These field notes come to me Daleep Akoi, owner of a unique jungle lodge at the edge of Corbett Tiger Reserve, India's oldest and most spectacular of wild life preserves. Our naturalists at Jim's Jungle Retreat send me regular bits about the forest and its residents; I write or edit them and upload it here for you.
“I was walking on the path connecting cottages 1 and 12 that stand opposite each other. I noticed a Purple Sunbird sitting on one of the trees in the wooded area there.
A Purple Sunbird in eclipse, Majid Hussain
A Purple Sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus) isn’t a rare sight at the retreat. They’re very active in the morning atop the powder puff bushes and elsewhere on the property. This bird’s colors however seemed rather unusual. The yellow on it was striking! I thought it could be a new visitor!
I took a picture with my camera to record what I though might turn out to be a new species at the retreat. On referring my bird book later that day it became clear that the bird was indeed a Purple Sunbird, but in a very rare eclipse stage. (The eclipse is a brief post-breeding plumage adopted by males.) There were at least five different colors on this beautiful bird.”
We received some exciting news from Corbett Tiger Reserve’s Bijrani zone earlier in the month and a fantastic photograph to accompany it! Majid Hussain, our naturalist and assistant manager, hosted the retreat’s guests at an overnight stay in Bijrani’s forest bungalow. Unique to Corbett, forest lodges for tourist stays are available across the park’s tourism zones. These however need advance booking and organization, which Jim’s Jungle Retreat arranges for its guests for a thorough forest-entrenched jungle experience.
Day ONE of their stay, at around 6:30 AM on a late November morning, the guests and Majid set out on the road to Malani for their morning safari. Roughly 2kms from the bungalow they had spent the night in, the naturalist accompanying them, Basant, noticed fresh pugmarks of a “smallish male tiger” traversing the forest road for a good 100 meters before suddenly disappearing into the bush.
I reprise here what Majid tells me: “Basant was of the opinion that the tiger had only recently moved into the bush and was sitting somewhere in the grassland close to the track. We waited for at least an hour for any movement within the bush. The jungle seemed silent for a while as we waited.
Grace on the Malani Road, by Majid Hussain
Our patience was immense since our knowledge of the tiger’s whereabouts contained fresh inputs from the forest rangers and guards, who had informed us the night before of two in-oestrus females in the area – meaning they were ready to mate, and were heard these last few days calling out to other tigers. We were very certain that the grassland to our left contained at least one of the females as the mating calls the night before had been loud and continuous!”
All the more reason to wait where we were. Suddenly a sambar stag set off a loud alarm call on the Jar Pahar road, further up from us, near waterhole number 4. We stealthily crept up in our jeep to see what the sambar was alerted by. We got there just in time to see a beautiful female cross the road, and into the bush. We waited there, hoping she might step out on the road again, when another alarm call sent us reeling back toward the destination we had just come from, certain that the male we had been tracking was also on the move.
As we pushed back towards our original point, the moment was rewarded with a large male tiger moving out of the bush to occupy the track in front of us. Majestic, this tiger was not shy as he walked the length of the road, comfortable with the fact that we were following in our jeep.
He walked for a good 300 meters on the dirt track. We were blessed for this solitary moment with the tiger. The continuous alarm calls by cheetal and sambar unfortunately also directed other safari vehicles towards the tiger and us. For as soon as they arrived, the tiger chose to cross into the jungle, not to be seen again that day.”
We had reported earlier in the summer the curious incident of two reptiles entwined in a death match: that of a Monitor Lizard of about 3 feet in length and a King Cobra, possibly one of the largest specimens recorded in Corbett Tiger Reserve, at around 20 feet if not more.
A monitor lizard, roughly the same size as the one preyed on by the cobra
The story comes to us from Ms Manik K Harika who was staying at the retreat June 12-15 earlier in the year. It was the afternoon session on June 14 – a safari to the Bijrani zone that fetched these amazing moments, captured on camera and reproduced here.
June 12 was a hot day, though the forest road was well shaded by the overhanging branches of Jamun and Haldu, offering some respite from a heat that had been threatening to turn the day into a scorcher. The jeep contained four passengers: the driver, a naturalist and the two camera-laden visitors from Delhi, zoom lenses open, their fingers ready on the clicker.
