Mis-adventures on a bike

Working inside a Tiger Reserve is a privilege. Working inside a Tiger Reserve on a motor bike is taking things one step further.  I have had some very nice experiences when on work inside KMTR. I have seen anything from a rare snake to birds like broad tailed grassbird to elephants and even a leopard when on the bike.

A gaur that almost threw me and Chian off the bike!

Similarly, I have also faced situations when death (well almost!) looked me in the face and I lived to tell the tale, especially when working at night. On several occasions the tires get punctured when on the road, away from human settlements and I end up walking atleast 3-4 km to get stuff to fix the bike or push the bike itself in hilly country back to field base.  Other times, at night, with the rain gods pouring away, I have had to ride back with heart in my throat hoping not to bump into an elephant or two which apparently come to the road when it rains! Another time, I have had to ride thru a mud slide!

With the trusted Yamaha navigating thru a mud slide!  PS: No bravado here! got this for the records!

A recent experience in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve with my cousin vinay becomes one among the long list of misadventures when doing field work.

We were visiting a Tea Estate near Gudalur called Madhuvanam. Our task along with many other biologists and researchers was to survey the place for amphibians and arrive at a comprehensive list. We took two days to do this and the estate was a wonderful place to be. Over 50 species of birds made our day including the Great Pied Hornbills! At night, we were treated with sighting of the rare Malabar Torrent Toad which Vinay spotted and picked up to show me- the only so called expert around at that time! For two days we enjoyed our stay there and got back to Gudalur where another colleague, Thomas from the French Institute had to head back to Bangalore. We then went with Tarsh (our host) to his house on top of a hill in the outskirts of Gudalur. The house was serene and I wish I could have lived there for ever! 

the valley at Maduvanam estate

Me and Vinay were bound to return the next afternoon and had half a days time to spare. We dint know what to do. Eventually, we decided to ride into Mudumalai and then to Bandipur. Getting transport early in the morning was tricky. It was Deepawali time and all were either celebrating or plain busy catering to the high tourist demand. Luckily, Joby, who lives in Gudalur had a bike which he offered to us. We agreed and left early the next day. The mist had not lifted and chill was strong. The 20 odd km felt like 100 km! The National Highway inside the park was relatively empty and not many vehicles, except only at few places. The forest, however, was Pink. Yes. Pink because of dear Lantana which has grown everywhere. Up the trees, up the tall bamboo shoot. Down into ditches. You name it. We did not see any animal except for the Cheetal and a group of Sambar deer.

Not satisfied with this, we decided to take the forest department safari in Bandipur. Surprisingly, the bus was almost empty and we got tickets!. I dropped a few names and said I had worked in bandipur a few years ago. Probably that and my camouflage attire made the ticket issuing forester to allow me to sit next to the driver in the bus and get a front view of the forest!. The ride started. People were yapping in the bus. An well meaning idiot googling on his smart (ass) phone for calls of lion, tiger and peafowl and playing it loud in the bus for his kid and the kid aping the call. Another bunch apparently slept off!

Torrent Toad spotted by Vinay

The forest was pretty pink again. The game roads were muddy and the view lines for 10 m on either side were empty. Again, only a few cheetal. An odd langur.Vinay spotted a treepie and yelled Malabar Trogon. The bus driver stopped. People wanted to see what we had seen. I saw the tree pie but the mind's eye was looking for a trogon. A trogon in a Dry deciduous forest! It took me a while to figure out what vinay had seen and he too, by then realized that it was only a lowly treepie. 

We moved on. No animal crossed our path. A small heard of gaur were up ahead. We reached closer and the poor animals tried to move away from the road but could  not penetrate the thick wall of lantana. They ran helter skelter and some ran on the road. Further ahead, one gaur became two and two became four and soon there were not less than 50 Gaur all walking on the road. I could count 25, the driver said there are not less than one hundred. It seems Gaur never go in such big herds. I had never seen or heard of such a large herd. 

That done, we got back from the ride and waited for the critical mass to take another ride at a discounted price. A bunch of hippies came by and said the fare was expensive and returned. The department chaps wound up the tour saying the time was up. We had time left and decided to drive down to Moyar. We stopped enroute to shoot a great black woodpecker which was on a roadside tree and calling away. About half way to Masinagudi, a small town before Moyar, disaster struck.

The throttle became non responsive. The bike would not move. It was illegal to stop a vehicle inside the reserve but who cares and what choice did we even have anyways?! Unfamiliar with the bike, vinay and myself started to figure out what went wrong, then we saw a small piece of cable hanging loose from the carburetor. We tried fixing it but the cable was too short to fit in and we dint see any loose end to fit it in! Assuming the piece had fallen off, we walked up and down the road for a few meters in vain. 

