Dudhwa National Park Wildlife Sanctuary

It would be good to say that a well-known ecologist, ‘Billy’ Arjan Singh, put Dudhwa on the map for wildlife tourists in India. The last practical tiger habitat of Uttar Pradesh, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve comprises the three protected areas of Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary, Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, and Dudhwa National Park. Declared the Dudhwa Sanctuary in 1968 thanks to the persistent efforts of Arjan Singh, the park was officially brought under Project Tiger in 1987. Bordered on the north by the Mohana river and Suheli river on the south, the wide alluvial plains have some of the best sal and teak forests interspersed with widespread of lush green grasslands and magnificent marshes. Dudhwa’s damp deciduous vegetation makes it one of the most vivacious wildlife reserves in the country where both predator and prey thrive in healthy numbers.

Dudhwa gets plentiful rainfall, and seasonal floods are common. Dudhwa’s thick grasslands fed by the fertile Gangetic plains and abundant water bodies grab a large number of migratory birds in the winters, making it a birdwatchers’ paradise. Additionally, different types of eagles, storks, owls, and cranes, this wildlife reserve also posses of the critically-endangered Bengal floricans. Birdwatchers throng Dudhwa every year to watch the mesmerizing mating ritual of these floricans which were once found all through the Terai region. The Indian pittas, Asian paradise flycatchers, and emerald doves add hits of color to the otherwise green canvas in the park. A major destination for avid birders in the country, the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve has almost 450 of India’s 1300-odd avian species that make the appearance beautiful every year. Cormorants, egrets, herons, hornbills, drongos, bulbuls, kingfishers, warblers, mallards, and woodpeckers are also found here.