Few hours away by road from Lucknow, the Dudhwa National Park and Tiger Reserve is one of India’s lesser known national parks. The park has some of the best forests of ‘Sal’ tree in the world and is ideal for nature lovers, bird watchers and wildlife enthusiasts. Dudhwa National Park is famous for spotting swamp deer and tigers as there are around 1500 deer and 100 tigers in the park. Apart from the one-horned rhino, the park is home to elephants, sloth bear, fishing cat, leopard, jungle cat, etc. From the 1300 birds found in the Indian subcontinent, around 450 species can be seen in this reserve like hornbill, red jungle fowl, Bengal florican, serpent eagle, Indian pitta, paradise flycatcher, emerald dove, etc. The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve’s tiger conservation programme, ‘Project Tiger’ was championed by well-known conservationist, ‘Billy’ Arjan Singh. Dudhwa also has its own one-horned rhino rehabilitation programme. Stretching mainly across the Lakhimpur Kheri and Bahraich districts, the place also includes the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary.