![]() Monal will dig in the soil to find grass seeds, so the best chance is to find them on slopes or around big rocks. As these birds are shy, they tend to stay away from the human tracks. The task of locating becomes tougher if the soil is wet with dew in the mornings.īe patient and slow in your movements, pay attention to the area away from the trekking trails. 72 views, 4 likes, 0 loves, 0 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Himalayas The Rungland: Himalayan Birch, Flying Himalayan Monal and many more. Female Monal can hide in the long grass growing over and around these rocks. Male Monal who are more colorful and radiate in the sunlight are easy to find but they can mix well with Metamorphic Rocks due to their similar colors. This is an intelligent bird and knows his territory well. Monals are very shy (as most of the pheasants are) and have the tendency to hide in case they feel threatened. One has to trek for about 600 meters to reach the meadow where Monals are normally seen foraging for grass seeds and the trek is pretty steep. The real issues start when you reach Chopta and start your search. ![]() The above mention issues are not so big that they will stop anyone from pursuing the Himalayan Monals search. Monals do community roost in this season and chances of sightings are very high. Snowfall is very less till Mid-December with temperatures around 5 degrees Celsius during the day and -1 to - 10 during the night. ![]() Also, this is the time for their breeding season. Lesser numbers of humans mean higher numbers of Monal. Tungnath temple is not open till the first week of May. Go either in April or in late November to mid-December. This inflow of humans pushes the Monals deep in the forest. During the summers, from the day when gates of the temple open, there is a huge inflow of worshipers. This area also receives a good amount of snowfall and roads can get closed till authorities open them again. During the winters, temperatures can drop down to as low as -20 degrees celsius in the night. It is also the starting point of the 4 KM trek to Tungnath Temple. There’s no electricity and everything runs on solar power. Due to this, the lodging options are only a few campsites, some very basic budget hotels, and a high-end resort. We spent at least half an hour ogling at them till one of them finally took flight and the other one moved away to a higher hillock before disappearing beyond the mountains.Chopta is at the height of some 2600 meters amid thick forest of high altitude trees, which is also a National Park for Musk Deer. We applied the same tactics again and this time they were even less concerned by the voyeuristic intruders. What is better than a Monal? A pair of them!Īfter some time, as we were returning, luck smiled again. I tried but did not get a good shot of it in flight. The bird was reasonably tolerant but after a point it lost patience and flew away. I clicked pictures after every step and the images become gradually bigger and clearer till it reached a point where I could publish them without embarrassing myself. It was not easy as it was just an open meadow without anything to hide behind. The light was much better and we summoned every guerrilla tactics learnt from the movies to get as close to it as possible without alarming it. The morning was better and we were considering a climb to Chandrashila but the first thing we noticed en route was another Monal. It was a disappointing day and at night I dreamt of one of them showing me its middle feather. We saw a couple fly away but there was not enough to click. However, after a while the mist subsided and we reached the edge of the plain, beyond which there was a deep, vertigo-inducing gorge. The 200mm zoom was just not enough and soon a thick veil of mist obliterated whatever view was remaining. On the evening of the first day, I noticed one, roaming around on the open space on the edge from the Tungnath temple. But the lodge owner mentioned the bird and he even mentioned musk deer although that was nowhere to be seen. I was there in Chopta for the rhododendrons rather than the Monal. Originally I did not have much clue about the bird. There is of course the usual pressure of hunting and habitat loss but I was glad to discover that it is not really considered endangered… not yet at least. It can fly, but I guess it is not built for long hauls. ![]() That is why if it is around, you can spot it easily and can get a photograph or two even with substandard equipment as I did. It is delightfully colourful and also of reasonably large size. The Himalayan Monal is a pheasant endemic to the Himalayan region. But as of now, I can no longer resist sharing this story of epic stalking. Detailed travelogue regarding the place will come later. Although there was not enough time, it was an experience worth its time. Our first day at Chopta and Tungnath was gloomy. ![]()
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