The lizard went down quickly!
A right turn from the Bijrani Forest Rest House crossing and soon they were upon a road veering into a jungle thicket. They had traveled about ten minutes when the party found itself upon a sight so strange that none could form words nor express their horror at what was unfolding before them.
A close up reveals the different scale patterns on the two reptilian species
On the side of the road, by the exposed roots of a tree, lay a giant cobra convulsing, its scales moving to expand around the body of a prey now unable to offer any resistance. The troupe of four looked on as though in a trance, unable to peel away from this exhibition of incredible motion: the body of the snake in a vice-like grip, swirling about a reptile now limp, its oxygen depleted, its body emasculated.
The photo series reveal how the cobra swallowed an entire monitor lizard, nose to tail, in not more than 15 minutes!
The lizard-snake encounter was not the only excitement their adventure was to offer. Manik and her friends also witnessed an incident just as unusual and strange on a different day and in a different part of the forest. Another unusual display of jungle behavior was evident when they found themselves upon a cobra successfully trapping its predator, a serpent eagle, which had just dropped from the sky to airlift it for a treetop meal.
In possibly the biggest shock the eagle would receive – its character so used to piercing a writhing serpent with its talons - that the tables would turn so suddenly and decisively was indeed an important lesson for the bird, even if it was its last. With one delayed thrust from the eagle’s claws, the cobra pressed an advantage it didn’t have over the bird earlier. And with the eagle’s momentary lapse in judgment, the snake, which a few minutes ago was to be its meal, found itself a bird for dinner instead. (No cameras were taken on the safari unfortunately; photographic evidence is therefore unavailable.)
The entire length of the cobra is in evidence here
In this jungle, with over 50 mammals, 33 reptiles and over 550 birds, there’s always some twist in the tale.
Place: Jim's Jungle Retreat
Time: May 2010
Story & Photos: Jaspreet Singh
It was deathly silent that evening, the first week of May. I was sitting next to the swimming pool at Jim’s Jungle Retreat, enjoying the slight nip in the air when around 9:30 pm the silence was broken by the piercing alarm calls of a cheetal, in feverish staccato.
Alarm calls - when an animal senses danger or is in distress - don’t surprise us very much; they’re a common, often nightly occurrence. But this call seemed special – the animal seemed particularly distressed and the calling came from that part of the forest that touches the retreat’s eastern solar-electric fence.
Solar Electric Fencing around the property
The calls went on for a while and then ceased, returning the night to the sounds of a nightjar and insects. I felt certain a predator had succeeded in making its kill.
The southern peripheral area of Corbett Tiger Reserve where we’re located gets very dry after March-April and I remembered a story from a staff member who was employed when the retreat was under construction that a leopard had visited a small water hole beside the property on a nightly basis some two years ago.
Could this alarm call be the result of that leopard on a hunt?
I couldn’t sleep very well that night, eager for the morning to come and make my own discovery. I was happy to see fresh pugmarks the following morning, a trail extending 100 meters along the solar fence. The pugmarks’ size indicated a large predator all right, but which one? They were neither too small for a tiger nor too big for a leopard. It could be either!
How was I going to correctly establish this predator’s species? There weren’t many clues for me to make a solid ID that day. But it became a regular habit of mine thereafter, to follow the pugmarks whenever they appeared again, which they did several times. I began keeping a record of the movement of this elusive predator – tracking the time and route the animal took. Being able to see it, however, seemed increasingly to me a game of chance.
Finally, two weeks later news came from one of our drivers that a tiger cub was sighted crossing the main road barely 600 meters from our retreat! This was it! The clincher. A sighting had been confirmed in the very area that I had seen the pugmarks. But something worried me still. Why was this youngster patrolling the area alone? A young adult is still considered a maturing cub, and is in training for up to 2-2.5 years of its life.
One mystery had been solved: The pugmark’s size finally made sense to me. They were of a tiger cub no more than two years! But another equally curious mystery now arose: why was the cub alone at this crucial time of its upbringing?
It didn’t take too long to finally understand why this may have occurred. The clues presented themselves one evening. On a walk through the forest I saw two sets of pugmarks side-by-side, positively that of a male and a female. Could this female be the mother of the abandoned cub? The two were patrolling the same area the young cub was in.
