Face to face with a leopardess!

One evening, after the days work during the anti-plastic campaign , I went to lower camp, to make some phone calls. As the signal was very weak, I climbed on a rock, adjacent to the dam and was talking, when I heard alarm calls of bonnet macaques and they were looking on the opposite hillock and calling... having ignored it , I continued the conversation and then a cop came running and asked me not to take pictures as it was a restricted site. Later, he went on to do a proper interrogation! As to who and why was I there and what not. By that time, it was 5-530 pm.. I casually asked him why the bonnet was calling and he told me that there is a leopard on the rock. (now it was my turn to interrogate!)
I asked him, if he had seen it, had it made any kills, etc etc, he said he sees it daily and had killed a monkey that morning and he also added that the leopard would cross the road that evening to drink water in the dam. Out of curiosity, self and field assistant went and looked around for the leopard... but no luck.. soon it was about 6-15 pm and we decided to go back to mundanthurai, where we was put up for the past one month and went back to the rock to pick up my back pack, the cop advised me to climb on the filter house next to the rock and see if the leopard is there... Again I ignored him and started the bike and left the place, hardly had we gone 30m and suddenly, in the corner of my eye, to the right ,I see this beauty sleeping on the rock giving a damn to all the traffic and commotion on the road! I immediately stopped the Yamaha and got down from the bike and ran to shoot this creature and when I took out my camera, it said change batteries!!! I felt like kicking myself! :( But i had time to change the cells and shoot one decent image. :D
while i was changing batteries, 4 vans with blaring music went past and the leopard was staring at us in all its glory. It was a mesmerizing feel until one of the staff of the dam stopped by and shouted in top of his voice "SAR SIRATHE! ( sir, a leopard!) and the poor creature which got a shock of its life got down the rock and ran..!!! soon some 10 people gathered and were talking and rattling stories about it. I knew that it had not gone anywhere and so i sneaked up the filter house and climb to see the leopard was right there and was hardly 4 feet from where i was! our eyes made a contact and then she turned around and left as it to say " to hell with you!" and there ended the wonderful sighting of about 10 minutes!
Incidentally, the next afternoon, while making phone calls, i saw the leopard cross the road and go towards the dam in the middle of the day!!!

Where is all my forest??

On a bright sunny day, we all were heading towards Green from kodayar. Passing through the tea estate, one of the estate employees stopped us and informed that a few elephants had strayed into the tea estate and told us to look out for it. We had hardly moved a few hundred meters form that place and we stopped to take a look at the elephants which were now in full view from the vehicle. It was a herd of three elephants, with red mud dusted on their backs, seemingly lost in the middle of the tea estate! The estate must have once been forest in which they would have felt very much at ease. The elephants, all females though healthy, seemed to be perplexed and confused.
As if to add to their confusion, one of the estate vehicles went close to where the elephants were apparently not realizing the presence of the elephants. The perplexed elephants gave out a mock charge with an ear piercing trumpet and the vehicle passed by as though nothing had happened, only to stop a few meters ahead and the passenger getting down from it look at the elephants in surprise and fear! After a while, the herd soon found a way and headed back into the forest which they had come out of. Having witnessed all the drama through the camera and binoculars, the look on the elephant’s face seemed as if they were asking the question for which I had no answer- Where is all my forest?

A seed with Six legs!!!!

Having evaded the bites of the hundreds of leeches and that from a Malabar pit viper, we continued to search the leaf litter for snails all along the Vellachi thodai trail. Soon, we came on to a clearing which had some rocks and a very sparse understory and immediately, all of us sat down in search of the snails. Half way through the process, I came across a cream colored object which looked like a seed and I picked it up and asked Chetan as to which seed it was. As I was about to hand it over to him, I noticed that the seed which I picked up had legs! All of them came closer out of curiosity and surprise to see what seed it was the seed I had picked up turned out to be a Tick! It was easily the biggest tick which we all had ever seen-the size of a thumb finger nail and more than a centimeter thick! Soon a photo documentation session followed and all the while, the tick lay haplessly on my knee without being able to move about thanks to its own weight! The tick must have had a very good meal or must have been a gravid female with hundreds of blood thirsty young ticks waiting to see the light of the day!

Camouflage

Camouflage-1. The method or result of concealing personnel or equipment from an enemy by making them appear to be part of the natural surroundings.

