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RANTHAMBORE NATIONAL PARK
The Ranthambore
National Park certainly is one of the most picturesque game reserves
in the world - the entire forest being dominated by the silent, ruined
battlements of the Ranthambore Fort, which is inside the sanctuary .
Another interesting feature of the park is a huge banyan tree -
supposedly one of the world's largest - near the graceful Jogi
Mahal water palace. Incidentally, Jogi Mahal still does not
have electricity.
Covered under Project
Tiger (one of Asia's most important conservation efforts), Ranthambore
is the favorite haunt of wildlife buffs and professional wildlife
photographers from around the world. Apart from tigers, other animals
include panthers, caracal, hyena, jackal, jungle cat, marsh
crocodiles, wild boar, bears and various species of deer. The Park has
a rich birdlife as well including The Great Indian
horned owl, which has an uncanny resemblance to my boss back
home.
Base:-Sawai Madhopur
, The park is closed in the peak summer and monsoon months.
DESERT NATIONAL PARK
The vast tracts of desert sands around
Jaisalmer, with their wood fossils, have been designated the Desert
National Park. To the lay person, there may be little about the desert
that calls for 'protection', leave alone support wildlife, but the
desert has a fragile eco-system that has a unique variety of wildlife
species.
Since
the sandy desert has only a few grasses and shrubs, and a low
scattering of indigenous trees, the leaf cover is limited. This
environment supports the spiny-tail lizard that lives in underground
colonies, desert monitors that look like miniature replicas of
dragons, sandfish that 'swim' under the sand, chameleons, and of
course, snakes that include the deadly saw-scaled viper and Sind
krait. Other faunal species here include the desert hare, hedgehog,
the predatory Indian wolf, desert fox, and desert gerbil.
Visitors to this park will need patience and perseverance to establish
the sighting of wildlife, and though they may miss the 'glamour' of
tiger sightings, a view of the long-legged bustard cresting a
sand-dune is every bit as rewarding.
Base: Jaisalmer ,
A good way to view the
wildlife is camping out in the desert .
KEOLADEO GHANA NATIONAL PARK
One of the finest bird parks in the world, Keoladeo Ghana National Park is a reserve that offers protection to
faunal species as well, though there is no doubt that this is
primarily a bird sanctuary. The most famous of these winter migrants
is the greatly endangered Siberian crane though its numbers have
reduced drastically from a few hundreds a few decades ago to barely a
few birds now.
Here
the visitors can observe bird life from closer quarters in boats.
Early mornings, there ins not just birdsong in the air, but a virtual
orchestra of sounds. The entire park is a medley of sounds, fluttering
wings, and a great to-do about hunting for fish, aquatic roots and
other insects as spoonbills and ibises, geese and ducks, cranes,
herons and egrets, storks, pelicans and flamingos, cormorants and
darters, kingfishers, blue jays, shrikes, orioles, parsadise
flycatchers, parakeets, eagles and harriers take wing, settle down or
simply watch the rest of the winged denizens of the park go about
their way.
But is
is not just birds that the park is noted for, though its mammalian and
reptilian species expectedly get short shrift. These include wild boar
and deer (chital, black-buck, nilgai), mongoose otters, jack-als, fox
hyena, hare, porcupine, the rock python, and three feline species -
leopard, jungle cat, and fishing cat.
Base:-Bharatpur :
The park is also unusual
in that it is open round the year for visitors.
SARISKA NATIONAL PARK
Once
the hunting reserve of the maharajas of Alwar, in whose jurisdiction
it fell, Sariska's forests are typical of the Aravallis with their
undulating terrain of low hills, teep escarpments, wide valleys and
hill plateaus. A natural habitat for the tiger, it could have held a
commendable population of these tigers had the forests around the park
not been vandalized in the recent decades. Today, the region is a
major milk pocket, and cattle have eroded the forestlands and pastures
around the park, so that the population of wildlife has shrunk to the
limits of the park alone. Human population and the resence of
religious spots around and inside the park have further lead to the
deterioration of environment.
For all
that , Sariska is a heavily forested reserve, and a drive through the
park shows up a large number of deer species (sambhar, chital, nilgai)
as well as langurs that inhabit the tree cover. Also residents of the
reserve, though almost as elusive as the tiger on account of the cover
of vegetation, are leopard, jungle cat, jackal, hyena, and wild dog.
Observers often gather at hides close to waterholes to view and
photograph wildlife though, of course, they cannot stay beyond evening
light. When deer come to feed at these waterholes, they attract the
presence of leopards, tigers and wild dogs, especially in summer when
all other sources of water shrink and vaporize.
Like
all parks, there is also a variety of bird life in Sariska that
includes the gray partridge, white-breasted kingfisher, golden-backed
woodpecker, serpent eagle, great Indian horned owl, and others.
Base:-Sariska
is connected with both
Jaipur & Delhi .Best time to visit is winter , though
chances of tiger sighting increase in Summer ; The park is closed
in the rains.
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