Hot water at your own risk!

As a kid I remember being told by my near and dear ones to be very careful with electricity, having got little jolts of the same at times of not being cautious I sure do know what it feels to get electrocuted. And I suppose all of us would have got such advices and are very cautious when there are wires with open ends around.

First few days I spent in singampatti near KMTR, got me all sorts of breathing complications due to a very dirty room and the cold water bath added to my misery. When the Sorimuthian kootam (will write about it later) was over and Dr ganesh took me to Kodayar where my work would actually happen, I was quite happy to see the placid surroundings, mist or rather cloud covered mid elevation evergreen forests, calls of great black woodpecker resonating in the tall forests and the gaurs glistening in the early morning sunrise on the hills due west. All this made the place all the more beautiful!

Chetan, my colleague was showing me around the quarters where we stay and in the bathroom, I set my eyes upon two nails projecting on the wall, curious as I was, asked him what it was and got a shock when he told me not to touch it even in my dreams as it is fed live through the transformer and the nails are used to fit the heater to heat water. With that, I still had not understood what the “heater” was the impression I had was a typical water heater element which is to be dipped into the bucket of water. I forgot about it till a month later when I moved in to stay and start my work in the field.

Soon I realized what the Heater Chetan had talked to me about was- there was a heating element true, wound on a normal 4X10 cm cardboard with two leads connecting two single core insulated wires hooked at the free ends. Still confused as to how it works, I asked Vivek, another colleague of mine to demonstrate the operation of it, and looking at the sparks flying when it was hooked on to the nails I was surprised, shocked and taken aback at the same time!

It took me quite some time to get used to the fact that such dangerous equipment is used to heat water. A cold water bath atleast wouldn’t kill people!

Having stayed there and gotten used to the weather there, I realized that the cold water bath can actually kill as the temperature goes down to about 8 degrees in winter and decided that death in the hands of the heater was a better bet and began using the same, it became a regular thing to any one of us who are there to explain the functioning and repairing of the heater to any new comer.

Once a lady called mythri came to volunteer for my work in the canopy and after a long tiring journey in the bus, we reached Kodayar by late evening and being a gentleman, I asked her to freshen up first and then I would do the same, she obliged and left to the bathroom, suddenly I realized that I had not followed the protocol of telling her about the nails and rushed in asking her to wait and all of a sudden there was a mild squeak and a long silence of a few seconds which seemed like donkeys ages.

The worst possible things ran through my mind as I jumped across the living room to the bathroom to see what was wrong.

There I saw mythri standing and staring at the nails, speechless. On seeing me she pointed to the nails and on it was the room key, which she had delicately hung on the nail to keep it safe. It was in fact so safe, no one could get it out! Relived that she was safe, I got a wooden stick, used to hoist our celphones when talking and removed the key thanking the stars for saving her life.

And after that a long advice and a little bit of exaggeration of how close to death she was followed and I think it did serve the purpose of making her aware of the dangers of such silly mistakes that she stopped using the nails to heat water and either muthu my assistant or myself had to do it for her.

What I still don’t understand is why would anyone with any little common sense, hang a metal key to a nail visibly wound around by a wire!

A full cycle

Those with very little grounding in biology will know and appreciate the complex interrelationship between organisms known as the food chain. It is this chain of relationships which links organisms; it enables energy flow and nutrient cycle to go through the system before ending as nutrients in its abode- soil, longer the chain, more the benefactors. One such chain I witnessed was that of a carcass of a Brown palm civet, possibly killed by a Leopard and hidden in dried leaf litter on a trail in Kodayar.
After a quick lunch, myself and Muthu my assistant were in search of more trees to climb and while on the move, I came across a patch of leaves looking a bit offset from the surroundings, instinct told me all was not well in that place and on clearing the leaves, I saw a half eaten carcass of a civet. The sight, just after lunch was not very pleasing I would say, but the knowledge of the interactions we gained through the sighting far exceeded the gory sight. The civet though only about ten percent in mass compared to the leopard seemed to be a good source of nutrition to many creatures from insects to the leopard itself and must be one of the reasons why the cat had taken the trouble of hiding it. As soon as the leaves were removed a swarm of a few hundred flies took off from it only to settle back in a moments time, on closer look, about 70% of the civet was eaten and all that was left was the head, the front left leg, hide of the back and the long tail. Civets, when alive are nocturnal and mostly arboreal, feeding on fruits and insects but when dead, insects quickly take up the opportunity to devour them as if to seek revenge on their kin’s death.
The kill seemed to have been made in the wee hours of the day had attracted many flies, which had quite effectively laid eggs on the mortal remains there by ensuring that the maggots don’t go hungry. Having felt that the cycle starting with a fruiting tree, going through the civet, and ending up with the soil as the insects feeding on them eventually die was complete, I quickly took some pictures of the carcass, the head, the foot, the tail and also took some hair from the body as it can be used as a reference when and if a diet analysis of carnivore scats is undertaken to know what others feed on civets, and tried to cover it up as it was hoping the leopard would come and finish what was left. After a week, while on the trail, I did not find any hint of the civet or that of the cat.

