Hail to the leopard, spirit of the forest

In the presence of two regal cats we watched mesmerised and awestruck. Some of that aura rubbed off on us


I have wandered only a handful of forests. Most wildlife enthusiasts might have traveled more in one year than I have over the last five. So I never complain about not having seen most of our mammals including the nation's heartthrob, the tiger.


But I have always worried about not having met His Highness the Leopard. The jungles I have roamed have plenty of leopards and I have come across ample evidence that pointed towards their activity. In some cases I have missed the beast by a hair's breadth: scores of pug marks, plenty of scat, but no leopard.


While I think of the tiger as a samurai -- bold, always in the limelight and powerful -- I equate the leopard to a ninja -- silent, cunning, unseen and deadly. Maybe I'm getting carried away here so let me cut to the chase and tell you about my first leopard! It's kinda obvious by now that I finally did see one, right?


A few weeks ago I was on safari in Mudumalai (it was in fact the first safari of the trip) along with some like-minded friends. Around 4:45 in the evening we were inside the tourist zone of the park looking at chital and gaur. We were talking in hushed whispers when, suddenly, the watcher who accompanied us called our attention to the other side of the vehicle exclaiming softly, "Leopard, leopard!" 


At the sound of the word the adrenalin rush I felt must have clocked 240 kph. I frantically scanned the area to which he pointed. I was afraid that the cat would slink away into the undergrowth.


Then, through the dense clump of bushes I spied rosettes. The driver inched the vehicle forward. And there it was -- a magnificent leopard bathing in the evening sun!

Half asleep and sunbathing

The scene was magical. The yellowish leopard dozing in orange sun-glow just a few yards away. Unbelievable. Unexpected. Lazing nonchalantly, it lifted its head and aimed a penetrating stare straight at us, or should I say through us!

In the leopard's piercing gaze

With the vehicle now silent, we sat watching and photographing the leopard for more than ten minutes. It regarded us as if to say, "I know you are ogling but I don't care" and continued basking. The cat was relaxed and seemed least bothered by our presence. We were relaxed because the leopard was.


While we gazed mesmerized, we were shaken back to reality by a sound from the other side. The distant roar of a tiger. The leopard looked in the direction of the sound. We took in the magical suspense of the moment: A leopard on one side and a tiger calling from the other. After a few minutes, before we realized it, the leopard melted into the undergrowth.


We moved on and completed the safari. We did not see the tiger that roared. And whatever we saw after the leopard hardly registered any impact. My thoughts had fastened to the glowing rosetted coat I had gazed upon for ten minutes, and its owner. I remembered the words of the veteran wildlife photographer TNA Perumal: "The leopard is like the spirit of the forest." And I had been blessed by it.

The spirit in all its glory

Text and photos: Arun

Encounter: Dhole - the Indian wild dog

Watching one of our most efficient predators in the wild is a treat and a privilege. Most people might be obsessed with cats, but give it up for the Dhole, our very own wild canid

Just after I told my wife how endangered the Indian wild dog or Dhole (Cuon alpinus) was, we saw about ten of them on our first three trips together. Which, naturally, evoked the question: "Are they really endangered? I have seen more wild dogs than tame ones since our marriage..."

Sadly, they are...

At first glance the dhole is very like a dog

When, as a child, I saw the animated version of Kipling's Jungle Book, I grew to hate the dholes (red dogs) because they were enemies of the wolf pack to which the protagonist, Mowgli, belonged. Dholes were portrayed as an evil lot, hunting in packs and taking over the hunting grounds of the wolves.

The tail is a definite giveaway, though...

Since, I have heard a lot about dholes. When Beej first told me about the dhole he encountered (with Arun and Sahastra in BR Hills), I had not yet seen one. Soon, I was rewarded with my first encounter. We were driving through Nagarahole along the Mananthavadi road (although calling it a road would be a joke - rutted and potholed as it is, allowing an average speed of 10 kph along the 30 km drive). Suddenly, a canid crossed our track and Prasanna hissed: "Dhole!" It was a female and it lingered about our car, quite unafraid. Soon it was joined by a male that sat on the road next to the car for quite a while, allowing us a good view. He then joined the female and walked along the road before disappearing into the bushes.

The couple that entertained us at Nagarahole...

After that I have had multiple encounters with dholes, most in the last couple of years. Trips to Bandipur and Mudumalai would yield at least one sighting. But my best sighting was in Upper Bhavani in the Nilgiris. Prasanna, me and our wives were on a casual drive from Ooty when we saw a dhole leap right ahead of us on the road. It had a lustrous orange coat, which looked very fluffy, and a very dark tail. It bounded away, pausing ahead to stop and give us a backward glance and then vanished into the forest.

Contemplating...

Dholes hunt in packs. They are organized hunters and their skills have been well documented by Karnataka-based wildlife filmmakers Krupakar and Senani in their films Wild Dog Diaries and The Pack. Dholes are known to surround and bring down prey as large as the 1.5 ton Gaur, making them one of the most feared predators.

Tearing into a Sambhar (Photo courtesy: Joseph T A)

My friend Joseph TA was the luckiest of our group, having seen a pack of dholes hunt and devour a Sambhar. Generally, dholes are known to abandon their kill when intruded upon by humans, thanks to the old practice of hunters who used to leave the hunting to dholes and scare them off to take the kill.

