Animals of India #62 : Breaching an Elephant's comfort zone

"Happy Holidays to all our blogger friends"

 

We have had many encounters with Asiatic Elephants in the Indian forests. There was a time when an Elephant mock charged us and ended up less than 10 feet from the Jeep. There was another encounter where this Elephant decided to block our road for a while.

However, this encounter rates to be the closest that we have had so far. During one of our Jeep safaris into the Bandipur national park, we were going through a part of the Sanctuary where the Jeep tracks were flanked by dense Lantana on both sides. At a point we noticed an Elephant calf walk onto the tracks and since we had already overshot the calf, we stopped the Jeep. The Elephant calf paused for a minute and we saw its mother emerge from the Lantana. Both mother and calf were startled by the sight of the Jeep. Looked like we had breached their comfort zone and the mother decided to charge us.

We had encountered many Elephant charges in the past, however, in this case the Elephant just took off and kept coming at us at full speed with no alarm. That's when we realized that this wasn't a mock charge. The driver hurriedly started the Jeep and accelerated as the Elephant kept running towards us at full charge, rapidly closing the distance between her and the Jeep. We knew this had been a close call.

Animals of Africa #8 - Standoff with a Cape Buffalo

We were returning to the resort after a morning safari in the Western Serengeti when we spotted two Cape Buffaloes cooling off in the shade of a tree by the side of the road. In all our earlier sightings, the Cape Buffaloes were at a good distance, making it challenging to get good images. However, this time, these two subjects were within the full frame reach of my 300mm f2.8 mounted with the 2x TC.

We stopped the Jeep and took a couple of images of the Buffaloes lazing under the shade of the tree. As soon as the Buffaloes realized that this Jeep wasn't going anywhere, they got up and walked a few paces away from the tree into the hot sun. Incidentally they also split up and stood at some distance apart in such a way that the two Buffaloes and the Jeep formed a perfect triangle.

From that distance, the Buffaloes stood their ground and kept a constant watch over the Jeep. Occassionally, they would look at each other and communicate non verbally as if to exchange notes on what this Jeep was upto. The standoff gave us the opportunity of getting frame filling portrait compositions of these massive boss of the African savanah. Earlier during the safari, we had seen a pair of Cape Buffaloes standing together in the same location, however, on closer observation we noticed they were a different set of Buffaloes.

Reptiles of Sri Lanka #1 - Perfectly camouflaged Monitor Lizard

We have normally sighted Monitor Lizards on the forest floor in the Indian wilderness and always thought that one could sight them only on the ground.

During one of our safaris into the Yala Wildlife Sanctuary in Sri Lanka, our naturalist spotted a Monitor Lizard sleeping on a high branch of a tree. I was particularly curious to know how the naturalist spotted the Lizard since it was perfectly camouflaged. That's when he explained that it is a commonly exhibited behavior of this species. Thereafter, we made it a point to look out for Monitor Lizards apart from Leopards,  while scanning the canopy.On another safari on the same trip to Yala, Noel parked the Land cruiser in the shade of the trees next to a waterhole, hoping to see some action. We remembered the Monitor Lizard sighting the other day and turned our attention to the trees instead of the waterhole. And to our luck, we saw a big Lizard perched on the branch of a tree right next to the Land Cruiser. It was so beautifully camouflaged that unless one was looking for it, you could not spot it. It was noon time and the lighting wasn't particularly photography friendly but the camouflage was so perfect that we wanted to capture the experience and managed a few images despite the harsh light.

Animals of India #61 : The lethal pack hunters - Dhole

The Indian Wild Dog commonly known as the Dhole is regarded as the most successful hunter amongst all wildlife in India, thanks to their ability to hunt as a pack. We have been fortunate to witness the rare spectacle of these pack hunters making a kill in Nagarhole national park and consuming the prey in less than 20 minutes.
 

We have also had the opportunity to observe the Dhole  preparing for a hunt in Bandipur national park.  We have seen that once the decision to hunt is taken, a sense of purpose and discipline sets on the pack. And there is always a lot of commotion, hustling and whistling while the Dhole get organized to make the kill. It is then an absolute treat to observe them search for a potential prey and hunt it down in a well coordinated fashion.

 
What's striking is that at the time of taking the decision to hunt, there is not always a potential prey in sight. But the pack then demonstrates exceptional team work in methodically searching, finding and then bringing down a prey, sometimes much larger than themselves.