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“If a person goes to forest & after coming back says, he hasn't seen anything, then the person is not just blind but deaf, unable to smell & dumb too” ... Me.
Well, one more thing to add, if you are not all above yet forest makes you greedy also a bit; will explain this aspect also ahead. Yes, the sharing is about forests & it’s about Tadoba too (as the trip was there) so those who are already feeling nauseated, can stop reading (waidhanik ishara)! Its one of the worst summers we have witnessed, thanks to rampant deforestation, urbanization, increase in exhausts of private vehicles, add to that blowers of our air conditioners which now are directly affection our environment though we are yet fools not to accept or acknowledge this & price is being paid by every living being! Tadoba is already known for its nasty summer heat while Chandrapur & its surrounding towns like Bramhapuri are on world map for being hottest places on the globe, this summer in April only, the mercury soared above 45 degrees. The day I was crossing Nagpur for heading towards Tadoba’s Kolara (Chimur side) gate, Nagpur & Chandrapur both were above 45 degrees & I when I bought local newspaper, the head line was Chandrapur is hottest place in the world today (earlier day’s temperature)! And trust me by eight am in the morning you can feel the giddiness due to heat, though one good thing is oxygen level is much higher in the jungle & it helps a lot as oxygen is a cooler gas in comparison to other gasses. As the clock starts ticking ahead so does the heat quotient & all the movement in the jungle is now around water, which also is getting scarce in a few zones of tadoba! Tigers as they eat raw meat which generates extreme body heat need water to maintain body temperature & so do the birds as well as every other living being in the forests & suddenly water bodies are in most demand. And one thing more when you are in the forest & get to see His Highness or He Highness (tiger) then suddenly the excitement makes you forget all the weather adversities such is the power those yellow black stripes has got & I am no exception to this law of wildlife!
The reason of this wildlife (read as Tadoba) sharing is not about summer & the heat but what I carry back from forests & the first thing is patience as well as accommodating extremities of the weather & learning to live with discomfort! As in our life supported by AI (read as, controlled by) we hardly have to face any discomfort, if it's summer heat we have AC to keep our homes cool, in winter we have heaters & warmers to keep us cool, we have microwave to make our food hot when its cold & we have freeze at our service when we want to enjoy our deserts chilled, in all life in the concrete jungle has made us in a way very rigid to adjust with any adversity. This is exactly why I go to the forests as right from waking up at morning 4 am & for that making my brain to tune for sleeping before 10 pm, to eat light food & be ready for a bumpy ride with no seat belt or AC in the car & getting exposed to extreme weather, forest teaches me to adjust myself with surrounding rather than making surrounding adjust with us as per our comforts! And even in the summer of April end, the morning breeze always makes you shiver for the first half hour in the forests, even in Tadoba but as the sun rises by 10 am, you are unable to even hold the metal pipe for support in the gypsies, such is the extreme change in temperature. Oh yes, forgot to mention the dust from red soil along, which keeps hanging in the air & you have to pull your nose-mask down all the time to protect your sensitive nostrils safely! Now imagine, if this is what we have to face with all the protection what animals like tiger & sloth bear must be feeling & how they must be dealing with the summer of tadoba!
