Kaziranga National Park

Kaziranga National Park is in Assam state, way up in the north east of India. It is located on the banks of the mighty Brahmaputra and covers an area of about 430 kms² of swamps and tall thickets of elephant grass. This makes it the ideal habitat for the Indian One-Horned Rhino and it supports the largest number of rhinos in the subcontinent. As well as rhinos the park has a large population of Indian elephants, Indian bison, swamp deer or barasingha, hog deer, sloth bears, tigers, leopard cats, jungle cats, otters, hog badgers, capped langurs, hoolock gibbons, wild boar, jackal, wild buffalo, pythons, monitor lizards and much more. It is a birding paradise. The grasslands are raptor country where you can see oriental honey buzzard, black-shouldered kite, black kite, brahminy kite, pallas's fishing eagle, white tailed eagle, grey-headed fishing eagle and himalayan griffon. There are huge numbers of migratory birds which descend on the parks lakes and marshy areas during winters, including greylag geese, bar-headed geese, ruddy shelduck, gadwall, falcated duck, red-crested pochard and northern shoveller. Assam is remote and takes some time to get to, but for a rounded view of Indian wildlife this world heritage site at Kaziranga is an absolute must.