The trip to Corbett was out of the blue with Anuroop posting about last minute cancellations on facebook. Being just a weekend trip in the end of summer, I was in it for the birding while the rest were there for the elephants in the grasslands. With rumors of Dhikala shutting for good due to the court hassles, this seemed like an ideal time for a last stay there.
The stay was mostly comfortable except when on the second day we had to shift rooms and the new room had an insect problem. Fortunately there was a spare room and we had to shift in the evening again as the room had by then been covered with insects.Other than that Dhikala is still one of the best places to wake up and get out to watch the morning from.
One of the safaris was washed out due to heavy rains but the rest were quite a success despite the overcast conditions. With elephant being out in numbers and with a mildly pleasant weather, the trip was never boring. Even the safari in which it rained out, provided some interesting forest landscapes to photograph.
Birds were of course not as much as in the winter but still quite a variety, with quite a few Indian pittas, thrushes, starlings, dollarbirds, black francolins, ospreys, grassbirds and other residents. A bunch of monitor lizards kept crossing our paths. A hog deer also made an appearance late evening on a safari. A lot of birding happened while getting in and out of the park and we moved at a snail's pace there. A couple of tawny fish owls were the last thing we saw on the way out.
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