Rajasthan Wildlife Tour: Tigers, Leopards & Birds

Your driver from Payless Tours India meets you at Indira Gandhi International Airport with a name board and takes you to your hotel in an air-conditioned car with plenty of boot space for camera cases and tripods. The transfer takes around forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on traffic. On the way, your driver will give you a printed itinerary and explain how the safaris have been booked, including the zone allocation system in Ranthambore and the permit rules for each park. Check-in is usually at two in the afternoon, and an early check-in can be arranged on request if your flight lands at dawn.

Once you have rested, use the afternoon to check your equipment and charge your batteries, as the next eleven days start early. If you have time and energy, your driver can take you to Lodhi Garden, where you can practise on rose-ringed parakeets, Indian grey hornbills and spotted owlets that roost in the old Lodi tombs. Another option is Sunder Nursery, a restored Mughal garden near Humayun's Tomb, with ponds that attract kingfishers and herons. Both places are good for testing lenses in Indian light, which can be harsh at midday and soft in the last hour before sunset.

In the evening, your tour manager will call or visit to go over the plan and answer any questions about the safaris. This is a good time to say if you would like a private jeep in Ranthambore, which is subject to availability and costs more, or to raise special requests such as a particular focus on birds or big cats. Dinner is at your own choice, either at the hotel or a nearby restaurant. Try to sleep early, as you leave for Bharatpur after breakfast the next morning. Overnight stay in Delhi.

After breakfast, you leave Delhi on the expressway heading south towards Bharatpur, a drive of around four hours through the farmland of Haryana and eastern Rajasthan. Look out for sarus cranes in the wheat fields near the road, as these tall grey birds with red heads are often seen in pairs in this region. The sarus is the tallest flying bird in the world and is protected by local farmers, who see it as a symbol of loyal marriage. Your driver will stop for tea and allow photographs whenever you want to pull over.

You reach Bharatpur around midday and check in at a lodge close to the gate of Keoladeo National Park. Keoladeo was once a duck-hunting reserve for the Maharajas of Bharatpur, and stone plaques inside the park still record the number of birds shot in single days by viceroys and royal guests. It was declared a national park in 1982 and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. Today, it is one of the most important wetlands in Asia for resident and migratory birds, with more than 370 species recorded within its marshes, grasslands and woodland.

After lunch, your naturalist guide meets you for the first visit to the park. Motor vehicles are not allowed beyond the entrance area, so you move by cycle rickshaw, bicycle or on foot. The rickshaw drivers are trained by the forest department and many can identify birds by sound. On this first afternoon, you will focus on the area around the main road, where painted storks nest in colonies on acacia trees during the breeding season. You stay until the park closes at sunset, when the light turns gold over the water. Overnight stay in Bharatpur.

You enter the park at opening time, when mist often hangs over the wetland and birds are most active. Your naturalist guide will lead you to the best spots of the season, which might include the heronry for darters, cormorants and spoonbills, or quieter channels where you can photograph kingfishers from the bank. In winter, large flocks of bar-headed geese, greylag geese, northern pintails and shovelers arrive from Central Asia and Siberia. You may also see the dusky eagle owl, the spotted owlet and the Indian rock python, which often lies in the sun near its burrow on cooler mornings.

After a mid-morning break with a packed breakfast or tea inside the park, you continue to the grassland and woodland zones to look for raptors such as the greater spotted eagle, the steppe eagle and the Bonelli's eagle. Your guide will also point out mammals such as nilgai, sambar deer, golden jackal and the jungle cat. The Siberian crane once wintered here, but it has not been seen since 2002, and your guide can tell you why this loss matters for the park. You return to your lodge for lunch and a rest during the hottest hours, when birds become less active.

Late in the afternoon you go back into the park for a second session, choosing a different area to the morning to vary your photographs. This is a good time for backlit shots of birds against the water and silhouettes of storks on the treetops. If you prefer, you can spend the session in one spot with a long lens, waiting for activity at a nesting colony. The park closes at sunset, and you return to the lodge for dinner. Your naturalist can go over the day's sightings with you and help you identify any birds you were not sure about. Overnight stay in Bharatpur.

