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
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.
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.
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| Pathway from our shacks towards the Machan |
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| Machan with a view of the tree house in the background |
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| Full view of the Machan |
