Kaziranga and Nameri Birding

• Kaziranga
• 70 m
• 215 km from airport · 5 hrs
• Dinner

Pickup at Guwahati airport and the drive east on NH27. Birders should keep binoculars handy: the wetlands around Jagiroad and Nagaon often hold egrets, cormorants and lesser adjutants visible from the road. Lunch at Nagaon, then NH715 along tea gardens to Kohora, arriving by mid-afternoon. We check in at a lodge with good garden birding and spend the last hour of light in its grounds or the neighbouring tea estate, where lineated barbets, drongos and orioles are common. Evening briefing with your bird guide on the next three days.

• Kaziranga
• 70 m
• Local · about 70 km including range transfer
• Breakfast, Dinner

Leave at 7 am for the Eastern Range at Agaratoli, about 30 km east of Kohora. This is the best range for water birds: spot-billed pelicans, Asian openbill, black-necked and lesser adjutant storks, bar-headed geese and many ducks from November to March, with Pallas's fish eagle and grey-headed fish eagle along the channels. After lunch the afternoon jeep enters the Central Range at Kohora, where the Mihimukh area and watchtowers give views over beels and grassland. Raptors, including eastern imperial eagle in some winters, hunt over the open grass. Eastern Range opening varies, so check current status before you travel.

• Kaziranga
• 70 m
• Local · about 60 km
• Breakfast, Dinner

A dawn walk in Panbari Reserve Forest, a patch of semi-evergreen forest near Kaziranga where forest birds differ from those in the park: hornbills, woodpeckers, babblers and, with luck, hoolock gibbons calling. A forest guard accompanies the walk, which takes about three hours. After lunch the afternoon jeep goes to the Western Range at Bagori, known for large rhino numbers and wetlands with storks, ducks and waders. The late light at Bagori is good for photography. Evening checklist session with your guide.

• Nameri
• 120 m
• 110 km · 3 hrs plus stops
• Breakfast, Dinner

A last early jeep in the Central Range for anything missed, then breakfast and the drive north across the Brahmaputra on the Kolia Bhomora bridge to Tezpur. We stop at Da Parbatia, where a carved stone doorframe from about the 5th or 6th century is among the oldest sculpture in Assam, and at Agnigarh hill for a river view. From Tezpur it is about 35 km to Potasali, the entry point for Nameri National Park. Check in at the eco camp and walk to the Jia Bhoroli bank at dusk, where river lapwings and wagtails feed.

• Nameri
• 120 m
• Local · on foot and by raft
• Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Cross the Jia Bhoroli by boat at 6.30 am and walk into the park with an armed forest guard and a local bird guide. Nameri's trails pass through semi-evergreen forest and open riverine patches, and this is where great, wreathed and oriental pied hornbills are most likely. The white-winged wood duck is scarce and shy; the forest pools are the places to look. After lunch take a gentle rafting float of about 13 km on the Jia Bhoroli, used as a birding platform, looking for ibisbill on the shingle in winter, plus mergansers, cormorants and kingfishers.

• Departure
• 55 m
• 220 km to Guwahati Airport · 5.5 hrs
• Breakfast

A final early walk along the Potasali side of the river or in the camp grounds, where many forest birds visit the fruiting trees. After breakfast we drive back to Guwahati via Tezpur and the north-bank highway through Mangaldai, about 220 km, reaching the airport by mid-afternoon. Book flights after 5 pm. Tezpur Airport, about 40 km from Potasali, has limited flights to Kolkata, and we can drop you there instead if your schedule suits. The north-bank road also passes Orang National Park, which we can add for an extra night.