Among Slimy & the Slithery

It's been a while since I woodcrawled and this blog seems stuck in a time warp. I've been running around a bit but nothing worth biting into has turned up. This weekend should change things a bit. Bandipur beckons and I'm finished packing though I'm still a good four days away from driving off down that familiar road!

The boredom was killing the blogger in me and I had to do something. Monsoon is not exactly the ideal time to be out woodcrawling but heck, it's better than sitting in my house and going through old pictures.

On the 26th of June, 2011 I told my car to go in any direction it chose, and go off where it thought best. Trust my car to find a place to potter around, and it did! I guess it's woodcrawling instinct seems unaffected by the wet weather. Meenvallam was drowning in the rains so it went further. On the outskirts of Mannarkad the road turns right to Silent Valley National Park and my car, it seemed, had it's plan worked out. It swung right and pointed it's nose to Silent Valley. Odd time, 11.30 AM, because you need to get into the National Park before afternoon but I did not realize that my car had other ideas.

Just before the ghats begins the guard at the forest check post waved me through without even bothering to get out of his chair. That was funny; I remember entering my details the last time I was there, or was that some place else. As the road climbed gently the little cascades started to appear. In Silent Valley water has the right of way. Almost all cascades flow over the road, not under it!

Silent Valley has the most pristine rain forests  in this part of the world and I knew then I did not have to be on time! It struck me that I was alone and had the whole day to myself. I did not have to worry if my co-passenger was hungry and squeamish about leeches! Here I was, all alone with my gear in the most beautiful forest at the right time of the year. One creature that I wanted to see and photograph was the Giant wood spider. I was hoping I'd see it this time around. If it had not been for my car, I'd have been staring at my laptop screen all day.

Further up the canopy closed over the road making me feel like I was driving through a green tunnel. Every turn had something interesting and I was out of my car as much as I was in it. Thank God for the weather sealing that only Olympus has!

A lovely little cascade on my left, recessed into the forest that I almost missed it. My car, apparently knew it was there! It stopped. It almost seemed like a scene out of Jurassic Park.

As I walked about I started noticing little things. Small flowers, ferns, creepers, and tiny creatures that I'd never have noticed sitting in a car.
It was like re-learning how beautiful God's creations can be from close up.

About 28 kms from Mukkali (the entrance to Silent Valley National Park is this beautiful waterfall. It is on the right of a hairpin bend and falls almost 50 meters in series of steps. It is impossible to capture its beauty on a single frame unless you are in a helicopter!

The lower half is more violent and falls in more sharper drops than the upper part.

I kept driving, stopping, driving, stopping all the way to the top. By the time I reached Mukkali is was a little after 1.00PM. No scope of a trip into the National Park. I wasn't too keen either. I hadn't packed a lunch when I left home and it was the wrong season for birds here. So after a little discussion with my car we made  the U-turn.

On the way down I had the other side of the road to survey so the routine of stop-drive, stop-drive started again. There was this little cascade again with the water running over the road but this time it ran for a considerable distance along the side of the road before spilling onto it. I started walking along the little busy water way. It was only when I sat on my haunches and stared into water I realized how really 'busy' the water was!

Crab; so well camouflaged that I would have missed them if not for their scurrying under the rotting leaf litter.

Others popped up on the rocks waiting for prey but scooted off to their crevices as soon as I stepped in their direction.

Then something caught my eye. A damsel fly laying eggs on the litter in the water. It would fly a bit, alight on a twig or leaf and curl its tail into a circle a pat the tip on whatever it was sitting on.

As I watched fascinated I detected a little wiggly movement in the water. Tiny red worms (?Blood worms). Popping up from the  mud and disappearing the minute I touched the water or picked out a floating leaf to get a good view. There were thousands of them and I was wondering how I resisted the temptation to sip a little of that cold water. Providence intervened, perhaps!