Vinay suggested we upturn the bike and see where the cable connected. But, I had in the past removed and put the throttle cable in my bike and knew that it fit in the carburetor and decided against it. Instead, I pulled out my ever trustworthy swiss knife and unscrewed the throttle handle and noticed that the cable was cut!. Such a simple thing. We stopped the next vehicle that went past and checked up if there was a mechanic nearby. They said the nearest was in Gudalur. By then, we were starting to run short of time for the bus. I called up Tarsh, our host who was on a survey on other side of Gudalur. He said that I will either have to push or leave the bike there and get back somehow to catch the bus. 

I tried pulling the cable back and fixing it but it fell short. By then I had pulled out a pocket nose plier. I decided to try pulling the cable with the plier and see if the bike moved. It did! Quickly, wiping our greasy hands on to the grass nearby, we picked up our bags and began our journey.
Initially it was hard to pull the cable in one hand and controlling the gears on the other and all the while concentrating on the road ahead! Somehow, we reached Gudalur. A distance of 25 km from where we got struck! All the passing cars and busses were all eyes at our antics. Vinay on the pillion with 2 camera bags, me riding the bike with a nose plier and both of us trying desperately to spot some wildlife!

With an hour to spare for the bus, we quickly got the cable fixed and then raced to Tarsh's house where we had left our stuff and again raced back to eventually catch the bus.

While our misadventure taught us a good lesson, all through the bike ride, I was hoping against hope that our tiers would not get punctured. That would have been the last thing we both wanted! Luck, seemed to be on our side and nothing of the sort happened. And yet again, I won and the Bike lost!

With Muthu and John, trying to fix a punctured tube back in the field station! Ages ago.

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 Not formally edited. Forgive typos!

Fern Ball at the Fern House

It was late in the afternoon. Johnson and I clambered down the tall Cullenia tree atop which we sat the whole morning enumerating epiphytic orchids. Hungry, weary of the cold gale and with hopes of ascending another tree, we grabbed our lunch boxes and gobbled up the stale Idly. We set off soon, in search of the next tree to climb. While doing so, we had to cross the Palaquium stream, a shallow stream that cuts across the ‘Green Trail’ which leads to a forest bungalow called the ‘Fern House’. Fern House, as the name suggests, is surrounded by lush growth of ferns of various types, including the tall tree fern. The idyllic Palaquium stream gets its name from the numerous Palaquium trees that are around it. There, on the low bushes, a clump of ferns caught my attention. The fronds were rolled into what looked like a clenched fist. 

The fern frond folded into a ball- © Seshadri KS 2009

The first thing that came to my mind was a story I had read a short while ago. The story, rather an incident, written by the noted Kannada writer, Poornachandra Tejaswi on his encounter with such rolled up leaves on a hot summer afternoon in the forest was fresh in my mind. We too, like the author were dumbstruck at the rolled up leaves. In the case of Tejaswi, he ponders over it over a while and takes it to an entomologist friend of his and they manage to open the roll and see eggs inside. Later the eggs hatch into what is identified as a Giraffe Weevil, with a disproportionately long head! The sense of wonder intrigues them to watch how the insect made the roll. After about two years, they happen to see it. The adult, by cutting off the mid rib, makes the leaf wilt and lays eggs in the tip and rolls it up quickly and lets it drop to the leaf litter where the eggs hatch and the adult bites its way out to freedom.

In our case, the young fern frond was rolled neatly and held together by some form of adhesive. We observed a few of such things around and decided to open up one of them! The leaflets were folded inwards and made into a neat ball with the top most leaflet folded and stuck inside holding it all together. For the untrained eye, it looked like the young fronds of ferns which are clenched like a ball before opening up. May be it was an act of deception by the insect. Inside the ball, there was a translucent spotted grub about an inch or two long and a lot of dark black pellets. The grub was probably of some beetle. On sensing its fortress to be breached, the grub coiled up. By the time we finished taking some pictures, the grub settled down and began to much away on the leaves. For every inch of leaf munched, there was a pellet dropped out from its rear! Such feeding machine! It was eating the ball inside out! 

Fortress breached! the leaf, the grub and the pellets © Seshadri KS 2009

Some silken threads were holding the folded leaflets together. Not knowing what to do further, we left the opened ball on a fern and hoped that the grub would survive. For over three years, I forgot about this incident till I saw one such grub in the stomach of a frog. The frog, called Nyctibatrachus had one of these grubs in its stomach content. Surely they must regularly be feeding on the grubs which are aplenty in ferns along the streams. 