After an early morning walk along the park edge for a last look at the birds, you have breakfast and leave Bharatpur for Ranthambore. The drive takes around four and a half to five hours through the dry plains of eastern Rajasthan, passing villages, mustard fields and the small town of Dausa. As you get closer to Sawai Madhopur, the town at the edge of the tiger reserve, the landscape becomes rocky and hilly, with patches of dhok forest that turn bronze in the dry months. Your driver can stop at a roadside dhaba for lunch, which you pay for directly.

You arrive in the early afternoon and check in at a lodge near the park, where you will stay for three nights. Ranthambore was once the hunting ground of the Maharajas of Jaipur, and it became one of the first tiger reserves under Project Tiger in 1973. The reserve is known for tigers that are relatively used to vehicles, so they are often seen in daylight near lakes and ruins. Your lodge will brief you on safari rules, including the strict timings, the ban on leaving the vehicle and the need to keep voices low when animals are close.

In the late afternoon, your naturalist takes you to the outer edge of the reserve for a short drive to look at birds and landscape, outside the core zones and without the need for a park permit. You may see crested serpent eagles, Indian peafowl and the grey francolin on this drive, as well as langur monkeys in the trees along the road. The evening is spent at the lodge, where many guests sit around the fire to hear stories from naturalists about well-known tigers of the park, such as Machli, who became famous for fighting a crocodile. Overnight stay in Ranthambore.

Your first full day in Ranthambore includes two safaris. You leave the lodge before dawn in a six-seater jeep, known locally as a gypsy, with your naturalist and a forest department driver. Zones are allotted by the forest department at the time of booking, and each has its own character. Zones one to five cover the core area, where lakes such as Padam Talao, Rajbagh and Malik Talao attract tigers, sambar and spotted deer. The ruins of old hunting lodges and the chhatris along the lakes make strong backdrops for wildlife photographs, especially in the low morning sun.

During the safari, your naturalist will listen for alarm calls from langurs, sambar and peacocks, which often warn of a tiger moving nearby. Pugmarks in the dust and fresh scrape marks on trees can also help track a tiger's route. Beyond tigers, Ranthambore is home to leopards, sloth bears, striped hyenas, marsh crocodiles and more than 300 species of birds. After the morning safari, you return to the lodge for breakfast and a rest. This is a good time to download your images, back them up and clean your lenses of the fine dust that coats everything in the park.

In the afternoon, you head out on your second safari, usually in a different zone to the morning. The afternoon light in Ranthambore is warm and low, and tigers often come to the water to drink or cool off as the day ends. Your naturalist will position the vehicle as well as the rules allow, but remember that jeeps must stay on the marked tracks. Gates shut at sundown, so the evening ends back at the lodge with dinner and a review of the day's photographs. Please note that tiger sightings can never be guaranteed, though three safaris give you a good chance in most seasons. Overnight stay in Ranthambore.

Your third and final included safari takes place in the morning, giving you another chance to see tigers and to photograph the landscape in early light. If you have already had good sightings, you can ask your naturalist to focus on other subjects such as the leopard, the sloth bear or birds like the brown fish owl, the Indian paradise flycatcher and the changeable hawk-eagle. Morning mist over the lakes in winter can make a beautiful setting for sambar deer feeding in the water. You return to the lodge for a late breakfast after the safari.

Late in the morning, you drive up to Ranthambore Fort, a tenth-century hill fort inside the reserve and part of the group of Rajasthan hill forts listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fort was held by the Chauhan rulers and was besieged several times, including by Alauddin Khilji in 1301. Inside, you can visit the Ganesh temple, where devotees from all over India send wedding invitations by post. From the fort walls, the view over the forest, lakes and grasslands is wide, and you may spot vultures circling below. Langurs gather at the gates, so keep your bags closed.