Cicadas- key to madness

Many researchers and wildlife enthusiasts often get into the forest thereby avoiding the madness which has now become synonymous of the cities they live in and one does not easily believe if someone says that that working in the forests especially in the canopy is one sort of madness due to one little creature- “Cicadas”

Cicadas, harmless little insects, which feed on the sap of trees, are nice and gentle as long as they are in the soil, waiting for up to fourteen long years or so to metamorphose into flying adults. Once they have done so, their presence will never go un-noticed, for they develop with the ability of flight the ability to sing!

Their songs, so loud and ear piercing are highly capable of temporarily deafening ones ear and the continuous cyclic calls can push a person if exposed for sufficient time to a state of temporary state of madness and as a matter of fact new inventions borrowing natures concept have been made to stop criminals from escaping by exposing them to a beam of high frequency noise which effectively makes the person immobile.

These insects after their sudden emergence from the forest floor can be found on all vertical gradients from the floor, and their activity in the canopies seems to be the highest. They take off calling loud with a little disturbance and continue long after they reach to safety, they shoot drops of watery solution, which in fact is the excess sap of trees after the nutrients are absorbed, they sing in synchrony thereby enabling the females to choose the best contender to mate with and louder the call, better the survival of the male seems to be the rule of thumb but never do they trouble people in any other way.

The high frequency song is most of the time highly rhythmic and well co ordinate like that of an orchestra and is generated due to intense vibrations of the membranes in their exoskeleton and amplified many times to generate the loud song. After the act of mating, one by one all the cicadas die and the forest goes silent as it was, before the emergence of these singers and all that remains of them is a few molts on tree trunks, a few un eaten dead bodies and a new breed of cicadas waiting in the soil to emerge and begin the noisy maddening orchestra all over again!

Fused out

Electricity has become one of the most essential commodities for humans, ever since it was invented.To satisfy the needs of the growing economy of the country, development is a must and with it, there has been exponential increase in power consumption. To cater to this need, large tracts of forest have been cleared up to setup Hydel power projects, which bring in a whole spectrum of problems with it. New roads are made, people from great distance settle there, the forests are submerged, cleared and felled to build the dam leading to habitat fragmentation with which, the local biodiversity is lost or altered to a significant extent.
These power projects have problems persisting years after they are commissioned. Electrocution is one such example. Though humans are safe from it, thanks to the danger signs, wildlife unfortunately, is not. The high voltage power lines passing through forests cause habitat fragmentation and hinder the movement of animals; the animals are also prone to electrocution when they come in contact with the line while moving through the forest. Arboreal wildlife like the endemic Nilgiri Langurs and the Lion tailed macaques are in high risk and they have been seen hanging dead on the power lines at frequent intervals. Recently, two Nilgiri langurs, endemic primates got electrocuted and were discovered by some researchers; both of them, in prime health condition were adult females and were instantly killed due to the high voltage. Such mortalities on the long run can affect the population if breeding females or infants get caught in the maze of power which cris-cross forests all over the country and measures like the use of alternate sources of energy and judicious usage of power resources is the only viable option to prevent an energy crisis to destroy our already depleting forests.

a snake that died of hunger!

