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“The time I spent in the jungles held unalloyed happiness for me, and that happiness I would now gladly share. My happiness, I believe, resulted from the fact that all wildlife is happy in its natural surroundings. In nature there is no sorrow, and no repining. A bird from a flock, or an animal from a herd, is taken by a hawk or carnivorous beast and those that are left rejoice that their time has not come today, and have no thought of tomorrow.”— Jim Corbett.
“Every time I have visited forests, it has taught me something new about life” … Me.
When the subject is forest & wildlife then I don’t need anybody else’s words to start but that of the man who himself has become immortal with a forest by his name & his words only have made or say still making me wiser every moment I spend in the forests! If you don’t know about Jim Corbett then don’t google or check Wikipedia but read his books & they are available in most of the languages. As well once you are through reading even one of his books then do visit forest, any forest & try living that forest from the perspective of Jim & then you will start knowing him better! Ok, the sharing is about forest (but not tadoba) which I accidently bumped on as I was on hectic work come forest exploring trip, for two Super Moms, one from tadoba & one from UKWS (this you can google), about which I will share later & just like the Marvel movies, later part of trip was so exciting that I started this sharing first which actually was my last stop! The occasion was wildlife week (which our State celebrates in the first week of October) and on the way back to Nagpur I was supposed to visit this place which is hardly 50 km away from the Tiger capitol. Interestingly this is the closest sanctuary gate from Nagpur & I had been here some 15 years back. My purpose was to meet young RFOs’ Ms Archana & Mr Nitin Borkar (And I met Mr Deshmukh IFS, ACF also) for discussing skill development of local youngsters via Credai tie up (plz google) as well donation drive or say handing over of recycled good clothes from city people of Pune (courtesy Jungle Belles) to these two RFOs’ which later they will be distributing among local needy people. These small acts help forest dept to maintain good bonds with the locals which comes handy when something unpleasant happens such as death of cattle or human life because of some wild animal etc! And as I am here, I thought of taking one safari just to explore the place or habitat & so I entered in the noon safari, very tired as travelling three places in four days & waking up every day at 4.30 am, is not something I can do now, when I am other side of 55, but I thought to complete the ritual! What happened in the next four hours can be compared with something in a cricket match when the last pair of batsmen (who are usually bowlers) comes to crease & when everybody is expecting the innings to be wrapped in next few minutes starts hitting fours & sixes, something similar happened!
Won’t stretch your curiosity more, I am referring to Bor wildlife sanctuary & if I was aww-stucked with its landscape, biodiversity then icing on the cake was sightings of tiger, leopard & sloth bear in one go! Agreed in any forest to sight these animals needs lots of luck too but it’s the ease or say comfort of those animals with which they wander in their habitat tell you the richness of biodiversity of the place, which only can be felt & not told, which I experienced in the very first safari at Bor, which is the reason of my sharing! Though it’s a small forest with just two gates & buffers, it's the strategic location makes Bor a very unique & important patch of forest. Its on North East direction of Tadoba & UKWS making it a perfect corridor as well stop over place for migrating tigers from above two forests towards Central Indian landscape i.e. Melghat & Satpura! Its spread around Bor dam’s backwater ensures availability of water throughout the year, which is one of the biggest boons for the forest. The safari track moves mostly around one side of the lake yet there is a lot of wildlife to explore on the hills which surround the entire backwater. One wonderful thing is it has a prominent plantation of teak wood yet the forest is rich with many species of plants, trees, & wild flowers. This year the rain gods are angry with our region yet whatever little rain was there, the forest was blooming with wildflowers & butterflies dancing over them! And the prey base is also very good with many spotted deer & sambhar we can see around, looking curiously at us.