This is where the sightings not just of tigers but of sloth bear or moments in the wilderness makes you forget about all the discomforts, which in a way is like practicing some Zen meditation, as you are waiting in exposed sun while the tiger is cozily sleeping somewhere nearby in the shadows of bamboos on in the pool of water, you can’t see it but you know its there & you keep waiting. You are lucky if your gipsy can find shelter of some tree or else to bear the sun is the only way you have & keep drinking water as mush you can (again there is problem of facing the nature’s call as wash-rooms are far away, one more aspect of wildlife tourism) but all this is worth as the moment you saw the tiger coming on the water hole (whenever it feels then only) you forget everything about the torture of heat you have gone through & all you do is just keep looking at the majestic animal & its aura! Suddenly you don’t feel any scorching heat, sweat, dry throat, nothing matters now & the mood is elated, that’s the power tiger has in its mere sighting, such a moment, is what I carry back along from the forest! And then waiting at any water hole for tiger is fun as first if you find the water-hole without any deer or monkeys in it, in these times of the year then be sure the tiger is resting somewhere nearby, you can’t see it but the tiger has definitely noticed you & now all you need is patience. But if a tiger is not at a waterhole then you can enjoy other animals coming for their thirst at waterbodies & their behaviour. Many a times if tiger is sleeping somewhere nearby in dense foliage & its has come in the night itself then the animals like deer or monkeys or gaur doesn’t notice it & are carefree a bit but when they know tiger is somewhere around then the way they are cautious, it's worth observing!
And waiting at water holes you can click birds as they are not afraid of a tiger & noon is feeding as well as drinking time. Right from paradise-flycatcher to woodpecker to jungle fowl which otherwise are difficult to click as you are standing still you can observe & click also. Though I am not a good bird photographer so even in such times I haven’t been able to click good images of these birds yet their all such frames in my mind is also something I carry back from the forests! Best thing is, when you can’t see a tiger sleeping around the waterhole but a bigger animal such as gaur or sloth bears or even pack of wild dogs comes to the waterhole taking the same path where the tiger is resting, then two things can happen, either the tiger mover deeper in the forest (your bad-luck) or it comes to water hole & all such encounters are worth observing! During this trip all the tigers I saw around water holes also & even the shyest of the tigers has to visit waterholes, one such tigress named Bella we could see only because of the heat factor! Rather, forest dept must create rest rooms (clean, please note that) from some distance near all major water holes so tourists can patiently wait for sightings not just of tiger but all the wild life as they don’t have to move far away from the waterbody for their nature’s call. As then most tourists which are not exposed to wildlife’s rich diversity can observe all the species at length & guides also can spare time to explain importance of all such species in the forests than just running behind the tigers, which happens because we promote only tigers as our wildlife, a perception which can be changed only with right steps & making tourists spend time at waterholes is one sure such way!
Summers are the best season to meet sloth bears as extreme heat makes them also come in open for water & you can definitely see a few in Tadoba during summer noon. Sloth bears are very interesting creatures of forests, once found all over India, I remember their sightings around my small town in Vidarbha region also. Rampant urbanization & loss of habitat has now made the sloth bears take shelter of remaining patches of forests & Tadoba buffers is one of their safest homes. Yet its sightings are far rarer than a tiger which many tourists don't know & ignores these creatures. Sloth bears nocturnal animals i.e. usually moves out at night yet in summers you can meet them even in day-light while they are on their hunt for termites. They are shy yet get provoked very easily & that's why local people are more afraid of encountering a sloth bear than a tiger as you can never take their next move for granted & their sharp claws can rip apart human skin in a split second! A sloth bear coming in your direction can suddenly make a reverse turn & go away or can do the opposite also, making clicking it very difficult! Yet on this trip I could click a mom & her cub clearly, while noticing our present on a hot summer noon the mom showed her razor-sharp claws to us as a warning to keep away, which we happily did!
We also did shoe donation drives for the Forest labours & Fire Watchers in the buffers under guidance of Mr Kushagra Pathak IFS, Dy Director Tadoba Buffers & Mr SS Dube, ACF. Round officer of Madnapur gate Mr Khawase coordinated from forest dept while Hemangi vartak of Jungle Belles & the reason is Indus School kids has initiated this drive. Friends, forests have given us so many joyful movements & while we carry them back to our concrete jungle as our wonderful memories, it's each of us duty to give it back whatever best we can as then only the forests will keep on giving us, adios with this appeal!
You can check some more wildlife moments at link below...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/coexistance_is_the_key/albums/72177720325654279/
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
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Nicely explained and narrated .
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