Under a rock, protected from the rain and the dripping water was a nest of a paper wasp. They were busy as only wasps and bees could be. I didn't spend too much time in conversation with them. It was not the right time to upset them so I clicked a few pics and walked on.



A strange polka dotted grasshopper was climbing a rotting log. I couldn't get closer and my long lens was in the car but the perspective through the macro lens was more like what the grasshopper would see. An endlessly long climb...

As I had been walking I heard the croaking of frogs but I couldn't find one despite my good eye sight! I could find damsel flies and worms but no bloody frogs. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a 'water droplet' going UP! How could a water droplet defy gravity? There had to be an explanation and I peered closer to inspect this curious phenomenon. The rock face was full of these little creatures, tadpoles with legs and froglets!

I had seen some amazing sights in Silent Valley but nothing to beat what I had seen in the last few hours. I got into my car and started downhill again. When I reached the hairpin bend at the 28th kilometer from Mukkali my car stopped. I had stopped on my way up but my car stopped again. This time I ignored the falls and walked into the wet forest on the opposite side. More ferns and beautiful ground fungi.

As I walked back to the car I looked up into a low hanging branch of a tree hoping to see some bird or some tree fungi. My eyes almost popped out of their sockets. There was an alien on the tree, looking at me with eyes at the tip of two stalks. A snail; that I'd never seen before. Half an hour and many photographs later  I got into my car, elated. This was a trip like no other.

I had spent a productive day, completely different from my usual jungle trip. No large mammals or birds, just 

God's little creations. The three bananas I had for lunch at Mukkali had by then been fully utilized and my stomach was grumbling again! I told my car to head home. 

As I rolled downhill again rewinding the sights in my mind I was thinking of getting home to a warm meal. My car stopped again! There; outside my left window was a web and in it's center the object of my desire. A Giant Wood Spider. Rumbling tummy was forgotten, rain was forgotten, the itchy leech bites were forgotten.

I only had eyes for this beauty, Never mind the fact it was missing a leg!

I did not know how I reached home. I only knew that God acts in strange ways. He showed me many fascinating things through the day but he reserved the best for the last.

Faith, they say, moves mountains. The entire Silent Valley moved for me.

Thank you God & thank you Car!!

Hijacked on New Year

Bandipur in winter is a wonderful place to be in. The weather is perfect; chilly mornings, warm days and cozy nights. The jungle itself is not too green but not too bare either, just the perfect blend of browns & greens.

New Year 2011 was around the corner and what better place to hang out in than in the wilderness. I hate noisy parties and would be a misfit in one. My idea of a good time is spending a quiet evening in the wilderness. Drunken revellry on the streets is totally abhorrent  to me. The best noises are not loud music & blaring horns but the soothing tones of the jungle sounds. A cricket here, a night jar there and a barking deer deep in the quite jungle.

My bags are always packed for a trip. All my jungles greens & browns go straight into my duffel once they come back from the laundry. I hate wasting time packing. With age catching up, last minute packing is hazardous because I realize I've forgotten that very important something when I'm half way into the journey!

Of course my photography gear is always ready. I just have to whip it out and start shooting. Back up batteries and storage cards always on standby, not to mention the back up camera too!

As D-day comes closer the mood is exhilarating. It's like being back in school. As the vacation draws closer we count the days & hours to be "out of the gates of....".

My friend the Colonel was also going to be there but we never expected that New Year would be hijacked!

Out of the blue an old school friend popped up. He's been hearing me rave about my trips to Bandipur and suddenly decided that he wanted to see what was so special about this place I haunted. Christmas & New Year is peak season and swinging accomodation at the eleventh hour was impossible. Besides my old friend wanted accomodation for a 'marriage' party!

I had to put my foot down. I offered to sacrifice my cottage so three could be accmommodated but he wanted to take a car load, if not two. I was stumped but I had an ace up my sleeve, my friend the Colonel. A good friend for a crisis like this. Hearing my sad tale he promptly offered me his cottage without batting an eye lid.