Enjoying the feast (Photo courtesy Joseph T A)

Sport hunting and retaliatory killing by villagers whose livestock were taken by dholes have driven these canids to the edge. Thankfully, the active efforts of forest departments and NGOs involved in conservation are helping them recuperate.

Text and photos: Sandeep Somasekharan

Dhole hunting photos: Joseph TA (www.josephta.com | www.facebook.com/JTAPhoto)

Encounter: Otter in the water!

At first they looked like coconuts bobbing in the water. The next second we were gaping with wide-eyed delight at a family of Smooth-coated Otters!

Champion Swimmer's Rule #1: Keep your nose above the water

My first brush with the Smooth-coated Otter (Lutrogale perspicillata) was back in 2008 when I saw one surface near a small rock islet in Ranganathittu bird sanctuary near Mysore. Seeing our boat it dived underwater immediately and we never saw it again.

Curious otters look at their visitors

Three years later I ran into them again in an irrigation channel near Mysore. On a random Saturday stroll along the agricultural lands around the outskirts of the city we heard a strange barking call from a brimming irrigation channel. A casual glance turned up nothing but a second later we saw a head rising from the water - it could have easily been mistaken for a shrivelled and dried coconut floating on water.

From a distance they looked like floating coconut husks

The otter then let itself be washed away downstream by the currents and we thought we had seen the last of it. But a few minutes later we saw the otter again with the rest of its group. There were about seven individuals and they were climbing up on to the agricultural land above using the roots of trees that were jutting out on the embankment.

Check out the webbed feet! 

We followed the otters for about an hour, walking carefully to ensure that we didn't disturb them. They would enter the water and swim downstream and upstream, moving their flexible bodies like sine-waves when moving upstream, and to move downstream they just let themselves be carried by the currents, keeping their noses above the water.

Swimming in sine waves

On land they moved in fast bounds, stopping to crane their necks once in a while to ascertain that there was no lurking danger. A farmer's bicycle aroused ample interest, but lack of reciprocation of any kind disappointed them and they took to the water again.

Anybody home?

About half a kilometre downstream, near habitation, the otters stopped, probably on hearing noises from workers in the fields. They started swimming upriver and we continued on our way, humbled and happy to have been taken into confidence by this charming family of semi-aquatic carnivores, and having been privy to their merry ways.

Back to the water

Smooth-coated Otters are the largest of the three species of otters found in India (of 13 species distributed worldwide) - the other two are the Small-clawed Otter and the Eurasian Otter. Increasing loss of the otter's habitat, which includes waterways and riparian habitats, has pushed list-makers at IUCN to place the Smooth-coated Otters in the Vulnerable category.

Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan

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Encounter: Pop goes the weasel

In spring of 2001, my good friends Bruce Lee Mani and Rajeev Rajagopal (better known as guitar player and drummer, respectively, of Thermal And A Quarter) dragged me to the Himalayas on a trek for which I was quite unprepared. Bass player Rzhude, who had been there and done that before, had charted out our 'itinerary' - which meant heading to some nameless Himachali hamlet and hunting out people he remembered only by first name, then coaxing them to help us find accommodation. All on a budget that resembled my frayed shoestrings. I had spent the last six months in California driving on freeways to every national park within driving distance and getting fat on all the hormone-laden meat and milk and Washington apples I could shop at Safeway. A cardio workout in the Himalayas seemed a perfect way to burn off that ill-gotten tallow, and also to reorient myself among my countrymen. So much for excuses. Without even a pair of proper trekking shoes (I had on a pair of morning-walk-worn Power sneakers) and no backpack to call my own, I was bundled into a train that took the longest possible route to reach Delhi. On the bus to Manali, I got over my jet-lag only by listening to a tribe of multicultural fellow Hindustanis snore away in unison. What a homecoming! We trekked from Manali to Solang, but could not go to Rohtang as the pass was snowed in. No disappointments, though. At the end of our trek, we made our way back through the cobbled, undulating streets of old Manali village hopping goat-like across streams and trying to make polite conversation with the villagers (mostly with the intent of scoring some hash - as luck would have it, every second man turned out to be peddling some). Passing a stone fence in that village, a flash of hot orangey red caught my eye. A ribbon of movement among the piles of boulders, it was about an arm's length away. I had to peek over the wall to see what it was, and that earned me the opportunity to stare into the wrinkled face of an ancient woman with truck-window glasses who was either hard of hearing or irate or both. She hollered at the top of her voice at this outlandish peeping tom (moi) and waved her arms about, while I peered into the cracks of her compound wall. A black-tipped nose emerged, then a pointed white snout. Then a pair of beady, insolent eyes and a mouth that opened to reveal a row of sharp teeth. Here it was - a Himalayan Weasel (Mustela sibrica), that tiny little giant-killer of the foothills. He frowned his carnivore frown and slunk his sinuous body around the rocks and emerged now and then to look us in the eye, not hesitating to bare his fangs lest I found him too cute. Despite his huggability, he was a carnivore all the way - right from the bloodthirsty quivering of his nostrils to the merciless gleam in his eye. But, of course, these are human attempts at personification and what really matters is that this little fellow can bring down prey many times his size - such as hares, pikas, marmots, squirrels and small birds. The Himalayan Weasel is not getting any commoner in the hills, and we were very lucky to see this guy up close. Humankind's war against nature has pushed these little carnivores to the brink. Meeting this fierce little killer in the hills, I was reminded of Strange Meeting, Wilfred Owen's telling poem on the futility of war, especially these three lines from it: I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.