My European travelogue has to wait; I went to Bhigwan yesterday.A journey of two hours brought us to Bhigwan, which has a lake that is roughly east-south-east of Pune. Flamingos, they say, come to Bhigwan, and stay there till the end of February.We left home at 5 in the morning, but by the time we got on to the boat at Bhigwan, the sun was well up in the sky, and we knew that we would see nothing. Birds, we know, come out only early in the morning, before it gets hot.How wrong we were! Flamingos, spoonbills, open-billed storks, bar-headed geese, cormorants, gulls, glossy ibises, black-headed ibises, terns, grey herons, egrets, kingfishers ... We saw them all. My eyes darted from one to another, noticing details of each bird because we saw so many of them. We saw enough birds up close, right there, flying above our boat. We heard their calls and saw them hovering over the … [Read more...]
Leopard II
It was nearing the time to leave the forest, but we headed back towards the rest house in old Nagzira. The guide needed to use the washroom.There are lots of deer and monkeys near the rest house, so tourists invariably stand around taking photographs.On that day, there were people standing in their jeeps, looking fixedly in one direction."There's something there," I said, frowning. "Must be deer. People are always excited to see deer." "No ..." I insisted. "People don't stand to see deer."And that's when someone gestured to us frantically. "Leopard, leopard!"It was right there, at the rest house! And it was in the mood to hunt.A leopard's camouflage is excellent. It was in plain sight, but a little distance away. We could make out that it was there only when it moved. We watched. A herd of deer was grazing just beyond.And then a doe and fawn emerged.The leopard eyed … [Read more...]
Leopard
We did our research before we went to Nagzira. We knew there were barely any tigers, but we also knew that many, many tourists saw a leopard in Nagzira. Surely, in eleven safaris, we would see one too.The first, second, third, fourth (in Koka) and fifth safaris were over. We were restless. Much as we enjoyed each safari, we wanted something more. Something to write home about. I love bison. I love monkeys, deer and birds. I love trees and sunshine. But I wanted more.In Nagzira, we often felt as if we were the only people in the forest. Unlike in Tadoba, we did not have constant communication with other guides about where the deer and langurs were calling out to one another. Often, I felt like we were lost souls wandering in the jungle: alone and without any sense of purpose.We passed a rare car going in the opposite direction - and found what we wanted.There he was. He emerged … [Read more...]
Starry, Starry Night
"There's nothing in new Nagzira." "Why don't you go to Koka?" "It's about 35 km from here." "Anyway, Nagzira is closed on Thursdays." "You could go to Koka on Thursday." "Maybe you'll see a sloth bear." "Or bison."We didn't agree that there was nothing in new Nagzira. There were fewer animals; we did not deny that. Yet, New Nagzira is the most beautiful forest I have seen. A green forest, with sunlight filtering in through the leaves. Birds everywhere, weaving their way around all kinds of trees. That does not count as 'nothing' in my book.We went to Koka anyway. Koka, an extension of the Nagzira forest, was a jungle that did not send ripples of delight through me. Forest, then main road. Forest, then village. Forest, then farmland. That does not fill my heart with gladness, the way dense, green, endless forests do.We were out of Koka by 5:20, even though the safari officially ends … [Read more...]
Nagzira
Ten days away from the city. No internet. Phone connectivity for about an hour a day.Eleven safaris into the beautiful jungle.Three leopards.A leopard making a kill: whose side are you on? The leopard's or the fawn's?Wild dogs in the distance.A herd of bison. Flycatchers, thrushes, drongos, night-jars, parakeets, hoopoes.A ride in an open gypsy through the forest at night.Starry skies that I remember from my childhood.Nagzira. … [Read more...]
Wild Dog Hunt
No one will ever believe that it's not very easy to see wild dogs in the jungle if you spot them three times during the course of the same safari.At first, we saw five. Then we heard wild fowl crying out to one another - alarmed that the dogs were nearby. We then saw another dog. How domestic it looked, standing there, ears cocked. The only thing missing was the wagging tail.And then, returning by the main road, I saw something white being dragged into the jungle, away from the road. That 'something white' was the belly of a spotted deer.Yes, we watched the dogs tearing the deer to pieces and eating it. We heard them whining to the others, calling out to the entire pack to share the meal. We watched the dogs eat violently, aggressively. I was disturbed, yes, but I could watch. I was able to watch and think, "Well, that's the law of the jungle." I was surprised at how they shared … [Read more...]
Back from the Wild – Again
Green forests. Dense.Tall grass. Just a few metres away, a tiger could be hiding and we wouldn't even know. Anticipation is thrilling.Spider webs glinting in the sunshine. A huge black spider poised on her web eats a grasshopper.The black ibis with its red hood and impressive beak pecks away in the grass.Sambhar - first the doe, then the stag - cross the road in front of us. They pause in the middle of the road to look at us. The way we go look at the animals, maybe they thought they'd step out today and look at humans.A yellow oriole flies above us, below the screeching green parakeets.The chestnut-headed bee-eater, flies and lands, flies and lands. In Marathi, they call it a 'crazy parrot' because of its peculiar habit of flying so briefly and perching again, time and time again. It doesn't seem to know what it wants.A crocodile, still as a log, floats in the water.An … [Read more...]
After the Burggarten
I wrote, some time ago, about how we hunted for, and eventually found the city garden - https://varshaseshan.com/blog/burggarten-bitte/. In English, somehow, people we spoke to called it the 'Rose Garden' rather than the 'City Garden'. Not unnaturally, we expected to see roses, but we saw none. The garden was truly beautiful, but we saw no roses; did we not look hard enough?We went after that to a place that stands out in my memory as a unique experience - a Schmetterling Haus. We were told it was a kind of greenhouse, and speaking no German at all, we had no idea what 'schmetterling' meant, and no desire to look it up. The people who told us to go have a look at it perhaps lacked the vocabulary to explain what it was too because they told us no more than that. They told us it was a greenhouse that was worth visiting, and that's all we expected. We went inside the greenhouse and had a … [Read more...]
Chestnut-Headed Bee-Eater
Before going to Tadoba, we talked about the fact that sometimes, we see no animals at all. Two of us had been to wildlife sanctuaries before, and wanted everyone to be prepared for an experience that might prove to be disappointing if you only want to see a tiger. Just being in the forest has a charm of its own if we aren't obsessed with seeing particular animals, we said. We would definitely see some animals - at least deer - and some birds. It is a forest after all.Very diffidently, a friend admitted that she could recognise nothing. I assured her that I could identify all of five birds with any kind of surety - and that list included the crow, sparrow and mynah. She laughed at me and all but said that she did not believe me. I told her that one other bird I could identify was the chestnut-headed bee-eater. She looked at me with some measure of awe. It seemed pretty fancy to her that … [Read more...]
Detective!
From the time I was about seven, I wanted a mystery to solve every vacation. It was not fair that only Enid Blyton people (for me, they were people, not characters) got to solve such convenient mysteries, with the additional advantage of barely getting older each time around.When our guide Vishwas started telling us how much goes into being a guide, I wondered whether he had similar unfulfilled childhood wishes.Every time we sighted any animal, the pride in his voice was heart-warming. He pointed out to us that a single alarm call (that we, the tourists, had ignored) had led us to our wonderful tiger-sighting. He commented with pride on the fact that all the jeeps ahead of us had ignored the sound, but his constant attention had given us a beautiful sighting of the changeable hawk eagle that had just made its kill. He exulted in the fact that his forethought in having led us through … [Read more...]