“Snake! Take a stick, Whack! Whack! Whack!! Ah, now we are safe…” seems to be a common notion in the minds of people, be it a village or a metropolitan city.
Our watchman at the field station at Singampatti was needless to say, no different from these people, and had killed a Wolf snake, a non-venomous snake which lives and feeds amongst leaf litter in the wee hours of morning. He had come out in the night to answer nature calls and got so scared by seeing the snake that he took a stick (always kept close for security and contingency usages like this) and hit the snake some 3-4 times till it stopped moving and had left the corpse out there, scared even to move it from there. On explaining him his mistake and advising him not to kill snakes, he felt remorse and agreed not to do it again, just to make us feel happy.
The snake, a sub adult, measuring 63cm was still cold and flexible. The snake was so badly hit that the jaws were almost sealed together and the spinal cord was flattened at 3 different places! Dr Ganesh suggested that i do a diet analysis of the snake. The diet content of snakes are very significant in terms of the feeding habits and would be of great help to wildlife rehabilitators as they would know what the snake eats feed it properly.
The only way to do it is to see the stomach contents. Back at the field station, a miniature lab was set up in the nursery, and with Murugan, the ever enthusiastic driver, I started to cut open the snake and must confess that this was the first ever creature I was cutting open and my hands were shivering! some more inputs form Giby, I managed to pull out the stomach and the intestine and cut it open too and to my surprise, it had three long worms, alive and wriggling. I promptly thought it to be freshly eaten food, removed them and preserved them in alcohol and later was told by Abhisheka that they were internal parasites! And the stomach was empty.
This poor snake came out in search of food had actually died of hunger!

Improvising with camera traps

One of the recent advancements in the field of wildlife monitoring is the improvement and increased usage of “camera traps”. A camera trap is basically a camera with a remote trigger connected to infrared sensors, mot ion detectors and heat detectors replacing the conventional shutter release button. This contraption when set up on trails, ponds and other places where there is evidence of wildlife movement, will take a picture of the animal passing in front of the camera. Camera traps have been used extensively to monitor wildlife populations since the time of its coming into existence. Lately, it is being used to estimate the number of tigers in a given area besides capturing rare behavior and the existence of other lesser seen fauna, monitoring the populations of critically endangered species like the Snow leopard in the Himalayas and so on. These easily available camera trap units have also been used in many other conventional and not so conventional situations like near the nest of an owl by TNA Perumal, who got scratched by the owl in the process, but was rewarded by fantastic flight images of owls and many interesting feeding habits which was never seen or documented before. Some of us at ATREE have been successful in using these camera traps to capture the first ever tiger picture from KMTR , obtaining rare images of the Pigmy Hog and the leopard cat from Manas tiger reserve, to capturing the lives of arboreal mammals in forest canopies. Quite recently, we implemented the camera trap in more unique situations. This was during the annual Sorimuthian festival, to document the movement of wildlife during the festival season and in another case during the pre harvest paddy season, in the plains of Singampatti, to capture the occurrence of rodent feeding owls. Though both were by and large failures, they taught us great lessons which will enable better deployment next time. In the former case, the camera traps were discovered by the forest patrol staff and enthusiastic children, who then proceeded to pose in front of the camera triggering the entire film roll. All we got were a few laughing faces of homosapiens. The latter case was a trial run and un-loaded cameras were deployed to see if it would work. In order to make the owl trigger itself, we setup rodent feeding trays in a paddy field getting ready for harvest. The camera traps were fitted on to improvised posts made of discarded plastic water pipes and entrenched in the field. A perch was created for the owl in the field, overlooking the entire field. Though nothing much happened in this experiment, for the owls or the rats turned up, we were all delighted and relieved to find the camera traps in the place just as we had left it! We also learnt that the traps and the rodent feeding trays had to be left in the field for a few days for the rodents to acclimatize to it. Of course, the big lesson of all was that there weren’t any rodents in that field for the owls to come and feed. The only way to get owls to come would have been to release a couple of rodents into the field!

The eYe

A walk through the forest can yield a lot of things and to see things I believe, one has to have their ears, nose, eyes and the mind open and alert! Ears to pick up sounds, nose to smell and eyes to be observant!.

On one such walk in Mundanthurai during the anti plastic campaign in KMTR, i happened to chance on this spider nest on the bark of a tree. From a distance nothing- absolutely nothing was visible and only when i took a super macro image was i able to make sense of what i was seeing!This spider who's identity i have no clue of weaves a small web and places eggs inside it.
but then a new question raised in my mind- if it is made to lay eggs, then why is the egg case open?
Some one on India nature watch guessed it was the handiwork of a human being- it was the least possibly reason as humans seldom go there and why would a human take pain to open a pouch of 1 inch in length of all things he's got to do on earth!?

The only other option i could think of is that of a nuthatch, a bird which has occupied the tree trunk as its guild. It may have, in the process of foraging, removed the case speculating a hearty meal inside!
I do not know...

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!