Bumpy Trail Bicyclists: Bicycle Birding: Lakh-Bahosi Bird Sanctuary

setting off for lakh bahosi was true adventure.

today, adventure is a commodity; you buy and sell a climb to everest or a lion hunt in texas. adventure must be in some remote faraway place, well-explored by others. individual imagination and enterprise plays only a small part - the decision that one should go.

our lakh-bahosi trip, in retrospect, was a more primitive form of adventure - an exploration into the unknown, more magellan than jon krakauer. while the terrain may not be as spectacular, and the risks not quite as high, it's a simple personal adventure - an attempt at something new, something not quite known.

we knew that the bird sanctuary of lakh bahosi near Kannauj, lay on the lower ganga canal which flows right behind IITK. around here, the canal bank was at least a kacchA path. everyone we talked to, however, kept saying that in between, there were no paths along the canal.

this was a more original form of adventure - truly a venture into the unknown

we knew that both lakh-bahosi and iitk were on the lower ganga canal

we were certain that the path along the canal did not go all the way

route: the canal road doesn't show up on maps; the path shown here is traced on the satellite image showing the canal. however, for several parts, there is no path following the canal, and we had to make detours, getting quite lost at one point. we added 6-10 km to the route shown here, which measures 84km. [Postscript: since 2010, the canal shows up on google maps.]

in my explorations along the canal, i had noticed a particular tendency. villagers in one segment of the canal would tell me, "the path is OK till the next bridge, but then there's no road." You press them further about the nature of road-less-ness, and they'll say, a bit vaguely - "it's full of babool, bicycling is impossible - prime puncture territory." and then you go beyond the bridge, and the next villagers tell you the same story.

so i reckoned that a canal pathway to lakh bahosi might not be that impossible. at least it was worth a try. suhail rizvi, an avid birder, and prabhat mudgal, who had started bicycling with us, joined me for the 85 to 90km ride. we were to leave early in the morning of feb 27, two days before Holi,

there was no map, so we pored over google earth satellite images, marking every bridge.

an even more serious problem was that most likely, there were no dhAbas or food joints in any of the villages we crossed.

so we started off.

[skip the adventure... take me to the birds]
[2011 visit to lakh-bahosi]: updates on the sanctuary from 2011. this time we went by some proper roads. minimalist, no car support, both ways by bicycle.

People and Places

we left iit a bit after seven. around 15km down, we took a snack break at the canal weir before the biroh bridge. lots of bananas (courtesy prabhat)...

prabhat and suhail (top row). amit and suhail.

beyond the Chaubepur-Siuli road, an eight-armed goddess presiding over the fields (in a few years there might be a temple here). right: a branch canal going into the village of naya purwa has silted up.

a deserted building of the canal authority, near the mushta bridge (about 21km, 09:40)

approaching the village of bhausana, prabhat discovered a puncture. view from the bridge at bhasana. (24km, 10:05)

kids gathered in droves wherever we went. here they've accompanied us to the suorani-deorani temples of bhausana.

bhausana village has a pair of old temples (late 18th c., perhaps). legend has it that these were built by two competing sisters-in-law - suorani, deorani. they saved every morsel to trade them for bricks. the present temple priest is from the family.

after bhausana, the canal path was too overgrown and dense. we took a detour via the nearby village of gauri abhaypur along a bambi to takhtauli. but maybe these roads were just as bad...

approaching the village of takhtauli after several km of kacchA roads. at takhtauli, prabhat found his air low again. another stop.

takhtauli-sakhrej bridge, 31km, 11:15

after a sandwich break, approaching the town of kakawan, 43km 12:48

after kakwan, the path switches to the left bank, but after crossing the manawan-bilhaur bridge the path veers left into the fields, and you are forced off the canal. we got a bit lost here, before making our way back to the udaibhanpur bridge (~53km, 14:00).

a "canal inspection office" at kharpatpur

at kharpatpur, we came across a large compound of offices belonging to the ganga canal authority, near a large weir. once upon a time these were bustling hives of activity. most of these offices were abandoned in the 1970s, and you see many such crumbling buildings along the canal.

at the weir at kharpatpur, the water dropped down some five feet or so. there are many fish that jump desperately in order to go upstream, and some ingenious locals were catching the fish on nets that didn't quite touch the water. a crowd had gathered in the late morning sun to watch the fun.

the bridge on the bhunna to ajyora road (62km, 16:00)

finally, approaching the mahu bridge just outside lakh-bahosi. this is 84km along the canal but including all our detours, we must have pedalled 5-10km more...

there is no accommodation at lakh-bahosi that you can book, though there is a forest-bungalow, but it is not operational. we were hoping to stay at the bungalow if possible; in any event, we were also prepared to go on to kannauj which is 40km away. but our plan was to reach by 3PM or so, and we were three hours behind schedule...

amazingly, as we were approaching the lakh-bahosi entrance at 6pm, we saw a group of people standing around at the canal bridge, watching us from afar. one of them turned out to be karan singh, known far and wide as the most knowledgeable and helpful person in lakh-bahosi.

