbird and a Peacock Butterfly kept us engaged.
Now back to birding. As we set off for Khellong, apart from the mystery bird, Wedge Billed babbler, white browed wren babbler were initially at the top of the list. And so we learnt that some birds are what Soma called them were "One man Bird" to be seen by one man only, which our case was Shashank. Though he tried his level best and we sang Heeemes Reshamiya song Jhalak Dikhlaja time and again, the bird gave darshan to Shashank alone. We learnt that playbacks caused huge amounts of stress to birds as some go completely craze trying to locate where the call is coming from - Nepal Fulvettas being a case in point. Therefore we reached a conclusion that playback would not be our mode for bird spotting. Only is extreme cases would be resort to playbacks. So on that and following days were spent patiently waiting for birds to show up.
Another important thing we learnt was that birding is infectious. One of our drivers - Manoj had taken up to whistling tunelessly trying to imitate birds. It was amazing to see him point out stuff to us. Just beyond the haathi nala while we were trying to photograph a white browed fan tail, he told Shashank "age ek chidiya hai myna se badi air uski poonch safed hai" Dismissing the input Shashank and Bharati moved ahead. Suddenly Shashank jumped out of his skin in excitement and started waving and whistling frantically to us. As we ran to catch up with him, the 'myna se badi' chidiya turned out to be Rufous Necked Hornbill! It had white eyelashes! and what a sighting it was. We had our fill of watching it, photographing it. Further ahead, a couple of more hornbills flew overhead and Manoj was all for chasing them till we found their perch. A pair of Minivets attracted our attention which turned out to be Grey Chinned Minivets. A Speckled Peculate played more hide than seek with us.
At the Beautiful Nuthatch point, while some of us managed to see them a long tailed Sibia kept us occupied as we craned our necks to get a better look. Orange Bellied Leafbird males gave us an insight into their fighting skills as they chased each other while a solitary female looked on uninterestedly. Later, our levels of interest were perked up as Shashank silenced us and asked us to concentrate on a bird song. That he said is my mystery bird - a Large Blue Flycatcher. Singing amongst the bamboo thicket or baans ka jhurmut as I would like to call it, it gave first brief glimpse then full views to all of us, but alas no photographs. and what was our first reaction? We called Atul! lol! made him listen to bird as we all contributed to the conversation as the bird came back and Atul realised that no one was listening to what he had to say. A few brave ones decided to descend into the thicket to get a photo but the bird did not oblige. But what a fabulous sighting!
As we motored further down, Radhika spotted a Rudraksha Tree and everyone wanted to see it. We were informed that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had taken this route when he had fled from Tibet and rumour had it that he had planted the very same tree. Doubly enthused, we reached the spot. As it started raining a whole bunch of Streaked Spiderhunters danced in the tree behind the Rudraksha tree. We were blessed to be in the spot where His Holiness had supposedly planted the tree upside down and yet it grew. Of course it called for a selfie!
Now with raining pouring we headed back. We of course had thought that the birding was over. Of course not! The rain brought out wonderful lifers on the road. the first one to appear was a White Bellied Redstart and then a Red Headed Trogon who was sitting right in the middle of the road took off. What a great way to end the day.
Did I say end the day? Soma who was in the car behind us was not happy at missing these birds and decided to take a walk after we reached the camp. Her persistence paid off and she saw her fabled Sikkim Wedge Billed babbler. Then Shashank announced that he intended to scale a mountain next morning starting at 3 AM to look for Blyth's Tragopan! and guess what he got not one but 3 volunteers to join him. More about their adventures next time.
Evening entertainment was looking over photos, comparing notes, making the bird list and imitating some personalities. Initially Shashank stayed aloof. Intrigued by our laughter he finally asked "yeh Nigella kaun hai" What? you don't know who Nigella Lawson is? We promised him great views when we reached a place where network was good. In the meantime he had to make do with local Nigella! With further meows and tent scratching now the day had truly ended.
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