Birding hotspot in Sikkim
Barsey Rhododendron sanctuary is located in West Sikkim at an altitude of 10,000ft.
Sikkim greeted us by showing some amazing birds at the Sikkim West Bengal border but like in many other places the Government people stopped us to show their greed for money. Seeing our car registered to West Bengal they harassed us for sometime in the name of permits. Even though we had everything we ended up coughing some money , away from the cameras! Looks like whatever maybe the culture, the Government staffs never change in India.
In this trip to explore a small section of North East India, our naturalist friend Mr.Raghuram had joined us. After crossing dusty roads because of dam and road projects, we stopped for birding and suddenly Raghu was saying “Long-tailed broadbill”. Vinod and myself were perplexed to hear this name on the roadside as the last time we saw that beautiful bird it was in Laptanchar, amidst mist covered tall trees. But Raghu was right, there was a male or female Long-tailed broadbill sitting and calling for it’s mate, soon the mate joined and they both flew away. All these happened in few seconds. We were enthralled by the sighting of this gorgeous bird and the sighting of Lesser Necklaced Laughing thrush and Pineapple Orchid in another small green patch.
The Moonrise in Himalayas
Our stay was at the end of the village zone, so it was very quiet and we liked it. We checked with the staffs about the timings in Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary and asked us to give a very early breakfast. All they could give us was only boiled eggs and we were fine with that. Our mornings started as early as 4’o clock in these areas , as the birds and Sun come out very early. When Raghu and myself were geared up to get in the car, Vinod who was standing on the road to see a Rosy pipit called us urgently. By this time we all knew if we hear a call like this, there should be some interesting sighting but we didn’t expect the scene infront of us. It was the “Moon”. The full Moon was setting down so fast behind the mountains . It all happened quickly as though it was being speeded up artificially , so we decided to set aside time to watch Moon setting the next day.
We started off to Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary and once we reached the road to the sanctuary , we slowed down to look for birds. Vinod was eager to see some pheasants but it was eerily silent and I started to get upset to see that the rhododendrons were not in bloom. I was so much looking forward to seeing a full bloom of rhododendron in this sanctuary that I didn’t even spend much time with the rhododendrons in Singalila. We have done rhododendron exploration in North America and Yumthang Valley and those bell shaped flowers in wide range of colors are always a beautiful sight in full bloom. Anyway, we started seeing other bird movements and we stopped to see the Spotted Laughing thrush foraging on the ground for food.
We reached the entrance of the sanctuary soon and we were happy that no other tourists had come this early. But the happiness didn’t last for long. The entrance and camera fee was very less when compared to the sanctuaries in other parts of India. Then, the ticketer asked us are we in just for the hike or stay ?
“We were shocked and asked him whether stay was allowed inside. He told us “YES” and we could camp inside.”
How we had longed for camping in wilderness in India and here was an easy chance but we didn’t have any camping gear. We cursed ourselves for not doing proper research and swore ourselves that we will come back again to this place next time for camping.
Walk inside the sanctuary
It was a densely covered oak forest , so even at 6.00 AM it was still dark inside. The sound of laughing thrushes were echoing everywhere. We just observed the carpet flowers like Oxalis, Primula with their head down as they were waiting for the Sun and continued our walk.
Slowly activity started picking up and we saw many small birds like Yellow-bellied fairy fantail, Rufous-tailed Minla, Rufous-capped babbler etc. By this time few people who had camped inside were returning back with porters carrying their bags and tent equipment. Initially we thought only few had camped inside but the people kept on coming. It looked like a whole village had camped inside, so we were glad that we didn’t do camping in the sanctuary.
There were boards for birds and red panda inside the sanctuary. As there was 0% of seeing red panda in that section, we acted like we had spotted the real red panda whenever we saw the boards. Even that boards were surrounded by plastics thrown by tourists.
It was really disheartening to see the last remaining pristine places are spoiled by humans. The sunlight fell through few openings inbetween dense thickets and the place had a golden glow. In such a beautiful place when you see plastic garbage thrown away mindlessly, only one thought came to my mind. Why these people who have no eye to appreciate the surroundings are stepping in these jungles. It is better for the environment if these people just stick with malls.
