Red Pandas and Birds of Singalila National Park

A park on a ridge

Singalila was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1986 and became a national park in 1992. It covers about 78.6 square kilometres of the Singalila Ridge and its upper slopes in Darjeeling district, rising from around 2,400 m to 3,636 m at Sandakphu. To the west, across the border, the forests continue into Nepal; to the north they run on into West Sikkim. That continuity is what keeps the park alive: animals move along the ridge regardless of the line on the map.

Most visitors meet the park as a trek, not a safari. There are no jeep safaris, hides or tracking services, only the trail, your licensed guide and the patience to walk slowly. Entry is paid at Maneybhanjan, a guide is compulsory for every group, and the park usually closes from mid-June to mid-September for the monsoon and breeding season. These rules and fees change from time to time, so check current status before you travel.

Four forests in one walk

Climbing the ridge, you pass through bands of forest that each hold different animals and birds. Knowing which band you are in tells you what to look for.

The red panda

The red panda is the animal people hope for on this trek, and Singalila is one of the best places in India to see one in the wild. It is a small, chestnut-red mammal with a ringed tail and a white face, about the size of a large cat, that spends much of its life in trees and lives mainly on bamboo leaves. It is shy, active mostly at dawn and dusk, and easy to miss when curled up asleep in a high fork of an oak or magnolia.

The best habitat on the trail lies between Jaubari and Kaiyakatta, around Gairibas, where old oak and rhododendron rise above thick ringal bamboo. The Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park in Darjeeling runs a red panda breeding programme and has released captive-bred animals into Singalila's forests. Local guides know which trees pandas have used recently, and a few specialise in finding them.

Honest odds: most trekkers do not see a red panda. Your chances rise if you walk this stretch slowly in the early morning, stay a night at Gairibas, go in the quieter months and travel with a guide who knows the forest. Spring and early winter are often suggested as better times, when pandas may come lower or rest in the sun on bare branches.

Other mammals of the ridge

The park list includes the Himalayan black bear, leopard, leopard cat, barking deer, Himalayan serow, goral, yellow-throated marten, Himalayan squirrels and pikas. Most of these are rarely seen on the trail. Barking deer call in the forest at dusk, squirrels are common in the oaks, and you may see scats and scratch marks of bears and martens along the path. Leopards are present but almost never seen.

Black bears are the animal to respect. They are mostly shy, but surprise encounters can be dangerous. Walk in a group, talk now and then in thick forest, keep food in your bag and stay with your guide, who knows how to react if a bear is near. Never leave food waste on the trail; it teaches animals to look for people.

If you do not see one on the trail, visit the red pandas at the Padmaja Naidu zoo in Darjeeling before or after the trek, and you will at least know exactly what shape to look for in the trees.

Birds worth watching for

Birders know Singalila as one of the most rewarding high-altitude sites in the eastern Himalaya, and the park's list runs to well over a hundred species. You do not need to be an expert to enjoy them: a pair of light binoculars and an early start turn the forest stretches into a pleasure. These are birds that trekkers commonly report or that are well documented from the ridge.

• Satyr tragopan: a crimson pheasant with a blue face, shy and hard to see, more often heard calling in spring in the fir and rhododendron forest.
• Blood pheasant: a smaller pheasant streaked grey and green with red markings, often in groups near Kalipokhri and the upper forest.
• Kalij pheasant: a dark pheasant with a crest, seen at the forest edge lower down.
• Laughingthrushes: noisy flocks of several species in the undergrowth, among them the spotted and black-faced laughingthrushes.
• Sunbirds: tiny, bright birds feeding at rhododendron flowers in spring, including fire-tailed and green-tailed sunbirds.
• Tits, yuhinas and fulvettas: mixed flocks moving through the oak and bamboo canopy.
• Rosefinches, grosbeaks and accentors: on the upper ridge and in the dwarf rhododendron near Sandakphu and Phalut.
• Raptors: eagles, buzzards and the occasional bearded vulture riding the wind over the ridge.

Rhododendrons, magnolias and flowers

The plants are as much a reason to come as the animals. Singalila's rhododendrons drew the botanist Joseph Hooker up Tonglu in 1848, and the ridge still carries a long sequence of species from the red tree rhododendron, Rhododendron arboreum, low down to the hardy dwarf rhododendrons near the summit. In March and April the forests around Tonglu and Gairibas are lit by the large white and pink flowers of Magnolia campbellii, often before its leaves appear.

In May and early June, after the rhododendrons, primulas, irises and other alpine flowers bloom in the grass along the upper ridge between Sandakphu and Phalut. Aconite, the poisonous plant that gave Sandakphu its name, still grows in places on the high slopes; do not pick or taste any plant on the trail, and keep children and dogs away from unfamiliar leaves and roots. Picking plants inside a national park is not allowed in any case.

When and how to watch

April and May are the best months for birds: rhododendrons are in flower, birds are singing and breeding plumage is at its brightest. October and November bring clearer weather and quieter trails, and birds join mixed flocks that move through the forest. Winter can be very good for red pandas and pheasants but very cold, with snow above Tonglu.

Walk the forest stretches in the first two hours after dawn, when animals are most active and the air is still. Move slowly, stop often, keep voices low and wear dull colours. Ask your guide to plan a night at Gairibas if wildlife matters to you, since it puts you in the best forest at dawn and dusk.

Watch without harm. Do not play bird calls on a phone to draw birds out, do not chase or crowd a red panda for a photo, never use flash at an animal, and keep to the trail. Report any sighting of a red panda to your guide, who may pass it on to the forest staff. The rules for the park are set by the forest department and can change, so check current status before you travel.