INN THE WILD - A journey of sorts... Part 2

The naturalist accompanied us to the Machan as we decided to go for a casual early  morning walk to familiarise ourselves with the place. The Machan was just a 5 minutes walk from our shacks and stood tall just beyond a couple of tree houses. A tall structure with a tree trunk running right through it, it was the perfect place to stand in and take in all the surroundings. I've always felt something 

Pathway from our shacks towards the Machan

very endearing while spending time at such places. An impending sense of calm simply overtakes you and all you want to do is just stand there quietly, listening to the sounds of the jungle for hours and yet feel like only a few minutes had passed by! So there I was taking it all in, while scanning the area around. To my far left across the horizon lay the hills of Wayanad partially covered in mist, to the foothills of which the grasslands in front  of me stretched to. In front of the Machan was the water body with a couple of leafless trees immersed in it. To my right was a dense jungle, bordered with a raised stone platform that ran through the right perimeter of the water body. Ahead of me, beyond the water body stretched a vast expanse of grassland with clumps of trees scattered around the area. I could hear the faint cry of a peafowl in the distance and managed a quick glimpse of it with my binoculars and  a couple of peacocks further away. Now that we were safe up in the Machan, our Naturalist headed back leaving us there for as long as we wished to remain. All I had to do was inform him once we were done and a jeep would be sent to take us back.

Machan with a view of the tree house in the background

Full view of the Machan 

 We stayed there for an hour.We heard a few distant Chital alarm calls coming through the jungle foliage on our right but could not zero in on the exact location. It was too dense even for the binoculars to peer into. It was serene as we just sat there listening to the sounds of the jungle. The rain had calmed the weather and a cool breeze wafted around us. There was no wildlife to be seen except for the peafowl that was now jogging away at a distance. Our chances of spotting wildlife seemed to be slim due to the presence of a tiger in the area. In fact, our naturalist and a few guests he had taken into the jungle for the nature walk a couple of days ago had been almost attacked by a tiger just a furlong from the Machan. They had only just managed to get away luckily without any injuries. It must have been hiding in the tall grass that grew a little further on one side of the Machan watching in silence before it decided to charge. It reminds me of what Kenneth Anderson repeatedly mentioned in his books especially when he talks of the Jungle - That when you're in the Jungle all eyes are on you, watching your every move yet you can neither see nor hear anything till they decide to make it apparent or are simply unawares of your presence.That's why its so important to constantly be on the alert letting your eyes peer in as further as you can let it, into the foliage.I had only got my binoculars this time so I made a mental note to come back to the Machan with my camera  as we waited for the jeep to come fetch us. As I headed back to my shack, I decided to do some birding till we headed for lunch. I spotted a few Lapwings a few yards from our shack just settled on the ground while a couple of them flew here and there. There was also a small black bird about the size of a sparrow, maybe smaller that would fly from the edge of one tip of a shrub to another and then sit still. It looked like a Pied Bush Cat through my binoculars. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a clear picture of it or the Lapwings as I only had a 18-55mm lens that comes with the Canon 70D(W), I had got a few days ago. I had finally managed to lay my hands on a long hoped for DSLR after using my trusty bridge camera, a Sony DSC-H5 for so long. I was still learning my way into using my new camera and at the most I managed to take a few landscape shots.

View from behind the Machan

Another View

View from the opposite corner of the waterbody

 

Lunch found us a sitting in the company of a few more families that arrived that day. Accompanied by our Naturalist, we decided to explore the place further after lunch. We walked away from our shacks further towards the open grassland by the water body.The pathway lead us a few yards, after which we just weaved our way through. The area wasn't so dense except for a few thorny shrubs and lantana growing here and there, so traversing it did not pose much of a hindrance. I was just walking while taking a quick video of the area, when our Naturalist beckoned me to come forward pointing to something on the ground. I hurried ahead and came upon what was left of the remains of a Chital. Just a few scattered bones that looked quite old. The first picture here gives you a closer look while the second shows the rest of the bones probably feasted on by a tiger or wild dogs (Dhole) sometime ago. From there we headed in the direction of a gathering of trees. As we closed in on it, our Naturalist pointed to one tree a distance of some 30ft from where I was standing and told me that a number of parakeets had just gathered there. After a quick glance through my binocs I walked slowly towards it in the hope of getting a shot at a decent click, if I could, without alarming the flock. I did get as close as I could but could only capture a silhouette with the lens I had. There was a spotted dove too on the same tree. We moved on from there scanning the branches of the trees ahead for any lifers. Not having done much birding myself, anything at that point would have been a lifer for me! Well, I didn't have to wait too long. We had just reached a huge tree when our Naturalist told me he had just seen a Golden Oriole fly into it, as could be noted only by an experienced birder's eyes. I had neither seen it fly into the tree nor ever seen one before so I excitedly moved closer in the direction he had seen it. The tree was pretty leafy and looking through the binoculars only made it worse. I thought that it perhaps flew away but our Naturalist was positive that it was still in the tree and we began to circle the tree looking for it. Finally a stroke of luck, we found it perched on one of the higher branches. A beautiful yellow bird it was as I managed to get a better look through the binoculars and a shot captured in our Naturalist's camera.

Just as we were about to leave I spotted a Flameback Woodpecker on the fork of a branch. Although not a close up I managed a click that at least made it look visible. The picture on the left is a heavily cropped version but at least you can make out that it's a Flameback. I remembered seeing a couple of these on the bark of a tree right in front of our shack a few hours before we had set out on the walk. We hurried on to show the others the click. They had lingered back not being the patient birder type character. Anyways, from there we walked on coming across few mushrooms and wild shrubs

We had covered a wide area and were back to where we had set out. We then headed back to our shacks to rest and have some tea before we set out on the Nature Walk into the jungle scheduled to start in an hour. Near the water body just where we had set out earlier, we had come across a herd of Chital grazing in a distance. A slightly shaky video of the same can be found below:

Looking forward to the Nature walk in awhile, I walked back to my shack wanting to give my legs some much needed respite after walking for most part of the day...