Gharials, a tiger at the reeds and a bee-eater by the lodge

Sophie and Mark came in through Kathmandu, took the short flight to Nepalgunj, and by lunchtime we were at the lodge in Thakurdwara with the bags unpacked and the cameras out. The lodge garden is full of birds. Before they had finished their tea, a Green Bee-eater dropped onto a wire over the lawn with a bee in its beak.

In the afternoon we walked the edge of the park to find the river paths and the places where the light falls best at dawn. I always do that on the first day. It means nobody has to think about maps the next morning, only about animals.

On the first morning in the grasslands we were in the jeep before six. The grass was still wet, and spotted deer and swamp deer stood in the mist while a peafowl called from somewhere in the trees. We stopped often, switched the engine off and waited. Mark said it was the first time in years he had waited for something without checking his phone.

The river days are the calm ones. We floated the Geruwa channel of the Karnali at first light, with the sandbars still in shade. A gharial lay on one of them with its long snout towards the water, terns worked the shallows, and two Ibisbills walked the shingle bars, a bird I only see a few times each winter.

The sal forest days are slower. We drove deep into the trees and waited at the waterholes through the middle of the day, when only the woodpeckers and hornbills are moving. A family of Great Slaty Woodpeckers worked a sal trunk in front of us for twenty minutes, and two Red-headed Vultures sat on a dead tree over the clearing.

In the floodplain a one-horned rhino grazed in shallow water beside the tall grass. On our last evening drive a tiger came out of the grass onto the track and stopped to look back at us. Sophie did not take a single photo for a while. She told me afterwards that was the best part.