Monday, November 21st, 2005

Time	Event
12:06a	Knowing animal language Today in the evening safari, we happened to see two striped-necked mongooses about 60ft away from the jeep. As soon as it saw us, it turned and started going back towards the bush. Through my little experience with animals, I made a sort of squeaking noise, hearing which, one of the mongoose immediately turned back and started coming towards the jeep. It stopped, so I repeated the call again, and it came a little closer. Mr.Vikram, our resort manager, started recording everything on his handy cam. This happened until it came as close as 40ft from us. The other mongoose came back, which probably dint hear I guess, and both took off on the road which led into the thicket. I have called mongoose quite a few times and most of the time its responded well. The last time was at Bandipur with kalyan but it was a common grey mongoose. It was on the roadside and as soon as we got close, it fled inside, I tried my luck with the call and it came back to such close proximity that we managed to get a good picture of it and I hope Kalyan still has it! After calling mongoose in the evening, we went further where we could see an elephant going into the bush making some noise, I knew it got scared and there are other elephants of that herd too. We were 30ft from the elephant, which we could not see properly but could hear the twigs breaking. So I thought I'll call…… this time its like dog yelping and rumbling! If you have ever encountered a scared elephant, you would know. As soon as I called, one of the adult cow elephant came out of the bush half, started to smell, and followed by two more with two young calves! We were there for another five mins, drove 50ft ahead, and stopped. Totally five adult and two calves came to the road where we were earlier and peacefully started grazing! But sometimes they do charge !!! (14 Comments | Comment on this)
10:47p	little big cat in my backyard I used to work at Bandipur until recently i.e. Three weeks back, now I am in Nagarhole National Park, Kabini part at this resort called Kapila Wilderness Retreat. Which is actually 60acrs property but only 20acrs is leased out for resort use. This is adjoining the Jungle lodges and village agriculture fields, of course on the banks of Kabini backwaters. This place has amazing birdlife, reptiles and other wildlife. Mammals recorded on the campus are like monkeys, jackal, hare, Jungle cat, civets, and leopard cat etc. There were few known cases of leopard straying into the village coming here and to Jungle Lodges campus many years back. I got my camera trap last week to get a picture of Jungle cat, as I have not seen it until now and to get to know what all creatures are here in the campus. If you are coming to our resort, you have to come on the bund for 0.5kms before entering, where the entrance has eucalyptus plantation with very thick lantana bushes. The road inside is very narrow only one car can fit until you reach the reception which is around 200mts. On this road I had seen scat (defecation of a predator), looked more of a smaller cat’s. There were small animal paths crossing this road so I thought I would set my camera trap here. I spoke to Shivappa (Naturalist from the local village who is been working here since 3yrs) about my plan, he suggested one place where he had seen Jungle Cat crossing the road quite a few times. So yesterday around 3.45pm before going for safari, I set up the camera trap and left hoping that at least I would get a picture of a rat! Because from day before yesterday more than 15 laborers have come to start the construction. These people will be walking on this road to the village and they will not only trigger my camera but also disturb the animals. Honestly, without any expectations I left for safari. On the way, I ask Vikram when he last saw leopard on the campus. He said, he saw its scat 5months back and 3years back he had seen the leopard itself! We also spoke about the incident, which happened few months back where a Tiger had strayed into the agriculture fields just few kms away from the campus and the whole village had gathered making hangama and chasing it out! We came back from the safari the camera triggered as our jeep passed in front of it, I was happy it was still working coz I had not used for months until now. The computer I am working at reception is hardly 50mts from the camera trap but I cannot see it as the road curves and also coz of vegetation. I was working until 1.30 am; I could hear owl calling and probably jackal also. Went to my room around 2am and crashed. Morning woke up at 730 asked Lokesh (a trainee Naturalist from local village) to get the trap. He got the trap and left, I opened it casually not excited, saw 34 picture are taken 33 pictures of people and jeep!! But 2 animal pictures were also there ...one was Common Indian/grey Mongoose taken around 5pm and another one was ... probably early hours in the morning ... A little big cat (4 Comments | Comment on this)

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