I wasn't feeling any more 'accommodative' so I told my hijacker that we'd solved the problem for one car load but everyone else could find their own accomodation. I wasn't just annoyed that my New Year was washed out but also that I had to deprive my good friend, the Colonel, off a holiday he too was looking forward to.

I was resigned to spending New Year at home but little did I realize that the sacrifice was not in vain. Gods are very prompt these day in rewarding or punishing. That is a story by itself and the second part of this tale; about Gowri, the enchantress.

Shackled...

It's been a long while. Six months, as a matter of fact. Somehow the fingers seem to have lost their suppleness and struggles to find the right keys.

I realize I'm getting rusty so I'm going to exercise my fingers again. It's not that I don't have tales to tell but life has been going through many ups & downs. I know the best way to scramble back to normalcy is to go back to WOODCRAWLING.

Watch this space for Gouri....she'll break the shackles for me.

Embarrassed!

This is long overdue. Writer's block has been afflicting me often and I'm still not upto it. Of course, I realized if I kept it in abeyance I'd lose the vivid memories I have of this event.

17th April 2010, Bandipur National Park  

Summer did not seem to have affected BNP as badly this year as it did the year before. The jungle actually was green, thanks to the intermittent summer showers. I was in the back of the safari vehicle bumping along the track near Yere Katte. The leopard of the 15th evening was still fresh in memory. One large predator was a boon but I did not know the next bonus was right around the corner.

Just after the Yere Katte on there is a track that runs left from Kolkmalli Katte towards Siddarayana Katte. This track is not used by the safari vehicles regularly as the jungle is denser and sightings are difficult. I have particularly fond memories of that road because my first encounter with the dholes of Bandipur happened at that corner way back in 2005. Whenever I pass that junction I always look  to see if the pack, the one I saw going off down that track, was coming back! It's a different matter that five years have passed, but the habit remains.

Perhaps instinct or perhaps a stroke of good fortune, Kiran, our driver decided to turn down that track that day. Some 500 meters down I saw a flash of brown. It was two dholes running across this track from our right. Something was happening; the dhole were in a hurry. A kill perhaps, that was what flashed in our mind, especially with the langur giving warning calls from the safety of the canopy.



As we reached the spot where the dogs had crossed we slowed down to peer into the dense undergrowth for signs of a struggle indicating a successful chase for the dhole.


We could hear the yapping of the dhole inside the lantana shrubs and eventually spied the two. They were looking up and hopping onto the trunk of a tree and barking at something above.




What we saw, took all of us by surprise. It was a young leopard, standing precariously on a Y-shaped division on the trunk of the tree.

The dogs were having fun, having chased a larger predator up a tree and trying to dislodge it from its slippery perch!


I have seen predators in their natural settings and they always had an air of superiority over them. Secure in the knowledge that they were on top of the food chain they had nothing to fear except perhaps their own kind. The leopard, after all, was the second largest predator after the tiger, in  Bandipur.


This leopard, however, had absolutely no evidence of superiority about it. As a matter of fact it was looking positively embarrassed. Why wouldn't it? It was the bigger creature and there were only two puny dogs to handle. It probably couldn't figure out itself, how it got itself in this rummy situation.

It kept shifting it's position trying to hide its face behind the trunk and at the same time struggling to keep it's balance. There was just enough space in the "V" to keep two paws correctly but the leopard had four, and it would be embarrassing if it fell off the tree into the lantana shrubs below. Imagine getting yourself entangled in a thorny scrub with two excited dogs that were at that point looking very merciless.

 

Anyway, it wasn't the leopard's day. The dog's weren't all that keen to stop and kept at it for a good ten minutes.

The poor leopard was resolutely hanging on to it's slippery perch. It kept snarling at the dogs below occasionally but that wasn't having any effect on them. They knew that things were in their control.

Eventually they dogs got bored of the game; their playmate wasn't budging so they started wandering off.

They started walking towards the track we were on and turned in the direction of Yere Katte.

