KABINI ADVENTURE
On my Indian trip earlier this year, I spent some blissful da...
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On my Indian trip earlier this year, I spent some blissful days looking at nature in the raw. My association with wild life has a lifetime's quality to it: When my father died, I got a letter from his dear friend, who has also since passed on, he had written that he had visited my father when I was a babe in arms: and the first thing my father did was to take him and the family including the bawling and puking baby(that is me), to the Pilibhit forests(UP) for Shikar. Those were days when Shikar was considered de rigueur for a segment of society, though it is , thankfully, now beyond the pale.Now conservation of these marvellous beasts and their habitat is the urgent need. But, that is a separate posting, which I intend to write, hopefully, soon.
Kabini Jungle Lodges are situated about four kilometers from the main gate at the Nagarhole( Snake River) National Park, to me the treasure house of wild life that is unique in South India. The Lodge is located at Karapur. From Bangalore it is about 220 KM going via Mysore. From Mysore one takes a 80 km ride on the Mysore-Manathavadi Road. The best way to reach the Lodge is by car or taxi.
The Lodge is on a campus of about 10 to 15 acres of land, situated on the banks of the Kabini River. There is a main Lodge called the Viceroy's Lodge, which was the Lodge that the British Viceroys used to come to stay for Shikar, when they came to visit the Maharaja of Mysore. This lodge and the adjoining forests were the private preserve of the Maharaja and was converted an opened to the public in 1980. There are several cottages on the property and also some well built tents. That is tents on a cement base with attached constructed bathrooms. We stayed in one of these. Given below is a link to the river lodge and the options avalable:
http://www.nivalink.com/kabini/index.html
The Nagarhole National Park lies about five kilometers from Kabini and two Safaris per day go out to the Park. One bright and early in the morning and one in the afternoon after lunch and a short siesta, about 4PM. The Nagarhole Park is stocked with flora and fauna. I give below pictures taken largely by my companion on the trip, Dr. Kumar Desai, but intersperced with my puny contributions. I also relate three memorable incidents, one with a pack of five wild dogs, second with a herd of elephants. and finally with two beautiful leopards at a kill.
Entering the Nagarhole National Park in the early morning has a ghostly aspect to it, with the morning mist and the quiet aspect of the early day:
Herbivore
Plentiful in the park. The most ubiquitous are literally the thousands of Chital(spotted deer) that abound the park and are easy prey to big cats and even wild dogs as we shall see. The Chital stags are particularly majestic.
Royal Chital Stag
K Desai
The Hanuman Langurs residents of the trees are nearly as numerous but as they are mostly tree dwellers, they are less seen.
Langur up a tree. Penny for his thoughts ?
K Desai
Gaur, incorrectly called in the past as the great Indian Bison, are available in large numbers. They are the largest cattle available in the wild: and they are really humongous beasts. They are majestic, but generally very harmless. An easy prey to a Tiger too big for a leopard. A pack of wild dogs however, could make a meal of it
Elephants are all over the place at Nagarhole. The wild elephant count nationally in India has increased by 4000 in the last five years to 18000. During my three and half days I must have seen a hundred elephants in the wild. I did not see many males, probably half a dozen and several youngsters in herds.. I also saw a male in Mast(for dogs it will be called 'in heat'), but it was not wild. I saw a lot of elephants,while sitting in two watch towers by tanks. The major one was the Tiger Tank:
K Desai
The matriarch on the left is resting her left foot, a typical method of resting aching feet, a method that elephants use while standing.
This herd of elephants was located about 200 yards ahead of wild animal water hole called the tiger tank. We then moved to a watch tower near the Tiger Tank, you can see it not too clearly, a green square amongst the trees at about 20-30 ft in height behind the second large elephant from the right. It was made of galvanized metal and was very noisy every time we moved.
K Desai
The same herd drinking from the Tiger Tank, picture taken from the watch tower. We made two trips to the watch towers by two watering holes of about an hour each. Though we only saw, spotted deer, Sambhar and elephants it was exciting to sit in the forest away from the Safari Trucks:
Vigil at the Tiger Tank
P.G.Gopal
K DesaiPredators
This mother and baby were a part of a large herd that were coming to drink water directly to the Kabini River. Initially we saw two Babies being protected by two large females. They were essentially physically covering the youngsters behind them and facing the safari truck that was probably 15 feet away, daring us to pass them. The females were calm, but looked determined to protect their young. After a time the herd moved on to the water, this youngster is now returning from the river with his mother, now that the herd feels safe.Their huge size contrasted by their gentleness is a real sight to see.
Predators
Are given special treatment at Kabini. Every day there is an accounting
of the three main predators, Tiger, Leopard and Dhole(Wild dog ) sighted.
The dhole pack were most determined eaters: they ignored us as we sat watching them at the kill for a good fifteen minutes. The white bag like thing beside the first dhole, was the Chital's abdoman. One of the dogs pulled out a small ball like thing attached to blood vessels from that white 'bag', but dropped it as it apparently did not find it appetizing. I told the naturalist that it had just pulled out a foetus, as the hind had been pregnant. The naturalist did not think that waspossible. The dholes soon left and the naturalist sauntered over the kill and confirmed to me that it was actually a foetus. The dholes at their feed and the foetus, essentially underlined that nature is both beautiful and terrible in the same breath.
