Gir: Bow to The King!

Saturday 23rd December, Zainabad - Gir

We checked out from Desert Coursers at 6:30am, travelled by road to Sasan (Gir) and reached by 1:30pm at Gir Birding Lodge, just in time for Lunch. There we happened to meet Jayanth Sharma, from Bangalore. I was in touch with him online and it was a pleasant surprise to bump into him in the wild.

We took our first safari the same afternoon. The guide had average knowledge of birds and gave us mostly info about the park, history, census figures, trees, etc. Our driver was pretty good at spotting birds and also stopping silently when needed. For the first 45 minutes we hadn't seen anything but a couple of White Eared Bulbuls and an Asian Paradise Flycatcher female. Soon we crossed a stream where we saw 3-4 Indian Treepies in flight, a Common Kingfisher, many Rose Ringed Parakeets and a Green Bee-Eater. Some distance ahead, we spotted our first two Asiatic Lionesses with a six month old male Asiatic Lion Cub. Another jeep with some forest officers was already present there. We clicked some snaps and moved on. It was great to see the Lioness walking in front of us and later seated watching us in the wild, but the guide seemed much more elated and told us "Aapka to kaam ho gaya" (Now your job is done), as if there was nothing else in the forest to be seen now.

Asiatic Lioness coming closer

We crossed another stream and found some Sambar females bathing. Some distance ahead, near a check post, was a White Browed Fantail and a female Koel on the same tree. After that we passed through the Kamleshwar lake, took a short stop and headed back. The lake is supposed to be full of Crocodiles, we could see one swimming and there were stories of how they killed Spotted Deer, Sambar, Nilgai and even a camel once when they came to drink water. While crossing the dam, we saw 6-7 Painted Sandgrouse on the roadside in front of us. As soon as our vehicle was heard, they hid (in vain) on one side. And just when we tried to click, they all flew further.

Sunday 24th December, Gir

The next day morning safari started at 6:30am, it wasn't even sunrise and again the first 45 minutes were without any activity. We were on route 2 and the guide said there is a chance of spotting the Lion there. After stopping on the way for a Changeable Hawk Eagle, we reached a place where an Asiatic Lion was already spotted. He was resting in the inner side and couldn't be seen from the jeeps. There were around 5-6 safari vehicles by then and we were shocked to see all guides and drivers telling the tourists to get down for a closer look at the animal. All tourists started getting close and the lion got up and went back. Since he wasn't approachable now, everyone got back into their vehicles and waited at another spot where we could hear another lion roar. After all the hoopla, we decided to leave the spot and go ahead on our route.

Luckily, the Lions too decided to do that. The guide told us that there were two elder lions who had left their territory and came here encroaching the territory of other two younger lions. And the elder two were roaring and challenging the younger pair. But at that moment, the younger pair had got split and one of them came out of the forest on the track in front of our jeep. The guides immediately started looking out for the other two, as they would surely come to attack this lone one. And so they did. Thankfully there was only one safari jeep there, other than ours. The other jeep was in front of us and in front of it were the lions. By now the younger lone lion and one of the two elders were facing each other and roaring angrily. They pounced on each other and started fighting so ferociously we thought they were going to kill each other. I was numb, awestruck and couldn't believe it was all happening feets away from us. It was all very dusty as the Lions were fighting on dusty road track. Just then the guide in the front jeep started shouting at them, the driver got down briefly, picked up a big stone and threw it at the Lions to make them stop fighting. As soon as they left each others hold, the jeep driver drove almost in between them so as to separate them. The one of the left joined his brother and started walking behind our two jeeps, while the one on the right was walking ahead. We followed it and were being followed by other two for almost 2 kms. The ones behind us tried to overtake our jeeps by going parallel from the left side in the forest, but the drivers drove faster and made the lion in the front run a bit.
After some time, the two stopped following and went into the forest and the one in the front, tired, went a bit off track to rest. The guide told us had we not separated them, one of them would surely kill the other. And a Lion death was ofcourse a big loss to the sanctuary. Later some more tourist safaris came, again got on ground and started photographing the poor, tired animal. We took some time to digest it all and got back to Gir Birding Lodges after having one of our best wildlife experiences.

The evening safari was our last at Gir and we were not worried about lion sightings, having had our share in the morning and the day before. Among birds we saw an Asian Paradise Flycatcher male, very near to our jeep, an unidentified Eagle and a Long Billed Vulture.

We checked out of Gir Birding Lodge late evening, went by road to Junagadh, from where we were to board a train to Ahemdabad.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nature-pics/tags/gir/

Birdlist:
White Browed Fantail
Koel
Indian Treepie
Asian Paradise Flycatcher (male & female)
Common Kingfisher
White Eared Bulbul
Rose Ringed Parakeet
Yellow Wagtail
Oriental Honey Buzzard
Painted Sandgrouse
Changeable Hawk Eagle
Greater Coucal
Shikra (male)
Magpie Robin
Common Kestrel
Long Billed Vulture

Animals & Reptiles sighted:

2 Asiatic Lionesses, a 6 month old Lion cub, 3 Asiatic Lions, Spotted Deer, Sambar, Mongoose, Crocodile

Travel Information:-
Stay:
Gir Birding Lodge at Sasan, Clean well-equipped rooms/cottages, very good food, good service. Located next to mango farms on one side and the Gir Wildlife Sanctuary on the other, the surrounding garden has bird baths setup and boxes for birds to stay. Birds commonly seen here from the balcony include Parakeets, Bulbuls, Indian Treepie, Grey Tit.

Safaris:
Morning safari from 6:30 to 10:30
Evening safari from 3:30pm to 6:30pm
There are in all 7 routes which the safari vehicles can take. The forest dept officers allot a route and a guide to each safari vehicle.

Distances:
Kutch/Zainabad to Gir: 350kms (7 hours)
Gir to Junagadh: 56kms (1 hour)
Train from Junagadh to Ahemdabad: Departs at 9:05pm and reaches at 4:50am