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…was an extraordinarily close one.
Prior to November 2022 I had never imagined that I would ever find myself so astonishingly near to a wild leopard, let alone that such an experience would prove the least exciting of four leopard encounters, all within a span of about ninety hours.
This post’s photos are in chronological sequence; the first three were taken within a single minute, and the final image’s “moment” occurred a whisker less seven minutes after the first.
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On our recent travels in south India we saw wild Asian/Asiatic elephants many times.
As you can see, such encounters with Elephas maximus do not only occur inside national parks and other “reserves”!
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The Indian boar, Sus scrofa cristatus, gets its subspecies name from the feature which sets it apart from all other wild boars.
When the bristles of an adult male’s dorsal crest are erect – and most of them are in this post’s image – he has the pig kingdom’s most spectacular mane.
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Spotted deer – aka “axis deer” or “chital” – are India’s emblematic deer; Axis axis is also India’s most widespread, most commonly-encountered deer species.
The local common name’s resemblance to “cheetah” is no coincidence; both names refer to the animal’s spotted coat.
Cheetahs were hunted to extinction in India; if current attempts to reintroduce them prove successful, cheetahs will resume their former place in the chital’s long list of predators.
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With the possible exception of fellow humans, Grey Langurs (aka “Hanuman Langurs” or “Hanuman monkeys”) are the primates you will encounter most often when in or near to any wooded terrain in south India.
Primarily herbivorous, but not exclusively so, Grey Langurs are highly social, very agile – equally so on the ground, and high above it – and are almost always “up to something”.
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Today’s post is the first of several to feature a species that any wildlife-seeking visitor to south India’s Western Ghats can reasonably expect to see, easily – probably, often.
Bonnet macacques are endemic to this region.
Until last year these very sociable forest-dwellers enjoyed a “least concern” conservation status.
Their numbers are currently declining, and in 2022 the IUCN reclassified their status as “vulnerable”.
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Just one week ago we were enjoying our final early morning safari in Karnataka’s Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, before a long drive to Bengalaru (formerly Bangalore) and our longer-again, two-flights journey home.
To an Australian visitor, what you can see above is an utterly amazing, very “exotic” sight.
To a local person who is very familiar with this national park, it is a perfectly ordinary circumstance.
Such an “amazing”/“commonplace” duality is a tag that applies to a great many things in India…and Australia too.
(try to imagine how “utterly unlikely” an emu, a galah, a kangaroo, or a blooming kangaroo paw must look to someone who has never before encountered any of them)
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Giraffes harvest most of the water they need from the leaves they eat, so they do not need to drink every day.
However, they do need to drink.
On that occasion, the current world’s longest necks are “not long enough”.
As every lion and crocodile knows, the only occasion when it is a good idea to “move in for the kill” on an adult giraffe is when that giraffe is drinking.
Every giraffe is acutely conscious that his or her “killer kick” defence system is entirely disabled whenever s/he has to splay his/her legs to enable his/her neck to reach down far enough to make drinking possible.
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Five rhinoceros species (within which are eleven subspecies) still walk “our” planet’s surface.
All are in trouble; their total number is lower than ever before in human history, and they now walk “freely” only within a tiny portion of their former range, in discrete populations in various National Parks and “Reserves”.
Diceros bicornis, commonly known as the “black” rhino, is the smaller, now rarer – and allegedly, more ornery – of the two African species.
It and Ceratotherium simum – the so-called “white” rhino – are in fact both grey.
The fifth night of November 2022 was a good one for rhino-watchers at the Okaukuejo waterhole; the rhinos’ demeanour was not at all ornery, and they broke only wind – loudly.
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Etosha National Park is one of Africa’s largest and finest national parks.
Okaukuejo is the southernmost of its six major “camps”, and its main administrative centre.
By day and by night, Okaukeujo’s waterhole offers visitors oft-superb, comfortable, relaxed and close wildlife viewing.
As this three part series illustrates, the night of 05 November 2022 was very rewarding.
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