Yesterday Vinod had warned me against going alone into the jungle adjacent to
the house and this morning I discovered why. First off we had to go into the
National Park visitor centre to sign a disclaimer stating that I understood
the dangers of such a venture. Then when Vinod and I headed off to the track
we were to take, we were joined by a ranger who always walked 20m in front of
us, apparently to make sure that we didn't unexpectedly come across some of
the mammals of the jungle, not least the Asian elephants which can be very
dangerous. Indeed as we walked Vinod told me a cheery story of a couple of
previous guests who had gone into the woodland and been chased by elephants,
and as recently as two weeks ago he'd had one in the garden of the homestay!
There was certainly plenty of evidence of elephant activity, including dung
and area's where they had been tearing down the vegetation to eat. When I
asked him what we would do if an elephant attacked us, his response was clear,
"Run". A stray dog that was following us didn't help and Vinod was quite
vociferous in his efforts to convince the dog to leave us alone, which it
eventually did. Vinod explained that the dog made our situation very
dangerous, because chances are if it was with us when we spotted an elephant
it would bark causing the elephant to charge us. So we proceeded with
caution....
I'm not sure exactly what the ranger was going to do if we did meet a
dangerous animal, except perhaps be the first to die, but disappointingly we
certainly didn't see any elephants. Still, he was very good at spotting stuff
and got onto a number of decent birds and perhaps best of all found us a pair
of Asiatic wild dogs with a pup.
Vinod reckoned that we were in no danger from these animals and I'm sure that
he's correct, but they're dogs, they're wild, they're big, they had a pup and
another name for them is red wolf (also dhol), so I was glad that I hadn't met
them on my own. They're classed as endangered with an estimated 2,500 mature
adults left in the wild. Sadly, apart from the Malabar giant squirrels and a
few macaques, they were the only mammals we saw this morning.
However away from the throngs of photographers and "birds for my buck" listers
of previous days, it was a tremendously atmospheric morning and we managed to
see quite a few decent birds, some of which I think even surprised Vinod
because of how hard they can be to see. Vinod explained that he does not bring
photographers here because the jungle is so close and dense that it can be
very difficult to get decent photos. That makes me feel better! We didn't see
a single other person all morning. Ideal.
The first mega of the morning was this crested hawk eagle which the ranger
spotted first. It showed very well actually, but photography was virtually
impossible as you can see. Later we saw it or another soaring over the
woodland.
There were several Malabar grey hornbills which are impressive enough, but probably the birding highlight of the morning was finding a Malabar pied hornbill, which Vinod actually looked staggered by. What a bird it was at quite close range, that's three hornbills we've seen this week after seeing the great Indian a couple of days ago.
Other birds seen today included white-bellied treepies, plum-headed parakeets,
rufous woodpeckers, Loten's sunbird, rufous treepie, Asian fairy-bluebird,
calling grey junglefowl and Indian paradise-flycatcher. The rufous
woodpeckers were hanging around a tree ant nest and apparently they often take
over these nests for themselves. All in all, it was a really fabulous morning
and an experience I'll never forget.
What a place this is, I've never been to a place which felt so wild or so
dangerous. It wouldn't have surprised me if a tiger had walked out!
...but this is just a Malabar giant squirrel.
The place is alive with butterflies, this is chocolate pansy.
Here's common sailor.
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