It seemed plausible that because of the emergence of a dominant male tiger in the vicinity the female had abandoned the cub to save it from certain death. (Unless the male is the father, a cub’s life is threatened by the presence of a rival male.)
I felt sorry for the cub now and pulled nearly every trick from my training manual to fetch a sighting. I waited for hours one night on the track he normally followed, sat patiently by the waterhole another night, and up a tree some other nights.
This cub was entirely unpredictable! I guess having to fend for itself at such a young age, it needed to be a master of illusion!
On June 28 the body of a quarter-eaten blue bull calf was found 20 meters from the solar electric fence running along us! I was excited. For this was finally an excellent opportunity at a possible sighting. A yet-to-be-eaten kill meant the predator would return soon.
Cub kill: young Nilgai (blue bull) calf
It would have to be another vigil by the kill that night. A guest staying with us enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity and soon we were parked next to the fence just as it was getting dark, at a bend on the road that kept us well hidden.
After waiting for nearly 3 hours, and with no exciting alarm calls to break the silence, just rumbling tummies aching for dinner, we decided to return for a quick bite. Within a few minutes of us sitting down to eat, a loud and prominent alarm echoed from the forest where we were just minutes ago.
We ran back to the jeep, jostling for seats until they were all taken. The calls were now regular and furious. As we approached the area where we had parked earlier one could feel the presence of a predator. And it was not long after that the cub appeared through a lantana bush, gingerly at first and then taking purposeful strides towards us!
This was thrilling! The young male could be seen clearly in the half moon light and here he was walking just 8 meters from the jeep. The sighting lasted a few seconds before he vanished into the darkness again.
I felt euphoric on having seen him after weeks of searching, and also tremendous relief. Having had a good sighting finally, it appears that this young cub has learned his lessons well to survive in the wild without the protection of its mother.
If he had survived these past three months, he would surely be a strong survival contender, given the harsh realities of forest living. Now when we hear the calls, we’re pretty sure it’s the cub on his patrol again!
It was a warm evening on 26th June 2010. We had driven into the Bijrani zone of Corbett Tiger Reserve along with guests Pankaj Dixit and his family. I accompanied them as this was their first visit to Jim’s Jungle Retreat and Corbett Park.
Passing through waterholes number 2 and 3, heading toward the ‘Ratapani’ track, we were suddenly aware of a furiously sharp alarm call of a cheetal deer. We stopped the jeep immediately, searching the grasslands and undergrowth for the apparent cause of alarm.
Suddenly, from out the bushes came a cheetal, running frantically and chased closely by two jackals! The deer had barely reached a clearing in the grass when the two jackals fell upon it and proceeded to tear it apart.
We were all shocked: for within the next ten minutes there wasn’t much to recognize what was left of the deer!
A sighting such as this one is rare, made all the more curious as there was no sign of additional jackals – they usually are found in packs – in a territory marked and owned by a very large male tiger.
Additionally, jackals are generally opportunistic scavengers and often take on prey that is still immature or of small size. In this highly unusual sighting, we were watching a couple of jackals, possibly a mating pair, ambushing a fairly large and full-grown deer.
The entire episode lasted until we forced ourselves to drive away, the sunlight fading to a cool summer evening.
The sweltering summer months of May & June will soon give way to dramatically different weather. The rains, when they arrive with torrential force in the hilly terrain of Corbett, will play havoc with the road networks within the park, providing much-needed respite from human intrusion.
The first few showers also trigger breeding patterns of the area's herbivore and avian species. A new green envelops the trees, while the undergrowth turns lush with sprightly shoots and new food resources. Dry riverbeds and channels now course with tumbling, muddy waters, deep pools and dark necklace-shaped cloisters of fish fingerling.
DANGEROUS TIME
However, this period is of major concern for park authorities. With the collapse of its internal road network, the rains also bring a most vulnerable time for the park, when anti-social elements are bent upon damaging nature in several ways. Indeed, tourism forms an important conservation tool at this time of the year, the safari-goers keeping check on illegal activities.
