Northeast India is home to some of the most sought-after birds and mammals in the whole of Asia.  Our first destination, Kaziranga National Park, is breathtakingly beautiful and is both a World Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve, deservedly famous as the single best wildlife-viewing area in all of Asia.  This Tiger and Elephant Project reserve is situated in the vast floodplain of the Brahmaputra River.  Early in the twentieth century Kaziranga was recognized as the last stronghold of the Indian One-horned Rhinoceros, and today this National Park supports the largest remaining population of these almost mythical, antediluvian herbivores.  Other mammals we may encounter include the Water Buffalo, Hoolock Gibbon, Wild Boar, Indian Elephant, both Swamp and Hog Deer, and Royal Bengal Tiger.  The birding in Kaziranga is no less exciting and offers the potential for real rarities.  Among these are the scarce Bengal Florican, Swamp Francolin, Black-necked Stork, both Lesser and critically endangered Greater Adjutants, Greater and Lesser Yellownapes, Great Hornbill and Oriental Pied-Hornbill, Blue-bearded and Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters, Blue-naped Pitta, and Pale-chinned Blue-Flycatcher.  Raptors are a conspicuous feature wheeling above the open wet meadows.  Here we may find Pallas’s and Gray-headed Fish-Eagles, as well as Crested Serpent-Eagle, Changeable Hawk-Eagle, and a host of other predator birds.  After Kaziranga we will cruise the holy Brahmaputra River on the luxurious RV "Charaidew,” a 125-foot-long  (38 meter) twin-engine, steel-hulled passenger boat.  This well-designed vessel created especially for the Brahmaputra will afford us superb views of both the natural communities and human cultures that populate its banks as we sail downstream in search of Ibisbill, River and Black-bellied Terns, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, Sand Lark, and a plethora of wildfowl.  Among the mammals inhabiting the four-mile-wide Brahmaputra is the strange, blind, highly endangered Ganges River Dolphin.  Onboard we will be treated to a mixture of delicious Assamese and continental cuisine, and our private staterooms are large and elegant with unlimited hot water in the spacious baths. 

Leaders: Dave Shackelford & Rick Taylor

$100 will be discounted if both Bhutan and Assam Pre-trip are combined—$12,390.

Photo: Brahmaputra River at Dawn
Photo by: Rick Taylor

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