Deciding on a trip to India was not an easy one with long haul flights and ‘all those injections’. However reading up about the country was exhilarating, the culture was nothing which I had ever experienced, the food was going to be different and no doubt take some getting used to and the wildlife, which was what I was most excited about, was vast. After landing and a bumpy but not too long drive to Tiger Camp at Corbett National Park, I was met by the most amazingly smiley faces, welcoming me at the reception with warmth and friendliness. As previously mentioned the wildlife I knew was going...

White-Rumped Shama (Copsychus malabaricus) We all at some point in our life are fascinated with birds. During our childhood days, our adulthood or old age. Birds are found in different shape, size and colour. Birds are in true sense a gift of Mother Nature to us. Birds are a very special life form on earth as these winged creatures are capable of flying, running and even some can swim. Not all birds can fly like kiwi, ostrich. In many birds male and female birds of same species are of different colour this is called sexual dimorphism. Usually males are more beautiful and females are little dull...

Chilwa is the most common fish of the Ramganga. They run usually about six inches in length, the biggest specimens growing up to a feet in length. It has a long more or less compressed body with a small head and upturned mouth. A bright silvery fish, covered with minute silver scales which come off very easily when handled. It usually keeps to the surface of the water. When freshly caught in running water, its coloring is most beautiful. The brilliant silver of its scales contrasts with the pale greenish sheen of its back, giving a fleeting radiance. Chilwa has a habit of continually throwing itself...

Belonging to the baril family, there are 14 varieties resident in India. Most of these take a fly with great interest. Despite being sporting fish, barils don’t grow to more than ten inches, except one variety—Barilius bola or the Indian trout, which tilts the scales at 5 lbs. The Indian trout can be found in any of the streams of Northen India and Assam. It prefers slow moving water above a rapid with fairly large boulders, to the actual rapid itself. It is silvery in color and has two or more rows of bluish blotches along the sides. Its caudal fin is orange stained with grey and black, while...

Known as Patthar chatta in Kumaon and Kali machli in Garhwalare, Kalabanse is a greeny-grey fish with the pink tinged scales. It is also characterized with pink eyes and grows to almost 3 feet in length and tipping the scales at 25 lbs in the Ramganga. A true bottom feeder the Kalabanse, its mouth protrudes downwards when open and has a distinct fringe on the upper lip. It has a partiality for mossy, slippery rocks and sunken trees in the river and can be seen playing about in such places, sucking and rubbing its sides against the rock or trees, as the case may be. Kalabanse is a game fish and...

Widespread throughout Asia, India is known for the largest species of goonch. Owing to their voracity, their formidable teeth and general appearance, they are also referred to as the fresh water shark and grows to a length of almost six feet. Its body is usually dirty grey with large irregular black or dark brown markings. Its fins usually have a dark band across them and sprout from a dark base. They are scaleless fish and have fleshy feelers attached to their mouth. Goonch is a predaceous fish and lies in wait for its food in the swiftest water of the rapids, where it maintains position by adhering...

The undisputed lord of Himalayan rivers is the handsome golden-scaled highlander. Undeniably, the mahseer is one of the fiercest fighting freshwater game fish that exists. Pound for pound it had unparalleled strength and endurance. Mahseer does have a transitory likeness to the carp and the barbell of the English waters, but as they say, the similarity soon ends in the turbid waters of the Himalayan foothills. The mahseer shows more sport for its size then a salmon and therefore considered the best sportfish in the world….this is what snobs (??) of the Raj era had to say. Mahseer have overjoyed...

Ringora Khatta is located on the right bank of Kosi River, 5 km from Ramnagar. It is surrounded by the forest of Ramnagar Forest Division and Corbett Tiger Reserve Khatta in the past were used by people from the mountains who would camp here during their barter trips locally called Dhakar to the Ramnagar bazaar. Similarly many herdsmen from mountains would camp in these Khattas as their winter dwellings with there cattle. Khatta’s are forest land and therefore the present day village of Ringora does not have revenue village status and treated like Forest village. Being located in the vicinity...

Neema In the village of Ringora, dist. Nainital, a girl named Neema is making artefact using local raw material, the “saan”. Her products are the only local creation that can be found in and around Corbett, making it priceless. But Neema is not only a brand, it represents a whole history of Kumaoni women who work incredibly hard every day. Their daily life starts early morning, where they go inside the jungle to collect firewood and grass, to cook and heat the houses, to feed the cattle but also to collect this particular grass that is much needed to repair the roofs and that can be sold at...

Lantana camara, belonging to the Lamiaceae family, also known as “Terror of Kumaon”, is native to tropical regions in Central and South America. After being brought to India as an ornamental garden plant in about 1809 in Culcutta Botanic Garden, the weed quickly escaped cultivation and within 20 years was established in the wild. Lantana was first declared noxious around 1920, and by the 1950s it had spread over more than 1600 km of the eastern Australian coastline. The species will grow to 6 ft (1.8 m) high and may spread to 8 ft (2.4 m) in width with some varieties able to clamber vinelike...