K Desai
Leopards at the Kill, Calls of the Wild
It was getting to be dusk and quite dark in the penultimate day of our trip. We had not seen any of the big cats: there were supposed to be 65 tigers and over 70 leopards in the Park and we had seen not a head or hair of them. We were driving on one of the many jungle roads in the park :
We came across a Safari truck with the people looking intently into a block of forest. The langur usually calls for the joy of it. When everything is clear, the langur cries out a calm "oom, oom, oom !". But when a predator is near its alarm call becomes a guttural cough. The langur was calling a warning cough of a nearby predator, the Chital were alarmed and were calling "Yike,Yike ! and the Sambhar belled his warning" Yonk,Yonk,Yonk !" All the signs showed that a big cat was nigh and appeared to be on the hunt. This calling went on for a few minutes and then died down.
After a few minutes of calm we went on our separate ways. It was getting dark very fast, and within about fifteen minutes, the two way radio with our driver crackled, the driver turned around with great alacrity and tore down the jungle track at breakneck speed. About a quarter of a mile beyond the area that we had heard the jungle calls, there were a couple of jeeps with passengers hanging out at jaunty angles, craning their necks looking into a jungle path. Within a few feet into the path to the right there was a commotion. There was the call of the sambhar, insistent and urgent. There were a couple of little Chital doe's just outside the opening. They looked highly alarmed. They rushed into the opening, called and apparently shocked at their courage turned tail and rushed out. This they did several times, rushing to where the commotion was, calling and rushing back It was obviously a leopard kill probably a Chital that , causing all this hullabaloo. The sound of angry cats(there were two of them as we found) became the main show in town. Finally a leopard(small in size, a female) jumped out, followed by a large male leopard, They started walking nonchalantly down the forest block. The female disappeared while the male continued walking. It walked about half a kilometer down the road with the jeeps following. It then crossed the road, avoiding the bunch of jeeps, five or six by now as if it was avoiding cars on a busy and chaotic Bangalore road. I give below a couple of pictures of the male leopard, the female avoided being photographed:
K Desai
K Desai
These look like surrealistic Van Gogh paintings as the light was getting bad. I have Dr Desai's video on tape of the leopard which I need to convert to a digital format to upload. I shall try to do so, if I can.
The Phantom Tiger
The same evening we heard from the radio that there was a Tiger having a bath on the Kabini river. We rushed out to the spot and across the river about 200 yards away, there was a dark spot on the river surface, which the naturalists swore was the head of a tiger: I will not claim it as a sighting, as the night was fast approaching and though the 'head' was discernible, a lot had to taken on faith.
Goodbye Kabini:
After five Safari's into the forest we bid farewell to Kabini, a visit well worth the effort. As we left, we say some residents of the park returning home: their sillhouettes made an interesting testimony to the farewell we were bidding to the park. Hoping to return next year, God Willing !
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Thank you Sampath and welcome back we missed your funny and thought provoking posts. That trip to Kabini and Nagarhole was a memorable one. Rgds, Girdhar
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dear gopal,
such a wonderful
collection of photos
and the write up on nagarhole to match...
when i went i stayed at the viceroy lodge
and the night safari was memorable...
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Bina: Do not miss it. It was the most memorable part of my last trip to India.
Rgds, Girdhar
Also read my blog "On a Lofy Impulse in the vernal wood etc" on a changing experience I had on the Bhagirathi Ganga.
Rgds, Girdhar
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GGji
lovely blog n pics
now we hv something to look forward to on our next visit to India
bina
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Usha: I have been with wildlife practically since the cradle, I found this trip most memorable. Thanks for visiting.
Girdhar
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That was fantastic Girdhar...just loved the write up & the pictures..Awesome pictures...Husband & self wildlife freaks..Been to Sariska, Ranthambore, Munnar, Silent Valley...but the elusive tiger showed us only the paw marks...thank you for the great blog...
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Melody: Thank You for your comments: This is well worth doing. It is unorchestrated and the animals make their apperarance on the basis of absolute serindipity. There is another point, I do not know how much longer you would see the beauty that is wild India: It is fast dying and no one seems to care. Go to it when you are next in India.
Best regards, Girdhar
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Shri. Girdhar
Sorry, I'm late.
Delightful read. It was interesting to see the herd of elephants - very beautiful. I particularly liked the elephant resting its aching leg. Made me pause and reflect that animals feel pain too...Watching the dhole kill must have been a different experience for you. The pictures are fantastic, many thanks to your friend too.
When I was in school, a trip was organized to visit Nagarahole, but my father refused to send me due to the perceived risk. After that, we visited Bannerghetta National Park in Bangalore many times, but were unable to get a decent sighting of the animals there. Would love to make it to all these wild life sanctuaries atleast once in my lifetime.
Regards
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Gaurav: Yes it was a multi-colored experience. Thanks for the visit.
Rgds, Girdhar
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GG: This was a journey and a half! When I saw the leopard pics, my first reaction was, "surreal" and then I read your "Van Gogh" surreal take. To put a cricket spin on your trip, this was many innings rolled into one - test, odi, t20.
regards, gaurav
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