Rajaji National Park – Know your wilder side

Posted in Asia | November 15, 2011 | Comment Now

Come to the land of India and go to the state of Uttaranchal and just find yourself ensconced in the Uttarkhand region. This is where you would find the most beautiful of surroundings and the best of parks. So this is ideally the best place for a national park zone. Thus the Rajaji National Park does full justice to the attractive forms of nature here and the place has the best attractions for all enthusiasts of wildlife. Set amidst the beautiful surroundings of green expanse and wild life inhabitation, the Rajaji National Park is a beautiful tourist zone and is named after the great leader Sri. C. Rajagopalachari who was also the First Governor of India.

Spanning over an area of around 820 square km, this is a park which is open only from the months beginning somewhere in the middle of the month of November to the middle of June. Maybe it is the season of India that makes the park remain open for a particular period of time.

Located on the Shiwalik ranges on the foothills of the mighty Himalayas, this is a great verdant beauty in this part of the ecosystem of the Range of Shiwalik. There are many sanctuaries here and they are the Motichur, Chilla and Rajaji. The Rajaji National Park includes all these three. The Chilla Sanctuary is separated from the other two, by the River Chilla and the River Ganges.

The area of Pauri Garhwali thus is occupied by this sanctuary and it also covers the region of Dehradun and the Sahranpur Districts of the state of Uttaranchal.

The Rajaji National Park and the Motichur sanctuaries thus are a duo and they lie in the direction of the Shiwalik and the Northern ranges. There are many ravines here which carry a lot of water that come down from the ridge above and they then become very big streamed broad paths. The plains are covered by this water and the entire place looks a complete paradise. Forests with deciduous and evergreen trees occupy major portion of the forest and the grassland of the terai variety are very commonly found here. There is a lot of similarity between the Indus Ganges Monsoon forests and the vegetation here in the land of Rajaji National Park. Sal trees also dominate the region.

With the best kind of avian species found here, this is the place which has a lot of forests in the foothills and a wide area of grassland. The area where the park lies is actually a zone of transition and is a cross between the Central Himalaya and the Western Himalaya kind of climate. The entire diversity of species is greatly developed here and the entire experience is exotic. There are around 324 species of birds found here. There is the White naped Woodpecker and the Greater Scaup and then the Great Hornbill besides the Blackbellied Tern. The Palla’s Fish is also common here. Then you can get to see the Eagle, the Black Necked Stork, the Northern Goshawk, the Yellow Billed Blue Magpie and the lovely looking Scaly Thrush.