Birding with Ram Gopalakrishnan: The mysterious Mishmi Hills

Even the name sounds mysterious: when I signed up for a birdwatching trip to the Mishmi Hills in Eastern Arunachal Pradesh, the main attraction was to go where few had gone before and see species that few had seen earlier.

We started the 6 hour drive from Dibrugarh airport to Roing in Arunachal Pradesh, the base camp for Mishmi. Our Scorpios crossed a few small tributaries of the Lohit river and went cross country across the dry river bed, in a manner I haven't dared to try in my own vehicle: they must have shot their ad "the mighty muscular Scorpio" here. Finally we had to be ferried across the main river: an adjoining bridge was being furiously constructed and promised to bring much needed development and not so much needed ecological destruction to Arunachal. As Jayanta Manna, our bird guide, said: bridge banega, Mishmi jayega.

In the evening I hurriedly brushed up on my higher altitude Himalayan birds: like a good pupil I didn't want to hear our group leader Nikhil Bhopale’s stinging comment " Kya doc, forgot already? We saw it so clearly in …". Strange and mysterious names like liocichla, minla, fulvetta and niltava lulled me into a deep slumber. Birding exotica starts tomorrow.

Off to the mysterious Mishmi Hills:

As we started form the base town of Roing, I faithfully pulled out Dad's altimeter, a vintage instrument that reads only in feet and purchased 20 years ago. Most parents give their children the Lords' wishes or vibhuti when they set out on a long journey: dad instead never forgets to press his altimeter into my pocket when I set off to any destination at high altitude! Guess dad got his nature loving genes from my grandmother who was a pioneer birdwatcher half a century ago even without binoculars; she presented me (and my newly married wife) our first bird book way back in 1989.

Hoolock! An excited shout as we rounded a corner proclaimed our sighting of India's only ape. A male with thick white eyebrows and a golden colored female brachiated their way down the steep slope. They are rapidly declining in population because of habitat loss and their inability to survive on the ground. Breakfast was at Dibang Valley jungle camp, a camp set up by Help Tourism, a company that promotes sustainable tourism in the north east. Never had hot parathas, subji and a cup of strong Assam tea tasted this good.

We then headed up, birding all along the way towards Mayudia pass. Flocks of yuhinas, tiny sparrow sized birds with a Greek helmet-like crest kept us enthralled: whiskered, rufus vented, striated, stripe-throated and black chinned varieties were all duly recorded. The beautiful sibia (that's it's name, no kidding) and the long tailed sibia posed for shots. A couple of us got stunning shots of the golden babbler and the bar throated siva, their appearance doing justice to their exotic names. A buzzard swooped just above us, leading to a heated debate as to whether it was a Himalayan or a common one. Fulvettas, babbler-like Himalayan endemics, were all around us: Manipur, Nepal (that's how two of them are named) reflected their area of predominant residence despite the former being readily seen only in the Mishmi hills.

As we reached Coffee House, an incongruously named but beautifully located government bungalow with no connection whatsoever to coffee, we scrambled for our warm clothing and unloaded our luggage in the spacious rooms that were to be our home for the next two nights. Without wasting time, we headed off to Mayudia pass (altitude 2655 meters), where patches of snow mandated a cup of tea to keep our insides warm. While we discussed our new sightings with an open bird book, one of us mistakenly pointed to the snowy-throated babbler, a globally threatened bird found only these parts: this led our guide Jayanta to immediately intervene "please move your hand off that bird"! Reminds me of the sharp comment an eagle eyed priest would make if an entranced devotee were to inadvertently step into the sanctum sanctorum of a temple. Guess we were the devotees here and the bird book was surely Jayanta’s temple.

The fog (actually just cloud at this high altitude) robbed us of an hour of evening birding but it was a true experience walking through the the thick fog in the cold. Now and then bird calls would ring out tantalisingly close: the mournful drawn out whistle of the hill partridge, the high pitched whistle and chattering cackle of the aptly named scaly laughingthrush and the shriek of the rare pale headed woodpecker.

As we shivered in the evening cold, there followed a sumptuous yet simple piping hot meal of soup, dal, subji , chapatis, rice and sweet curds (I couldn't resist adding delicious mango pickle to neutralise the sugar). I wonder why the very same food tastes so much better in cold weather in the lap of nature than after a stressful day at work?

Tomorrow we get up at 4am to try our luck getting a glimpse of the Sclater's monal, a large and charismatic iridescently colored pheasant found nowhere else in the world outside the northeast. Will the Gods smile on us and the weather hold? It's biting cold and close to zero degrees outside, and may be windy to boot.

Who said birding is all fun and no hard work?

