It was a pleasant, cool morning with slightly overcast sky in the first week of November. My nature lover son, wife and I were silently treading across a mixed moist evergreen and semi-evergreen forest in the foothills of Eastern Himalayas. It was the forest of Nameri National Park of Assam located at a distance of about 220 km from Guwahati. We were in an interior portion of the forest that was indeed dense. The air was quite humid and the forest floor was having squelchy soil. Prominent impressions of elephant’s feet were seen in the damp soil at several places which made me somewhat scared as I did not want to face a wild elephant amidst the thick forest.

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However, steadily and safely we reached a stagnant water stream-like pool. The water surface was covered with a dense and extensive mat of duckweed that rendered otherwise transparent or brown forest pool’s water surface green. This forested wetland was surrounded by densely placed tall trees with the huge canopy on both of its banks and there was also dense shrub cover forming a lower forest layer. 

A couple of massive trunks of fallen trees were lying from bank to bank. It appeared to be a swampy forest wetland with suitable habitat conditions for the White-winged Wood Duck. But, unfortunately, sunlight was poor due to a cloudy sky and according to an armed forest guard accompanying us, there was a little chance to see the Duck on such a dark morning. 

Moreover, as if to make our prospects poorer, it also started raining heavily. We had to pack up our binoculars and cameras and were compelled to stand below the canopy of a tree. 

Now, I was sure that we will not see the duck. But, who can predict Nature’s drama! The rain almost stopped within a few minutes and surprisingly, there was a bright sunlight in which the longish wetland in front of us was shining like a green jewel! By taking out our binoculars and camera, we once again started searching for the species whose major Indian population is concentrated in Assam (and to a certain extent, in Arunachal Pradesh too).

And Nature’s magic began after an hour! One, two, three, four and five! By Jove! Five white-winged Wood Ducks emerged from underneath a woody shrub on the right bank at a distance of about 50meters from us! They entered the open waters of that stagnant water stream! My observations through the binoculars clearly showed mottled whitish necks and faces and yellow beaks were clearly seen in three individuals. These globally “endangered” ducks were swimming very silently and somewhat in a zigzag manner. They were not at all interested in foraging. My son’s DSLR became active and he got five individuals in a single frame-perhaps a rare photograph of this species! We joyously kept watching and photographing this shy and secretive duck whose only around thousand individuals survive in the world with India (wherein, it is Schedule-I species as per the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972) contributing a substantial proportion to its global population. 

We were glad that we never disturbed them because we were effectively hidden behind a couple of trees. 

They kept hanging around in front of us for quite some time and then gradually swam away from us and ultimately disappeared. We, the nature-lovers from the western-most state of India had “bagged” five individuals of one of the rarest and one of the three largest ducks of the world in a north-eastern jungle of the country. After winning such a rare lottery, we were not bothered about some leeches clinging to the limbs of our bodies and sucking our blood!

The author is the founding editor of e-Periodical Jalaplavit, senior scientist and Ph.D scholar from West Virginia University, ketantatu1@gmail.com