The afternoon is free to rest, sort your images or book an extra safari, which can be arranged at extra cost subject to availability. Some photographers prefer to visit the Ranthambore School of Art, where local painters create wildlife artwork, with part of the sale going to conservation projects. Another option is a visit to a nearby village, where your guide can explain how people living on the edge of the reserve deal with crop damage and livestock losses. In the evening, you have dinner at the lodge and pack for the long drive west the next day. Overnight stay in Ranthambore.

This is the longest drive of the tour, so you leave Ranthambore straight after an early breakfast. The road runs west via Tonk and Ajmer, then on through Beawar and Sojat towards the Pali district. Your driver will plan regular breaks for tea, lunch and photographs. Around Ajmer, you will see the Aravalli hills rising to the west, and as you get closer to Jawai, the landscape changes again to bare granite domes and boulders scattered across farmland. Lunch is at a highway restaurant or dhaba, which you pay for directly. The drive is long, but the roads are mostly good.

You reach Jawai in the late afternoon and check in at a lodge or tented camp near the village of Bera, where you will stay for two nights. Jawai is not a national park; leopards here live freely among villages, temples and fields, and the Rabari herders who share the land have lived alongside them for generations. The local people rarely harm leopards, which sometimes take a goat or a calf, and the leopards rarely attack people. This unusual relationship is one of the most interesting parts of a visit to Jawai, and your guide will explain the local beliefs that support it.

As the sun sets, take a short walk around the lodge to look at the granite hills turning orange in the evening light. Many leopards in Jawai rest in caves and on rock ledges during the day and come out at dusk, so you may hear the calls of langurs or peacocks warning of their presence. Dinner is served at the lodge, and your tracker will brief you on the plan for the safaris. Charge your batteries and pack a warm jacket, as the morning drives can be cold in winter. Overnight stay in Jawai.

You leave the lodge before sunrise in an open jeep with a local tracker for your first leopard safari. The tracker will scan the granite hills with binoculars, looking for leopards sitting on ledges or moving between caves. Many of these leopards are known to the trackers by name, and some have lived on the same hill for years. Leopards in Jawai are often seen at a distance, so a long lens of at least 400 mm is very useful. When a leopard is spotted, the jeep stops at a respectful distance, and you will have time to set up and wait for the cat to move.

After breakfast at the lodge, visit Jawai Dam, built in the 1950s on the Jawai River and now the largest reservoir in western Rajasthan. In winter, the lake attracts flamingos, ruddy shelducks, bar-headed geese and many other water birds, and mugger crocodiles bask on the banks. Your guide can also take you to a Rabari settlement, where the herders, dressed in white with red turbans, will show you their sheep and goats, and explain how they live alongside leopards. If you want portraits, your guide will ask permission first, as people here value respect for their privacy.

In the late afternoon, you go out on your second leopard safari, heading to a different hill or area to increase your chances of a sighting. The evening light on the granite is warm and soft, and it makes a good backdrop for leopards moving out of their caves. Your tracker may also find striped hyenas, golden jackals, Indian foxes or the occasional wolf in the area, and nightjars often rise from the tracks as the light fades. Keep your ISO settings ready, because the best leopard moments here often come in the last twenty minutes of usable light. The safari ends after dark, and you return to the lodge for dinner and a chance to review the day's frames with your tracker. Overnight stay in Jawai.

After a relaxed breakfast, you drive from Jawai to Kumbhalgarh, a trip of around two and a half hours through farmland, small towns and the green slopes of the Aravalli hills. The road climbs gradually, and the air becomes cooler and fresher as you get higher. Langurs sit on the roadside walls, and you may see grey hornbills crossing between trees. You check in at a hotel near the fort and the sanctuary gate around midday. After lunch, you head out on a jeep drive into Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, which covers a large part of the Aravalli range between the Mewar and Marwar regions.

