SANDEEP JAJABOR: May 2014

Long-tailed Broadbill

I was in sattal on 4th April, 2014 with my friend Atul Joshi for one day only. It was on Atul's insistence that I decided to go to Sattal in search of the 'Long tailed Broadbill". I was very lucky to get this bird near its nest and also managed to get some decent shots. Immediately on coming back I lured my cousin Ramashish who is also my ardent fan and foremost disciple, to rush to Sattal as the Broadbill should be busy raising its brood during the next week and is likely to be easily spotted. Since train tickets were out of the question we decided to go a distance of 300 kilometers-by car-. Ramashish informed that the only way he could manage to leave was to start on Friday night and reach early morning on Saturday and after spending the day in Sattal be back to delhi by Saturday night. We left delhi at 10.30 PM and reached Garhmukteshwar by 12.30 pm. By 3 AM we were crossing Rudrapur and were excited that within another three hours we would be in Sattal. However, our excitement was short lived when suddenly we noticed that the headlights were not working. We stopped to check and the moment the car was switched off by the driver it did not self-start again despite repeated attempts. After about 15 minutes, when we realised that it wont start, we applied the old traditional method of starting the engine by pushing the car. Since no lights were working we somehow managed to reach by 5 AM to Haldwani by driving behind a Big Truck. On reaching Haldwani, I rang up Atul, who reached within minutes. The first thing he did on reaching was to inform that instead of wasting any time in getting the batteries repaired, we should leave for Sattal taking his car so that the best hours of morning are not lost. Despite his request, we however, decided that if we could get a mechanic and in case it does not take much time, we may leave only after getting the batteries repaired. Thus started the search for the mechanic. Since it was very early morning, we could not get any mechanic and wasted one hour finding one without success. By 7 AM we decided to follow Atul's advice and left the driver and the car in Atul's custody and started for Sattal by his car. We reached Sattal by 8 .30 AM and yet got what we had come for the - long tailed broadbill.