The grub which I cared little to identify © Seshadri KS 2009

Sitting outside the forest and reminiscing about the incident, I am left with awe at the many ways in which various forms of life interact. An insect, that goes to great lengths to conceal its young one from being eaten up. A grub that eats the house made of leaves inside out. A frog that lurks beneath the leaves to grab a morsel of food. Truly a wonderful chapter in the eternal drama of life. I do not know what the species of insect is, nor did I make an attempt to find out. That the ecosystem has such wonders and mysteries for anyone and everyone to uncover and see is gratifying to me.

PS: Shyamal L tells me this "Some of us had reared this and it is a moth and not a beetle grub. Not able to remember the moth but check with the moth group, they might be able to identify the family based on the habit. The giraffe weevilsl make a nice tubular case and beetle grubs lack prolegs (false legs from the abdominal segments)".

The little tale of the little Spider Hunter

It is a common notion that in every walk of life there is something for humans to learn. A walk in the wilderness is no different. Every time, there is something new. Something unique. Sometimes surprising. Sometimes strikingly common. 

Recently, I was walking a trail in KMTR known as the ‘Green trail’. The name, originating in the honor of an old primatologist Stephen Green, who was one of the first persons to do ecological studies on Lion Tailed Monkeys and it was his work that helped build a case for protecting the mid elevation evergreen forests of Kakachi. Though, the name does not exist on official records, we use the name. What happened to all the work he did, one does not know. It never was published is what is heard. His legacy is not lost altogether. Some of the trails in this area, one will come across boards which bear alphabets N, S, E and W. These palm sized boards painted in red nailed to trees have stood the test of time of about three decades. They must have served as a route mark for green and his assistants when they were afoot following monkeys in the thick forest. 

the Western route of green near kodayar.

Most of the researchers in KMTR are aware of the green trail. A 2-2.5 km trail that starts from fern house and emerges out not far away from the origin on the main road. The trail can be walked either way and goes through some good undisturbed forests. Crosses three streams and provides ample opportunity to watch wildlife.

Myself and two other colleagues were accompanying our supervisor Dr. Ganesh and we were helping out with Long term Phenology work. Most of the time we spent looking up at the tall trees and noting if they were in flower, fruit, fall etc. It is a pain in the neck that much I can assure!

All through the trail, we noticed fallen leaves. Leaves which were eaten up but for the veins left intact. I had not taken note of this even though; I had certainly seen it before.

The eaten up leaf

 We went on and at a point, the trail narrows down and one has to pass through some saplings and wild cardamom plants. As we did that, we all heard a constant call of the little Spider Hunter. A pretty little bird with a long curved beak. The calls of the bird are often heard near wild cardamom and in the canopy where loranthus grows. They are known to be good pollinators as well. 

an old picture of the bird from nagarahole

We dint pay much attention to it and kept on. Close to the point, we were trying to locate a numbered tree and by chance, we noticed a clump under a sapling having broad leaves. The calls got ever more intense. A closer inspection revealed that there was something like a nest hanging underneath the leaf. I took a picture and it was pretty simple to deduce that it must be nest of the spider hunter.

We moved on, lest the bird should abandon the nest. Done for the evening, we returned the same way and luckily the bird had occupied the nest and flew out on our approach.

The nest was pretty intricate. Though I don’t generally indulge in nest photography, once in a while its good to document things. As one can see in the photo below, the nest is quite complex. The spider hunters are believed to build nests out of cobwebs. Presumably the name was coined when the bird was sighted in search of spiders or rather the cobweb. The nest was made completely of fallen leaves or rather I will say the un-eaten veins of the leaves. Interlinked with each other, the whole set up was linked to the leaf by some sticky material. I am not sure if it’s a cobweb but is certainly a strong material. The nest appeared empty. May be it had eggs inside but we did not check.

the hanging nest on a broad leaved tree whose name I seem to forget!

The fallen leaves, for a common man, seem like wasted resource. In many places, fallen leaves are collected as mulch for farms. Many places, people burn them. Fallen leaves are far from waste! In fact nothing in any sense is a waste! Humans are an exception.

The fallen leaves are potentially food for the million arthropods and microbes that help in recycling the nutrients back to soil. Some other critters like centipedes, beetles etc dwell in this litter. Anything from a skink to a snake is found in these litters. A wonderful leaf litter ecosystem one could easily say!

I had not known that the framework of a leaf could become useful for a bird, that’s hardly the size of the leaf! That’s something new I learn't. I look forward to catching a glimpse of many more mysteries of the forest. The more the time spent in forests, the more mysteries unraveled I would think!

 More on the bird on wiki can be seen here.