The sanctuary has a mix of dry deciduous forest, grassland and rocky slopes, and it is home to sloth bears, leopards, wolves, nilgai, chinkara and the four-horned antelope, a shy animal found only in India and Nepal. Birdlife is also good, with grey junglefowl, red spurfowl and several types of eagles and woodpeckers. The sanctuary is quieter than Ranthambore and gets far fewer visitors, so the drive is calm and relaxed. Your naturalist guide will point out tracks and signs and explain how the forest acts as a corridor for animals between Rajasthan's protected areas.

Late in the afternoon, you visit Kumbhalgarh Fort, built in the fifteenth century by Rana Kumbha and part of the UNESCO-listed hill forts of Rajasthan. Its outer wall runs for around 36 km over the hills, which makes it one of the longest continuous walls in the world. The fort was also the birthplace of Maharana Pratap, the Mewar ruler who fought the Mughal army at Haldighati. From the top of the Badal Mahal, the Palace of Clouds, you can see across the Aravallis into the Thar Desert. The fort is lit up after dark. Overnight stay in Kumbhalgarh.

After breakfast, you drive down from the hills to Udaipur, a trip of around two and a half hours on winding roads through small villages and farmland. On the way, you pass through the Haldighati valley, the site of the 1576 battle between Maharana Pratap and the Mughal army. If you like, your driver can stop at the small museum there, or at a rose farm where locals make rose water and gulkand. You arrive in Udaipur around midday and check in at a hotel near the lakes, where you will stay for two nights.

After lunch, your guide will take you to the City Palace, a large complex of courtyards, balconies and towers built by the Mewar rulers over four centuries. The palace overlooks Lake Pichola, and its galleries contain royal portraits, armour and glass mosaics. Your guide will explain how Udaipur grew around its lakes, which were built to store water in this dry region. Photographers will enjoy the views across the lake to the Lake Palace and Jag Mandir, and the reflection of the palace in the water in the late afternoon light.

In the late afternoon, take a boat ride on Lake Pichola, which you pay for at the jetty. The boat passes the ghats, old havelis and the island palace of Jag Mandir. Look out for birds such as the little cormorant, the pond heron and the white-throated kingfisher along the shore. Sunset over the lake, with the Aravalli hills behind, is one of the finest views in Rajasthan. In the evening, you can walk through the old city lanes near Jagdish Temple, or choose one of the many rooftop restaurants with a lake view for dinner. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

Your last full day starts early with a birding walk along the shore of Fateh Sagar Lake and the quieter Badi Lake a short drive outside the city. Both lakes attract water birds in winter, including great crested grebes, comb ducks, bar-headed geese and the occasional osprey. Your guide will help you find good spots for photographs and explain how the lakes have changed over the last few decades. You return to the hotel for a late breakfast and a rest. This is a good time to back up your images from the whole trip and prepare your gear for the flight.

Late in the morning, drive up to Sajjangarh, also known as the Monsoon Palace, a nineteenth-century palace on a hilltop overlooking the city and its lakes. The hill around it is a wildlife sanctuary with sambar, wild boar and many birds, and you may see langurs and peacocks along the road up. From the palace terrace, the view across Udaipur's lakes, the old city and the hills is wide and makes for good panoramic shots. Below the hill, the Sajjangarh Biological Park houses rescued animals, including leopards, tigers and bears.

The afternoon is free for shopping, rest or a final visit to a favourite spot. Udaipur is known for miniature paintings, silver jewellery and textiles, and your guide can take you to a workshop where artists paint wildlife scenes with squirrel-hair brushes. Many photographers choose to spend sunset at Ambrai Ghat, with the City Palace lit up across the water. In the evening, enjoy a farewell dinner at a lakeside restaurant, which you pay for directly. Your driver will confirm the airport transfer time for the next day. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

After breakfast, your driver takes you to Udaipur's Maharana Pratap Airport for your included domestic flight to Delhi, which takes around one hour and fifteen minutes. On arrival in Delhi, you will be met and transferred to the international terminal or your hotel, depending on your onward plans. Please share your international flight time when booking so the domestic flight can be planned with enough time in between. This brings your Rajasthan wildlife tour with Payless Tours India to a close.