Dawn jeep drive to the barasingha grassland

We leave Mahendranagar in the dark with a guide and an open jeep. The track runs through sal forest, where you may see chital and peacocks in the headlights, and then the trees open onto the phanta: kilometres of grass, flat as a lake, with the Siwalik hills on the northern skyline. Your guide stops at the edge of the grass, turns off the engine and lets the silence settle. Lapwings call, larks rise singing from the grass, and somewhere out in the mist a stag bellows.

As the mist lifts the deer appear. Barasingha are larger than chital, with a golden-brown coat in summer and, in the stags, wide antlers with ten to fourteen tines. They graze in herds, and in late winter and spring a single view can hold more than a hundred animals. Hog deer, nilgai and wild boar share the grassland. In the rut, stags circle each other and lock antlers, and their calls carry across the open ground. Watch for jackals trotting along the edges and harriers quartering low over the grass.

The drive continues to the edges of the phanta, where tiger tracks are common in the sand, and back through the forest for a late breakfast. Bring a telephoto lens, binoculars and a warm layer; mornings in February can be cold in an open jeep. Jeeps are arranged through your hotel or the park office in Mahendranagar, with a licensed guide. Pay the park and vehicle fees at the headquarters the evening before so you can enter at first light.