Then one of them suddenly appeared to change it's mind and turned back, flopped on the grass and started rolling contentedly.

The other dog too decided it was in no point in abandoning a nice game in a hurry and joined it's mate not ten meters from our vehicle.

The poor leopard on the tree was undecided. It was looking down searching for the dogs but the under-bush was too dense. It could see us but not the pair lying right next to the vehicle.

After some hesitation it probably assumed that the dogs had moved off and decided to take a chance. It gingerly turned on the tree, obviously not wanting to crash down into two annoying dogs lying hidden somewhere below.

Then abruptly it leapt off the tree and disappeared from view. The dog's seemed to have been waiting for this to happen. Even before I could train my camera on them they were off in a flash and the dense lantana swallowed the three protagonists of this drama. We could hear the dogs giving chase again and a little later a violent shaking of a tree some 50 meters further inside drew our attention.

The leopard had managed to escape it's pursuers again and had got into another tree; this time on a narrower but horizontal branch, with it's posterior supported by a smaller one. Certainly less secure but a more comfortable perch than the one before

We knew waiting would be futile and the leopard would not leave the safety of the tree till it was absolutely safe. Besides, the sky was darkening and a downpour was looking a certainty.

When the skies opened up it was a deluge. The three of us in the open back of the safari vehicle got drenched to the skin but for once a bumpy ride in pouring rain was a pleasure. Since there was no point in continuing the safari we returned to the resort an hour earlier but our day was made.

It was a safari like no other before it. Bandipur always rocks. My favourite corner in this world.

PS: This last photo is to show you how high the leopard had climbed up on the tree. Almost 25 feet up, maybe more.

Leopard!

Let's face it. All of us who take the jungle roads have always had this prayer in a small recess in their mind, "God! Show us a Tiger. Please!" I'd be lying if I said I never muttered this prayer ever so often, especially when the signs were strong.

A fresh pug mark,

 a remanant of a kill,

a deer's or langur's alarm call; anything could set the heart racing in the anticipation of coming face to face with a predator in it's home turf. In Bandipur, where the tiger was king, I've come across it only once.





The leopard is the second large predator in this part of the world and more elusive. Partly because it hunts in the night and partly because it prefers to lie up on a shady branch during the day. It's therefore less likely to cross paths with a camera totting woodcrawler, or so I thought.

6.15 PM, 15th April, 2010; Bandipur National Park
Skanda's holidays had started and the pull of the jungle had been extreme. Vishu in Kerala is a very important festival; being the New Year in the Malayalam calendar. After the traditional Vishu Kani in the morning we had reached Bandipur. We'd been hearing about "raining tigers & leopards" there and the notice board in front of the restaurant in the resort vouched for that.
The evening safari seemed to be fizzling out into a non-event. We had some 15 minutes to get out of the park gates and the driver thought he'd do one more round to a water hole before calling it a day. The light was fading and summer showers had already started. As we drove forward someone hissed. "Leopard!"

Off to the right, at a dried up salt lick there was a big male sitting. There was no water except some murky slush and he appeared to be contemplating whether to poison himself with it or look for another source to slake his thirst.

He seemed to decide that the rains would bring fresh water, lifted himself off and much to our surprise turned around to walk back towards the road.

Light was fading and the camera was not keeping up. Starting the vehicle would mean scaring the beast and making it turn back in the opposite direction. We decided to stay put and let the leopard do it's bit.

It ambled across unhurriedly, with no concern about a vehicle load of excited humans close by.

When it reached the road, it paused; sprayed on the track to scent mark it's territory and perhaps emphasize to us who the jungle belonged to, before walking past us without even a contemptuous glance.

A tiger is magnificent, but the leopard is mysterious. If not for the light we could have had better pictures but even bad pictures can't take away the majesty of the creature that walked past us. It's attitude seemed to tell us, "The tiger maybe the King but I'm no less!"

Keep watching this space. The next tale involves two of Bandipur's predators in the same scene!