Discover India

In other words, if nature and the Brahmaputra had not designed such a varied habitat, it would have been extremely difficult for man to create a national park so well suited to so great a variety of wildlife like Kaziranga National Park.
Visitors can go round the park either on trained elephants, or drive around its roads in vehicles accompanied by guards of the Forest Department. Elephants move slowly and so they do not cover as much ground as a vehicle might. But then the chances of getting close to wildlife are much higher on elephant back than they are in a vehicle. In neither case should visitors wear bright clothes, talk loudly, smoke, make sudden movements and they must not leave their elephant or vehicle while in the Park.
However, the main attraction of Kaziranga, the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros, is very easy to see. Rhinos graze like domestic cattle in the grasslands and marshes around the Park and can be spotted belly deep in the marsh, chomping contentedly on succulent grass.

There are a number of interesting birds in Kaziranga including the weaver bird, whose nests hang like bottles made of straw, and the lesser adjutant stork which breeds in this National Park. Among the shallow-water birds are egarts and pond herons, river terns, black-necked storks and occasionally the open-bill storks, distinguished by the gap between their upper and lower bills even when they are tightly closed. Then there are the beautiful fishing eagles : Pallas's fishing eagle, which tends to avoid the shallower bheels and the infrequently-spotted grey-headed fishing eagle. Early in the year the visitor might see patridges and bar-headed geese. As for the ever popular grey pelican, these fishing birds with their shopping-bag beaks nest on tall trees near the village. They are also a fairly common sight swimming like short-necked swans in the bheels both in and around the National Park.

But even if the visitor does not see a single interesting bird, or a rhinoceros a most unlikely event even at the worst of times the trip will not be in vain. There is a magic about being in the wilderness that cannot be matched by any other encounter.