Closing the park has ecological significance, no doubt, as it provides significant time of undisturbed peace for wildlife. However, a limited presence of visitors actually acts as a deterrent to anti-social elements. A raging debate over the pros and cons of human interference has finally given way to a controlled visitor presence in the park during the rainy months. This could be of vital importance in providing tourist and forest guard patrolling in some areas of the park.
The Jhirna tourism zone, about 2km from Jim's Jungle Retreat, is open the entire year. We also await a decision on whether night safaris will be allowed in the park. The authorities seem to have concluded that limited night drives with forest guards in every vehicle would be beneficial to the park's dwellers, providing much-needed patrolling at a dangerous time for wildlife.
OF DEER HAREMS AND BIRD NESTS
As the village folk get busy with their seasonal planting, either paddy or soybean crops, the determinant being the extent of rains, rutting calls of stags can be heard with increasing frequency within the forest depths. Rains also bring with them squads of insects, their presence in the dense vegetation forcing animals to take refuge in open areas, especially in the teak plantations and on highways.
Animal sightings are therefore great in open areas during safaris. Corbett’s ungulates such as deer, boars and antelopes, get busy with their breeding, a cycle triggered with the first few showers of rain. Male deer like the cheetal and sambhar make fabulous displays of their antlers, to seduce and entice, by garlanding them with the profuse vegetation of the monsoon. Except for the kakar, or the barking deer, most deer species are now forming their harems. (The kakar pairs with one partner each season.) For the rest, fighting males make big displays of their dominance, locking antlers with any challenger, making this one of the most common sights.
Many of the smaller birds are also breeding at this time and in a few weeks from now mother and chicks will be a common sight. The profuseness in ground vegetation and a rising insect population provide ample feeding opportunity to insectivorous birds at this crucial breeding time. Quails, patridges, pheasants, raptors, owls, parakeets, barbets, etc. are seen with their chicks in the beginning of the season while many of the cuckoos are busy finding other bird-nests to lay their eggs.
This also is the time to look for new nests on the ground. The Eurasian thick-knee, one of the most conspicuous birds on the ground, gets busy distracting the attention of jackals approaching towards its nest by putting a wing under one of its feet as if it is injured.
TIGERS & TUSKERS
With the nullahs and other water courses cutting forest roads and highways across, flash floods are increasingly common.
Solitary elephant tuskers begin their courting rituals now, determined to fight to protect its harem. During the monsoon, elephants herds, their dominant male at the centre, move together in search of fodder. The Jhirna tourism zone produces excellent elephant sightings during this time. The excitement builds when loner makhanas – giant but tusk-less males - try and join a herd but are strongly rebuffed.
Tigers have no fixed breeding time and they may breed anytime of the year depending upon the availability of prey and water. Plenty of water keeps them cool during this sultry weather. But due to the vegetation’s denseness and excess water availability, tiger sightings begin to slow down. However, our walking safaris in the forest alongside Jim’s Jungle Retreat have fetched excellent tiger sightings in the past.
Meantime, as the rains fill up snake burrows, forcing them out, there are plenty of young frogs to feast on as they too begin to emerge from newly-created monsoon ponds. King Cobra and python sightings increase at this time. A recent sighting of a King Cobra killing and swallowing a Monitor lizard happened just about a week ago and was witnessed and photographed by one our guests, Manik Kaur Harika. Thanks much for your photographs! A rare sight indeed.
The onset of summer not only brings rising temperatures but a certain degree of distress for Corbett Tiger Reserve’s wildlife and intricate ecological changes of our flora and fauna. A severe lack of water this year – in part thanks to the lagging monsoon and near neglible winter rains – has played havoc with human and wildlife.
For the farmer, the Rabi crop yield was a reduction from previous years, while profuse forest fires have taken a serious toll inside the national park. It seems a certain lack of preparedness – with non-clearance of fire lines on time, was the major reason for the uncontrollable spread of fire.
GLOBAL WARMING TURNS UP THE HEAT
Meantime, the effects of global warming were seen in December-January when Tendu (Diospyros melanoxylon or Indian Ebony tree or bidi patta) started fruiting while sloth bears (Melursus urcinus) were still in hibernation. Similarly Sal (Shorea robusta or the Reliable timber tree), the area’s dominant tree, did not begin flowering until the first week of May, when it should have been in flower by late March!