singh was then heading home at 6pm, but he immediately headed back, and after some conversations with his superiors, he took us to the center, got the registration etc. done. he told us that the bahosi forest bungalow was closed (more or less on a permanent basis), so there was no accommodation. in our tired state, we were dreading the 40km ride to kannauj, but eventually, karan singh arranged some rustic accommodation with the help of some bahosi villagers, with beddings provided from a local tent house.

karan singh is an amazingly dedicated worker, by far the most effective forest department employee i've seen at any of the UP parks.

over two decades now, he has been a "temporary" worker, earning a meager pittance...

there are no dhabas or food places near lakhbahosi, but there was a visitor who was going to cook a meal, and he was kind enough to offer us some of his hand made rotis... and soon enough, we crashed out.

prabhat and karansingh and suhail entering the lakh-bahosi gate at 1755. the three of us, happy to have made it, in the lakh-bahosi complex.

morning at lakh bahosi

in the morning, a complete round of the bahosi lake took us about two hours... and then we were fortunate to be able to share some breakfast brought by karan singh from his home.

karan singh is also very knowledgeable on the species that visit the region, well respected by naturalists from all over the country. so after breakfast, we went along with karan singh to one of the observation gazebos, where he showed us some of the less common visitors. we couldn't spot any ruddy shelducks. several species were in short supply this year; and also, some species had started to leave.

karan singh is an amazingly dedicated worker who has been here for two decades, and is by far the most effective forest department employee i've met at any of the UP parks.

but in the government bureaucracy, he is still a "temporary" employee, earning a pittance of Rs 100 per working day (which also often fails to arrive). Meanwhile others who have become forest guards hardly bother to show up, while enjoying several times his salary, and perks such as government quarters etc.

shivrajpur ghat on the way back

the plan was for us to go back by car, since the Holi fires (holika would be starting that evening. we had a car meet us at indergarh, and on the way back, we took a detour to the ganga at shivrajpur, just curious to see the ghat. as it happens, we could see a lot of birds settled on the water near the far bank, and we managed to hail a passing boat and get there.

here at last, we were able to see the ruddy shelduck!!

Birds

When we started at 0700, we encountered this painted stork, roosting on a treetop on the canal next to the IITK boundary wall.

two spotted eagles on a barren tree

what looked like an immature spotted eagle kept calling from a tree across the canal

this openbill flew up to the top of a tree, carrying a clamshell

an ashy-crowned lark. these are common in the region, and have a spectacular mating display, where they plunge down from a height.

lesser whistling-teals at bhausana. not too common around here

ran into this darter at a pond in bhausana. a Anhinga melanogaster, of course, but i have not seen the neck so prominently white. possibly a female.

a group of five greater cormorants settled on a tree above our path

sarus pair. coucal at canal edge.

some kind of lark, i feel. please help with id.

we could hear them off and on, but i still don't know how suhail managed to spot this quail which was sitting in a hole beyond a ridge, about 30 meters from our bicycling path. i am sorry to say that in our urge to see it (my first spotting), we chased it from its roost - it flew off ten seconds after the second image was taken. is it a common quail? please help ID!!

Birds of the Lakh Bahosi bird sanctuary

delayed by three hours from our planned time due to detours and punctures, we got to the lakh-bahosi entrance at 6pm. as we were approaching the bridge on the canal, we saw a group of people standing around, watching us from afar. amazingly, one of them turned out to be karan singh, known far and wide as the most knowledgeable and helpful person in lakh-bahosi.

singh was then heading home at 6pm, but he immediately turned back, and after some phone conversations with his superiors, he took us to the center and got us registered. it turns out that the bahosi forest bungalow is closed, more or less on a permanent basis. no one is expected to come, it seems (the forest dept does little to publicize it). in our tired state, we were dreading the 40km ride to kannauj but eventually, karan singh arranged some rustic accommodation with the help of the Bahosi villagers, with beddings provided from a local tent house.

as we entered the park, flocks of greylag geese were flying out overhead. they will spend the night in some fields, apparently.

morning at lakh bahosi

next morning we woke up early, to the insistent calls of the sarus -- hundreds of sarus couples roost for the night on waters of the lake, flying off to their foraging fields in the morning.

during our morning round of the lake we encountered lots of species... even stumbling upon a spotted eagle that was sitting on the road a few meters from us. it looked at us imperiously and kept sitting for about ten minutes, before flying away.

it took us about two hours to circumnavigate the bahosi lake. after breakfast, karan singh showed us some species from the gazebo.

yellow wagtail - but which variety??

a lark of some sort?? pls help id!

many black-headed ibis could be seen. you also find them in agricultural fields in the region.

a group of greylag geese.

greylag flight.

we stumbled upon this spotted eagle sitting on the path just a few meters from us. it looked at us imperiously and kept sitting for nearly ten minutes, (hoping we would fly away).