But even with all the crowd, with our slow walking we did birding without much disturbance. We were crossing bamboo thickets where spotting birds were much harder. Somehow we spotted a Golden-naped finch inside bamboos. The male was eating the bamboo flowers and that was the first time we were seeing that bird. We also saw White-tailed robin who flew around silently.
Finally we reached a open area where fencing was done around a water hole. From here all we could see was rhododendron shrubs but sadly they were not in full bloom. Here and there one tree would show-off the full bloom but overall we missed the train it seemed. A vulture was circling in the sky and that kept us occupied for sometime. I spotted a Eurasian Nutcracker in a rhododendron tree and it was quite busy with the flowers. We didn’t expect to see this bird in this habitat as they mostly love the pine cones.
We found a spot to eat our late breakfast , the boiled eggs. After the short break we continued our walk to reach the camping site which we guessed by now looked like a temple/party camp rather than a wilderness camp. We continued our walk to the viewpoint but we were shocked to see the locals breaking the stones on the pathways to do cairns as part of some belief system. Now the locals had started coming in with huge picnic baskets and the place looked like a big park rather than a pristine wilderness area. So we quickly crossed that section to reach the viewpoint. We sat there for sometime and enjoyed the serenity around us.
Raghu was searching for vultures and he saw pink / white blooms on the other side of the mountain. We also saw it through binoculars and realized that one side of the mountain still has full bloom. We started our return walk watching Green-tailed sunbirds nectaring on Rhododendron flowers, Spotted Nutcracker still rummaging around the same spot, a warbler getting materials for nest preparation, a Yellow-billed magpie at distance showing off his long tail etc. The Oxalis and Primulas who were drooping their heads in the morning were in full bloom now.
Hearing our slang of speech, one curious person stopped and enquired about us. Within five minutes Vinod and that guy had started to discuss about the atrocity of forcing people to learn Hindi. It was really ridiculous to say that Hindi is the national language as in all the places we had travelled, people were only comfortable to talk in their mother tongue like Bengali, Assami rather than Hindi. We didn’t even hear hindi songs in these places. After all the strong discussions, we bid goodbye to him and continued our birding. We were very hungry by the time we reached the entrance as it was way past 3’o clock and we didn’t eat anything after those boiled eggs. So we rushed to our stay and had our lunch.
Like our host in Singalila, this host was also surprised to see our intense birding and he was really curious to know what we really did the whole day inside the rhododendron sanctuary. When he asked whether we saw the Kangchenjunga peak, we were staring blankly at him. It looked like the barsey rhododendron sanctuary also had a viewpoint to see the Kangchenjunga peak just like Singalila national park. We three discussed how we could have missed the trail to the viewpoint and then realized we did see another path the local tourists took but we ignored that assuming it was another picnic point.
For all the boards the Forest Department had kept for the Red Panda and the birds we didn’t see inside the sanctuary, they could have kept a board and direction for Kangchenjunga viewpoint. Thankfully we had a good view of the Kangchenjunga peak in Dhotrey, Singalila otherwise this would have been a epic flop.
In the stay there were many bottles filled with red drink , when inquired we were told it was Rhododendron wine and that was really very mild one that even a child can drink. If I had seen full Rhododendron bloom, I would have drank to that. Now without seeing Rhododendrons to my satisfaction, I didn’t have the mood to taste Rhododendron Wine. So being in Sikkim I thought to eat Momos atleast but the host told us they don’t make momos and they all prefer rice !! A Sikkim without momos did not feel like Sikkim at all ! At night with thunder and lightning there was rain but not a heavy one. Still that changed the next day morning weather which turned out to be very cloudy and we couldn’t see the Moonset.
So there were many disappointments on our trip to Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary, still we enjoyed it as we liked the terrain and we got many lifers. We enjoyed the small , colourful Himalayan birds chirping around merrily. We enjoyed the evening walks with the local dogs who followed us loyally even when we didn’t feed them. We enjoyed seeing the chubby little ones walking to school in full uniform. We enjoyed watching a full bloom Bauhinia tree with it’s resplendent white and pink flowers. With all those enjoyments, we bid farewell to Barsey hoping to come back again in full rhododendron bloom.