2. Concealment by disguise or protective coloring.

3. Fabric or a garment dyed in splotches of green, brown, tan, and black so as to make the wearer indistinguishable from the surrounding environment

Camouflage to me is synonymous with field clothes!
It helps one to blend into the forest when on foot, does not disturb the animals to a large extent,it allows you to go closer to an animal which you normally cannot and of course, it can save your life when you are too close to comfort with an elephant or a bear!

Having bought and used a cheap pair of army camouflage clothing from one of the sidelines of Sivajinagar a few years ago, I have done justice to the money spent on it by abusing the tough clothing to the maximum possible extent!
All the while, it has allowed me to stand still and stare into the face of sambars, chitals pigs, leopards and of course elephants and bears!!! :)
About six months back, It so happened that i got a bit too close to a herd of elephants! the herd of elephants, who were feeding on the fresh bamboo shoots were rudely disturbed by my good self and my assistant but both of us did were not aware of each others presence!! to add to the fun, the elephant who we literally bumped into was a well grown tusker who was in Muskth!!!
we were behind the bamboo bush and the elephant on the other side of the same bush- one more step and we would have shook hands with it!! :)
with just moments to share, i turned around and slowly got back 4 steps and from there we got out of the grove with hurried steps then broke into a run to save our good souls!
that is the first and last time that i saw an elephant that clearly and can never forget the encounter!

A few days later, early in the morning, while walking through yet another bamboo forest, a sloth bear who was retreating to his daytime lair decided to cross my path and having seen and heard it approach first, i froze next to a bamboo clump and waited for the bear to pass... the assistant with me was simply petrified and i could see that by looking at the data sheet which he had filled up! all the data fields were goofed up!!! :) Later, i measured the distance with me and the bear,it was exactly 12 m!
yet again, my "camo" had made me "invisible" to the bear....
my love for camouflage has also got me into trouble for all wrong reasons which i shall talk about some other time! :)

In the land of Veerappan!!

This is a 3 year old story- rather my first stint with the forest with a scientific interest.
MM hills as we all know is a hill range in the border of Tamil nadu and Karnataka close to the forest of Satyamangalam which was the strong hold of the Dreaded poacher and smuggler- Veerappan.
The reason why i was there was to look for tigers! yes tigers and not veerappan as he was long gone by that time! :)
I finished my first internal test in college and took the packed bags which i had got with me and left directly to MM hills from college with other fellow volunteers who had decided to spend some of their quality time in search of tigers.
We all took the Much famed "GYPSY" from bangalore and drove down to kollegala where we spent the night in a hotel and early next morning, we started off at 5am to reach MM hills to breakfast.

It was only the next day that i got a true essence of what the forest was- Went with a senior on a 10km trail through the dry forest and up and down the hilly terrain in the scroching heat of the sun which was beating down your backs!
sambars, chitals leopards and what not all of it were being identified by my seniors and frankly speaking all of it was drving me crazy!
soon after having endured the overdose of survey we came to a stream to have lunch- A stupendous meal of "ಚಿತ್ರಾನ್ನ" .
Soon it became evening and we came close to where we were supposed to be picked up and as per plan we were picked up and we got back to the hotel where we had put up... with this, I stepped into the world of "wildlife research and monitoring" and contributed my time doing the work as a volunteer for three long years before calling it quits for reasons which i do not wish to explain!

ಪೂರ್ಣವಾಗದ ಪೂರ್ಣಚಂದ್ರ...

Forests have always captivated me with the subtle something which cant be expressed but can only be felt once inside the forests...to me, forest is more than just a wonderland- it is a treasure house of knowledge and wonderful experiences.It is the force which has kept me going till now and am sure it will for a long time to come!

ಮಾಯಾಲೋಕ- Named in memory of shri Poornachandra Tejasvi's last written book and unfortunately, he departed without completing the whole series.

It was his books which i read at a very young age kindled the interest towards nature in me and his writings about nature and his wanderings in the forests have captivated many more minds like mine.The, the why he observed nature through the eyes of a writer, a photographer and a birdwatcher has simply been astounding. He was a Voracious writer,a great thinker, and a hunter turned naturalist!
His books have always fascinated many people young and old like...his writings about nature and various other issues will always be with us and his legacy will continue for a long long time to come.

come along with me for an exiting journey "ಮಾಯಾಲೋಕ".
Sit back and Enjoy!
seshadri