Hunting the griffon (India)

Thursday 21 November 2019

The name evokes something mythical, something to inspire awe and perhaps fear: griffon. The griffon we were seeking, however, was far from mythical, although neither Sally nor I doubted its ability to inspire awe. It was her idea to go looking for them, and she had a good idea where to look. The griffon she wanted me to see was the Himalayan griffon, the largest bird in the Himalayas, slightly bigger even than the huge lammergeier.
She and Prem co-opted one of Prem’s friends, Dina, to drive us towards the Rohtang Pass, to a point where she’d previously seen huge vultures circling; those birds, she felt sure, must have been griffons. Even if we didn’t achieve the ultimate goal of seeing the griffon, we’d surely see other birds — enough to make a day’s excursion worthwhile. Besides, any day in the mountains is a good day.

Dina picked us up in his Bolero (a cross between a jeep and a ute) and drove at high speed up the steep, winding, pot-holed road, dodging walkers and dogs, squeezing past oncoming vehicles, sometimes overtaking cars that were only speeding, and all the while he talked and laughed with Prem with an energy that matched his driving. As far as I knew, he had no English, or maybe about as much as I had Hindi, but despite that, and despite what sane people might consider insane driving, I warmed to him immediately. Like Prem, he was impossible not to like.

I saw white streaks on cliffs on the far side of the narrow valley in the area where Sally had seen vultures circling. This was promising. Less promising was the point where we stopped, which turned out to be a popular lookout partway up the endlessly switch-backing road to the Pass. The place was chaos: a bedlam of cars and other vehicles parked or trying to park on the roadside. The jam must have stretched for a kilometre, possibly more. Dina parked with one wheel almost off the road (I exited the car carefully on the other side), and after Prem, Sally, and I had set off up the mountainside, he shifted it to a more satisfactory spot before catching up with us. We tried an initial bird observation spot but decided it was too populated and noisy, so we moved further on. The sound of the crowd began to fade, and immediately we began to see birds — crows, of course, but also spot-winged tits. We moved further around the mountainside and dropped down to a grassy four-wheel drive track, where Prem and Dina set about preparing a fire.
But before they’d even lit it, Prem called out.
‘Pete!’ he said, pointing, and there, soaring towards us, was a huge and spectacular bird. It passed behind a tall cedar, emerged, circled, and cruised off across the valley. I managed a few underexposed and soft photographs, but they were good enough to confirm the identification. Himalayan griffon. Then, shortly afterwards, it was Sally’s turn to call out. I looked up and saw her pointing at another large vulture, but one noticeably different. By then I had the camera set up better, but I had less time to photograph and the angles were less satisfactory. Nevertheless, this was unquestionably a lammergeier. Within a few minutes, Sally’s goal of helping me see the griffon had not only been met but exceeded.

We ate lunch and relaxed by the fire. I photographed Himalayan woodpeckers — record shots. Sally came back from a short foray to report a dead horse further along the track, and when I checked it out, I found large feathers scattered around the corpse, which was now little more than dry skin shrivelled over a skeleton. Very large feathers. Feathers so large they could only have been from one of those two huge vultures.

Later in the afternoon we walked back along the track to Dina’s vehicle, and he drove us down to the riverbed. He and Prem built another fire in a small cave — little more than an overhang at the base of a cliff, but enough to provide some shelter from the bitter wind — and Sally heated the quiche and biryani and rajma she’d prepared. I was hungry by then and ate plenty and tried a tiny amount of Black Bow whisky and listened to Prem and Dina singing local songs. We talked, firelight flickering on the faces of my friends, while the light faded. Just before night closed in completely, I looked up at the sky and saw a small shape, silhouetted, flitting around above us. To see a little bat beginning its nightly hunt as our day drew to a close seemed as perfect as I could have wished for.

Saturday 23 November 2019

A day of rain continued throughout the night — steady, unrelenting, unvarying rain — and this morning, when I draw back the curtains, I see snow low on the mountainsides, coating the ground well below the timberline. Pale blue smoke billows from the chimney of a nearby house and flows down the valley; two crows fly past, going up the valley, and the pooled water on the flat concrete roof of the house next door dances with raindrops. Pigeons fly in to land on the verandah, displacing a myna, which flies across to the concrete roof and hunches, apparently disgruntled, in the rain. Mynas can look after themselves, though — too well, unfortunately, in places where they’ve been introduced, and they now sit near the top of the list of the world’s worst invasive species. This one will quickly find shelter elsewhere. It flies off, and I think about what it means to say a species is invasive. That’s straightforward enough, though, even if the definition undoubtedly provides much for ecologists and others to argue about. I’m more interested in what it means to say a species is ‘worst’. That’s a value judgement, and although I don’t agree with the arguments of the self-titled ‘compassionate conservationists’, whose manifesto, it seems to me, relies too much on cherry-picked examples to argue that conventional conservation doesn’t work and which would abandon far too many unique species to functional or actual extinction, I do agree with them that too often conventional conservation programmes demonise invasive species and refuse to accept they have any positive characteristics.
I like mynas. I admire their intelligence, their adaptability, and their appearance. Nevertheless, if I could remove mynas from northern New Zealand, I would. An even clearer example: stoats. I love them and always get a thrill of delight when I see one, but that’s always tempered with concern about the devastating effects even a single stoat can have on populations of native birds that, unlike stoats, are found nowhere else in the world.

New Zealand’s lucky, though. We could have suffered far worse if the efforts to introduce other animals had succeeded. Several serious attempts were made to introduce mongooses to control rabbits; all failed, but if they’d succeeded, we’d unquestionably have lost far more species of birds and invertebrates. And thinking of mongooses brings me back to India rather than remembering the stoats on the No. 1 Line track.

The russet sparrows arrive. How do they stay so dry in this unrelenting rain?

I brew Himalayan green tea with rose petals and drink it as I write to the sound of rain and birds and vehicles passing. How long will this weather last? Prem’s been planning an excursion to look for Himalayan monal, a bird I’d love to see (and, with luck, photograph), but searching for monal in the rain would be both miserable and futile — in this weather, Prem says, they hide away. Sensible birds.
Eventually the rain stops, and with no sign of the sleepers I pack and go for a walk up the road. Near a parked car on a flat area littered with broken glass, bottles, indeterminate rags, and other rubbish, a small flock of birds gleans — russet sparrows and one of the tits, which I can’t see well enough to identify or photograph. I have the wrong lens on, of course. Later, in an apple tree near the same spot, I photograph rock buntings. Slowly, I’m beginning to learn the birds, and this gives the journey a focus that makes it feel more intentional, less like aimless drifting from place to place. I don’t know why this should be important, and perhaps it isn’t.
I stop at the dhaba where Sally had bought vegetables and order an aloo paratha and chai. It feels good to be independent and alone in a little Indian restaurant, eating paratha, drinking a good-sized cup of chai, and scribbling in the notebook as I watch the people and traffic pass by. A few people notice me, and when I nod and smile in acknowledgement they respond with the head wobble and sometimes a smile. That, too, feels good.

In the afternoon I finally manage to make myself useful, breaking a large bundle of sticks into tiny pieces for kindling. Prem cooks an excellent dish of rice, veges, and apple; it has just the right level of spiciness and the apple’s a refreshing accent. This could be a very late lunch or an early dinner — it doesn’t matter. Would I like a glass of beer? Sally asks, but I opt instead for the alternative: the second flush Assam tea that arrived today, just two days after Sally ordered it online. Thursday’s drinking was enough for me, even though I tried to take care, and last night I relented and enjoyed a small amount of beer when Prem’s cousin visited; today, even though beer would have been perfect with Prem’s dish, I want a night off.

Blue sky appears towards evening, with big, orange-suffused cumulus at the head of the valley. Crows cross the valley, silhouetted against the nascent thunderheads. I love the way the tips of their wings bend upwards on that strong downbeat, as if they’re gently stroking the sky.

Sunday 24 November 2019

Too much to record; the day too full to do justice to. Let’s just say we went looking for Himalayan monal and saw griffons, Koklass pheasants, and a tree creeper. We heard a monal calling; Prem identified the call for us. He knows these mountains and what lives here — this is home for him. He led us through shallow, slippery snow wearing socks and flip-flops. I should have felt weak and soft but was pleased to be able to keep up and feel at home. I think I’ll always be pulled between the mountains and the sea. Maybe that’s what happens when you grow up in New Zealand.

