Pangoot - a birders paradise

 

Pangoot Post Office

‘A rose by any name smells just as sweet’, so does Pangoot/Pangot.  The locals call it Pangoot whereas at many places it is spelt as Pangot.  The post office calls it Pangoot and so shall I through this blog.  

Streaked Laughingthrush
A very common bird and I found them everywhere...

...Striated Laughingthrush

This is my third time visiting this place, and the first time in winter.  Earlier I had stayed at The Great Barbet hotel, but this time I stayed in Kamal Joshi’s homestay. For blogs on my earlier trips there please go links Naina Peak and Brahmasthali -The Top of Kumaon (in June 2021)  and Pangot, Chanfi and Sattal: Walking with nature (in May 2022)

Red-rumped Swallow gathering wet mud for its nest at Pangot...

...White-throated Laughingthrush bathing and
drinking water at a bird hide. 

The number of homestays has increased manifold, there were two to three earlier but now there are many (more than fifteen?). Each has its hide, feeds birds, grow trees that attract birds, then trims these trees.  It has got so that there aren’t too many birds in the forests.

A Macaque looks inquisitively at me

There is substantial wildlife here too, many leopards (though I didn’t get to see one at Pangoot), barking deer (of which I got to see many), ghural (blue sheep) of which I saw a kid freshly killed by a leopard and the mischievous Macaque which were everywhere.

Brown-fronted Woodpecker....

...Rufous-bellied Woodpecker

Woodpecker Point was aptly named, a small pond in the forest, about two kilometres from Pangoot, earlier I had been going there regularly and had seen many birds and animals.  This time too I went there twice, but no dice, as apart from the different types of Woodpecker drumming away looking for insects under the bark of trees, I saw nothing.

Snow at Cheer Point

On one day I hired a car, old wine in new bottles, the driver was Harish, an old friend, but he had bought another car. That day we went to Cheer Point (pronounced chir) and drove beyond looking for the elusive Cheer Pheasant and Koklass, we saw neither but it was a lovely snow bedecked drive.

A school boy looks wistfully at the nala as he crosses the bridge at Chanfi...

Then I went with Harish to Chanfi and Sattal, another birders paradise where I photographed the elusive Forktail and locals crossing a bridge over a stream. 

White-throated Fantail at the studio

Mountain Bulbul wondering what this photographer is at, one can see bits of the studio. 

White-throated Laughingthrush having a bath at a pool near a hide

Earlier one homestay had a hide, now so many have hides that very few photographers come to the ‘studio’.  The ‘studio’ is a few twigs placed across a running stream where birds come to bathe and drink water. On the way I saw one of the ubiquitous  Kalij Pheasants in the bushes.

Kalij Pheasant (female) in the bushes

Barking Deer at Sattal

While going to the ‘studio’ in the evening that a got a record pic of a Barking Deer, there were two of them and when they saw us, they clambered up the mountain behind.

Brown Wood-owl

At Sattal I hooked up with a group to see a Brown Wood-owl some distance away from the stream. 

The sarai had about seven separate rooms

Once I walked down a road that went on to a village in the distance, and  it was a lovely walk with a sarai (for want of a better word) a place where travelers used to spend the night.

Kavadias hurrying to where they have to go

It was Shivratri on one of the days that I was there and Kavadias were busy carrying holi water (from Haridwar?) to their villages.  Generally pleasant people (as almost all hill folk are) they didn't mind their pictures being taken.  

Niraj and his friend as we climbed up to China Peak. , 

One day I took my companion Niraj, and his friend another young boy, and climbed up to China (Naina) Peak.  With me huffing and puffing up, these two youngsters ran up like mountain goats.  From Pangoot it is about 20 kms round trip, 12 seeming vertical kilometres while going and the return is 8 very steep kilometres.

Chandan Singh Ka Dhaba

It was, regretably, time to return, so Harish and I started at 10.30am, and stopped for an almost mandatory lunch at Chandan Singh ka Dhaba.  Only meat-chawal (meat curry and rice) cooked on a wood fire, is served and it is so crowded there is nary a place to sit. From when I went before, the meat-chawal is not the same, maybe because his son makes it, maybe because I have a jaded palette, maybe because he is so famous that he couldn't care less...maybe, maybe...

Farewell to the mountains, till we meet again