Importantly, the above changes do have a bearing on the population density as well as sighting of animals in Corbett’s tourism zones.
Tiger sightings in the Dhikala zone have drastically gone down owing to the untimely and mysterious deaths of four young tigers during the December-January period. Sightings in Jhirna are erratic owing to water shortage issues, while sightings in Bijrani have suffered because of similar reasons. Young and powerful tigers occupy the main water sources while the weaker ones move out to look for water or become opportunistic while taking their share of water from others territory.
LATE BLOOMERS
The delayed flowering of Sal might result in late seed dispersal. But there are other dry and moist decidous trees, associates of the Sal, that also flower at this time. Amaltas (Cassia fistula or Indian Laburnum) flower along with Shisham (Dalbergia sissoo or North Indian Rose Wood), Kusum (Schleichera oleosa or Indian Lac), Haldu (Adina cordifolia or Indian Turmeric) besides Dhak (Butea monsperma or Flame of the Forest).
The Dhak or Pallas’s tree are striking to look at, their red fire flowers visible from a distance. As you approach a Dhak-infested area, the forest appears to have caught fire. Bakuli (Anogeissus latifolia or Indian Axle Wood Tree), one of the associates of Sal also flower along with Semal (Salmalia malabarica or Indian Kappock tree) whose pods burst with flying “Budhias” (a child’s moniker for the floating cotton balls!) The Rohini (Mallotus phillippensis or mark of the Indian married woman tree) has started fruiting and offers excellent relief to the male elephant about to attain its state of ‘Musth’.
TIGER'S TALE
A part of the tiger’s summer routine is to find and secure a water source. Despite the low availability of water, tiger sighting in this period is regular as tigers follow marked routes when reaching water bodies, as is the case with the Patharwa Nulla water source, a stone’s throw from Jim’s Jungle Retreat. A beautiful male leopard near the retreat has also become resident because of water availability near the property.
A similar schedule has also been observed at the high bank or Gorkha Sot while on the way to Dhikala. In Bijrani, waterhole No. 6 and Garjia Sot are the most sought after vantage points for visitors and in Jhirna, a patient wait at the waterhole in Jarh Paharh as well as Kothirao watch tower have yielded good tiger sightings.
Photo: Majid Hussain
ELEPHANT BEAT
With harvesting done, agricultural fields on the park’s peripheries are now barren. But the elephant population continues to try its luck for bamboo outside the forests towards Dhela and Laldhang. Most elephant sightings in the last 20 days or so have occurred outside Jhirna and Bijrani tourism zones. Wild elephant populations, in small and medium-sized herds are seen frequently in the Dhikala zone.
An occasional big tusker can often be sighted in the vicinity of the largely female herds, giving an indication that the first pre-monsoon showers might well induce a fight among the males for their right over a elephant harem.
Serpent Eagle, Photo: Daleep Akoi
BIRDING PARADISE
On the birding front, some of the peninsular migrants such as paradise flycatcher, Indian pitta, brain fever bird or Common Hawk cuckoo, etc. have already arrived. The length of paradise flycatcher tails can be seen increasing as eclipsed males begin to change their colours. The Indian cuckoo or ‘kaphal pako’ bird have brought down the message from the hills that the Indian black current has ripened and its time to return to the hills!
Meantime, the Yellow-footed Green Pigeon and Emerald Dove species have begun their courtship rituals.
The bursting flowering of trees in the forest has kept the insectivorous birds busy, while this is the time for our resident raptor population to breed. One can hear the territorial calls and abrupt flights of the Changeable Hawk Eagle, Crested Serpent Eagle, Indian Honey Buzzard and the Pallas’s Fishing Eagle. The smallest raptor of Corbett, the Collared Falconet, also breeds at this time.
The Great Indian Hornbill and the Oriental Pied Hornbill are also seen on the top canopies of semi-evergreen trees. The Great Hornbills are very vocal in these months, looking out for a possible mate. Their call is similar to that of a Langur’s alarm on seeing a tiger!
Despite a lazy and often distressing summertime for the park’s wildlife, there is plenty of animal and bird behaviour to witness, discover and rejoice.
We hope to see you here soon! Thanks and happy sighting!