The view from the balcony at Coffee House:

No we didn't see Sclater's monal. Apparently after a dhaba was built at Mayudia pass, it's usual sighting spot, human disturbance has resulted in few sightings. I was told there were three in the area, the rest probably succumbing to hunting which is still present despite our officially being inside Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary. I suspect this is true for most the northeast, where traditional tribal hunting has decimated bird numbers. I asked Nikhil Bhopale, should not the bird be in the critically endangered list. He said no, it's the rate of decline and not absolute numbers that qualify a bird for that list eg the great Indian Bustard, vultures, the Bengal florican etc; I wasn't entirely convinced.

We contented ourselves with sightings of some brilliantly colored birds: the golden breasted and yellow throated fulvettas, the yellow cheeked tit and the crimson breasted woodpecker. The unmistakable winter wren with its tail sticking up at right angles like a periscope made a guest appearance. Whoops of delight would occasionally emanate from one of the photographers at capturing the perfect image. Himalayan bird photography is a bit like cowboy gun battles in the wild West: you got to have your gun (read camera) ready with all the correct settings and wait patiently as the tension builds up; then get your shot off in a split second before the tiny bird flits off (read before the other guy fires).

Forget birdwatching, this place beats any hill station I know hands down ambience-wise. The only sound you hear are bird calls, the air feels like 100% oxygen and the view from the balcony is spectacular. On one hand is a snow streaked mountain and on the other are rows upon rows of rolling hills all the way down to the plains. Watching sunset was the perfect stress buster, even if the only stress was craning one's neck and peering through binoculars all day!

As the altitude falls, the bird count rises:

Warblers are just about the most difficult birds to differentiate: they are tiny, flit incessantly and look frustratingly similar. I suspect most of us just skip the 10 odd warbler pages in the bird guide, just like some particularly obnoxious maths chapter in school which we used to skip and take our chances in the exam. But not the black faced warbler: this one has a stunning black and yellow face which will be etched in my memory for a while. A mixed hunting party which included the buff barred leaf warbler, black eared shrike-babbler, chestnut crowned warbler and the yellow cheeked tit, kept us enthralled for a good half an hour. The rare Mishmi wren babbler, found nowhere else on the planet, called loudly by the roadside but being a skulker in dense undergrowth, only provided fleeting glimpses and no photos. The rufus breasted bush robin posed for a few minutes on the roadside to give all good photos.

As we bid goodbye to Coffee House and headed to lower altitude, our mood was elevated by a group of Alpine accentors, high altitude specialists. A herd of mithun glowered at us as we drove past. Mithuns are domesticated gaur-like bulls that are let loose in a fenced area, and are eaten by the Mishmi and other tribes on festivals. On the way we saw the striated laughingthrush and the striated bulbul, two very different but stunningly streaked birds as well as the grey chinned minivet and red tailed minla. I had not seen the mountain bulbul which the others had, and mentioned this to Jayanta our guide. And presto, he stopped the car and showed me one! The best birders hear the bird call long before the bird comes into view; this is what Jayanta had done.

As we headed back to Dibang Valley jungle camp, a second Hoolock Gibbon sighting put a smile on everybody's faces. Ah, the pleasures of a hot water bath after 4 days in the biting cold!

Last day in a troubled paradise:

We woke up to a steady drizzle and consoled ourselves with an early breakfast of hot pooris before setting off to nearby Sally Lake a couple of hours behind schedule. Sally Lake has got to be the most picture postcard perfect lake in India though ongoing plans to convert it into a tourist and picnic spot may change this. We were there to see the rare white crowned forktail, but had to content ourselves with its spotted and black-backed cousins. The intermittent drizzle throughout the day was a dampener, but a flock of silver eared mesias were spectacularly coloured and yielded good photos. A first sighting of a member of the parrotbill family, the grey headed parrotbill, lit up our faces. The final bird count finished up at 268!

But all is certainly not well in nature's bounty. The road through the sanctuary was being broadened into a four lane one to run all the way to Anini, the last town before the Chinese border. This was not just part of the government plan to bring development to the area but for national security: development ensures that China's claim to Arunachal is weakened. We saw a group of well dressed Mishmi lads with guns get out of their car and start shooting birds right on the highway: they didn't exactly look like starving tribals desperate for some meat for the pot. We again met them an hour later and they showed us their booty for their festival today: drongo, myna, leafbird, spiderhunter, a squirrel. Wanton slaughter or traditional tribal rights? You decide. Between the government and the "tribals", the wildlife is caught between a rock and a hard place. All I can say is, head to Arunachal and see all that you can before all the birdlife is gone.

My personal dictionary defines a vacation spot as one where there in no cell phone and email connectivity; alas, we got back in range after four delightful days off the map and headed back home with enough memories, photos and lifers for a long time.

Till the next trip, that is!