As I mentioned I had been here nearly 15 years back when there was not at all any basic infrastructure (today also, the place is cut off from our so-called development) but thankfully the rawness of the nature is still intact somehow & thanks to forest dept’s some senior officers such as Mr.Sreeniwasa Reddy & others, today Bor WLS has started its journey on wildlife tourism track. I was assisted by a young local boy named Shubham & our driver was Sarang, both were super excited to show us around & they were happy as well thrilled when they knew I had been here when they must be in their junior school! The interesting part was because the forest is pretty dense here, you can’t always rely on deer or sambhr call for sighting but jungle fowl & peacock calls also help a lot, something the bigger forests guides are not used to track. Here we were waiting at a smabhar call on a hilltop, but were unable to see what made the sambhar give an alarm call & decided to leave the spot after waiting & circling the place for a number of times. Yet there were calls of peacock & they were continuous on. There was one more gypsy with us & we decided to scan the place more thoroughly together, with eight pairs of eyes scanning the place keenly. And suddenly there was whistling from the other gypsy they were pointing towards a neem tree which stood alone in a thick grass patch & there was a handsome male leopard sitting quietly on the first V of the branches of the neem tree & scanning us with green eyes! This is why the peacock was giving alarm calls while the sambhar had stopped as the peacock could see it from another tree & we were looking at the ground for the object! It's because only the leopard wagged his tail, which the sharp eyes of other gypsy’s guide saw & called us, this is Bor!
And then happened another sighting of a young male tiger Om, which walked in front of us like a true king in making for nearly a kilometres’ distance. Here also, he was lazing in grass & stood up & started swimming in the water adjoining, I immodestly asked my driver to reverse the vehicle & take us up ahead on the road in the direction where the tiger had started swimming, leaving other vehicles clicking photos of the tiger in water. And to my happiness (I patted my own back) the tiger emerged right before our gypsy from the grass along the road which made us reverse for nearly a kilometer, happily! There are very few sights which can beat a young male tiger walking in his own mood towards you, occasionally locking his orange eyes with yours & you can feel the hair on your neck standing under the stare, even through the camera lens! He was barely two years plus & if he has such confidence to walk careless among few gypsys’ around, what more wildlife tourism needs to flourish, right?
Outcome was, keeping away my all tiredness & fatigue, I decided to do morning safari again, just to explore Born ore in depth. And do mind there is not a decent stay place at Bor so we were staying in Vardha which is nearly 40 minutes’ drive & when we reached hotel by 8 pm past, the manager gave us suspicious look as our clothes & baggage was covered in red clay dust & he asked whether we met any accident or what! Joke was, he didn't have any clue about Bor or such a place near Vardha & thought we were from some other planet when I told him from where we have come! This is something Bor must work on i.e. making the place known to the outer world, though there are insta pages & things yet a bit more aggressive as environmentalists may think that the tourists are nuisance (sometimes) but they are needed to make the place sustainable & for that we need to have good (read as right) stay places at Bor also! Next day morning we left for the gate at 4 am, again the hotel staff thought we were really crazy (which we are) & once inside the gate it was a different world. Morning breeze, fragrance of wild flowers, mist floating over the water body of Bor dam & an Osprey sitting on a dried branch of the tree in the water with prized kill of a fish in its claws, again a sight which I will cherish for long! As the drive continued, we came across one gypsy who told us a leopard had just crossed the road & went upstream of a water way & we thought of checking the spot as leopards are tricky characters & follow no fixed route. We went ahead & waited at the stream for the leopard's whereabouts & alarm calls of a peacock rang upstream & as the calls were moving up, we guessed the leopard must be walking up stream only. We turned back & went on the hill from where the stream originated & whoallaa (expression of amazement, lol), there was the ghost sitting right on the road & looking at us. I asked driver to stop right where we are & clicked few shots, for ten long minutes the leopard kept looking at us & when he realized we are not advancing nor are we a threat, he got up & started walking away from us on road & the moment we started the gypsy to follow him, he looked back & vanished in to the thickset of the forest! The driver has learned the lesson, which he will use in future of such sighting as leopards & sloth bears are very cautious animals & whenever you spot any of them best way is shut the engine off & stop & give them their time to be comfortable with your presence as then you can watch them at your leisure, that too is a chance!
With all such learnings & experiences, I headed out of the forest & met Ms.Archana, who is RFO at Bor & working for upbringings of local youngsters also. She later shared the clothes handing over pics to the locals & those happy faces brightened the darkness around, for sure! Guys, what makes some forest great or special is not sighting of tigers or a leopards, as you can get them in any forest; it’s the canvas of the landscape, habitat & stories unfolding on that canvas, is what makes a forest great & sure what I experienced in just two safaris at Bor, it is on way to become great, & with a promise to come back soon, I said adios to Bor WLS...!
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
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