Monday 25 November 2019

Around mid-afternoon I walked the back road towards Manali. Sally walked with me part of the way, just far enough to show me where the road went. I recognised the initial section as the part we’d walked to meet Prem on the day I arrived at Shanag, and from there the route finding was straight forward, with only a couple of junctions, where choosing the right branch was straightforward. I’d only just left Sally when I saw something moving on the trunk of an apple tree. A tree creeper! Stupidly, I’d packed my camera in the daypack, and I tried to watch the bird while retrieving it but lost sight of it when it flew to another grove of trees. I never saw it again. They’re strange, beautiful birds, and I hope I get another chance to photograph one. I have one poor but recognisable photograph from yesterday’s walk, a few minutes after seeing the Koklass pheasants, but that’s nothing more than a record shot.
At the bridge over the stream, though, I immediately saw a Little forktail. It flew off as I raised the camera, and I never saw that bird again either, but as I looked upstream, I saw another, different bird. Even from a distance, the distinct coloration and white patch on the head meant I knew I was looking at a Whitecapped water redstart, and I managed some fairly distant but good photographs. The walk was turning out well.

Further on, I photographed a white-bellied treepie and one of several yellow-billed blue magpies feeding on red berries from a tangled bush. A few cars bounced and joggled past on the lumpy road, and occasionally I’d pass small groups of people tending orchards, cutting grass, hanging out around houses, or attempting to split enormous, tough logs with blunt axes that bounced off the wood and left little impression. Mostly, though, the road remained quiet and peaceful.

I’d worked out a turn-around time so I wouldn’t end up walking in the dark. Turning back on a road I’m walking for the first time often deflates me — only slightly, but detectably nevertheless. The complete novelty of the road has gone, and with it the possibility of discovering something new and wonderful; instead I’m faced with a long trudge over ground I’ve just covered. But that doesn’t mean all hope of enjoyment has vanished. Far from it: new birds, or the same birds showing themselves more clearly, might appear; the view differs and might reveal things I’ve walked past; towards evening the light for photographing might have improved; encounters with people — simple conversations or even a smile — can be a delight. For example, on the way back I talked with a middle-aged man who had just crossed the road with a huge load of grass in two yellow sacks on his back.
I saw him stop and look back, evidently curious. He walked slowly, as if wanting me to catch up, and just before I did, he stepped down off the road onto a path leading to a house a short distance away.
‘Namaste,’ I said.
He looked up and nodded. He looked exhausted and broke off a thin twig of a dry weed with which to pick his teeth.
‘Where you come from?’ he said.
‘Shanag.’ I pointed up the valley at the village, although he must have known where Shanag was. He nodded.
‘Where you from?’ he said.
I told him New Zealand, and he nodded again and said, slowly, ‘Achaar’ — good.
He wanted to know how much I was paying to stay in Shanag.
‘Your room, how much you pay?’
I told him I was staying with a friend so wasn’t paying for a room. He gave his usual nod, and I couldn’t tell whether he was disappointed at the lack of information about how much money people in Shanag were earning from tourists or simply resigned to the uselessness of foreigners. I think he may have welcomed the novelty of talking with me and the chance to rest before the final plod back to the house. Perhaps he was wondering whether offering homestays to tourists would be an easier, more lucrative way of life than daily hard physical labour.

At the bridge I looked for the Little forktail and the Whitecapped water redstart. Neither showed itself, but I saw another small bird of a different type perched on a large boulder. Even from a distance I knew I was looking at a female Plumbeous water redstart. I photographed and climbed down to the river bed where I could manage some slightly closer photographs, but at the point where I’d have been in ideal range, the little bird dropped down behind another large boulder and vanished. I thought I was in a position where I’d be able to see it fly off, but it never reappeared, and I began to realise that the birds inhabiting these boulder-strewn streams were probably adept at discrete escapes.

I carried on, making it back to the dhaba near Sally’s apartment well before dark. I stopped for chai, and the women greeted me with smiles. The young woman who took my order came out with the chai on a tray and placed the mug carefully in front of me.
‘Danyavad,’ I said — thank you.
She looked directly at me and smiled beautifully.
‘Welcome,’ she said.

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Photos: 

1. A side valley in the headwaters of the Solang Valley, Himachal Pradesh, on the day of our search for the monal.
2. Dina (see the previous post for a photo of Prem).
3. Lammergeier
4. Common myna at Shanag, near Manali.
5. Koklass pheasant (female), Solang Valley, Himachal Pradesh.
6. Mountains near Solang, Himachal Pradesh, the evening of our big walk in search of the monal.

Photos and original text © 2019 Pete McGregor