Holidays mean recharging batteries. For my son Skanda and I there was no better place than Bandipur. The gates of the park open at 4 pm for the evening safari and we were the first off the blocks. Kiran, the naturalist-cum-driver from Bandipur Safari Lodge, was at the wheel of the Bolero Camper 4x4, and four of us were on the open back. Wildlife sighting is always difficult in the wet.
The dark clouds overhead indicated an imminent downpour. Resigned to the possibility of a wasted trip, we were more intent on protecting the cameras and lenses while maintaining a precarious balance on the camper. Kiran picked his way carefully through the puddles and potholes under the overcast sky on the stretch between Yerekatte and Siddarayankatte.
Our reverie was broken by two brown streaks that flew across the track some 50 metres ahead of the vehicle. Dhole or Indian wild dogs on a hunt! The prospect of a live kill was exciting, and the jungle, which till a few moments earlier had been silent, sprang to life. The grazing chital or spotted deer froze in its tracks, tail up, foreleg lifted in midair, and watched the spot where the dogs had disappeared. The Hanuman langurs scampered up the canopy to the safety of the higher branches.
Dholes ( Cuon alpinus ) are the ubiquitous reddish-brown forest dogs. Hunted to near extinction they have made a remarkable comeback in our sanctuaries. They are the smallest of Bandipur’s predators but the fiercest. Even a tiger will abandon its kill if dholes decide to steal from it. They hunt in packs, from 6 to 30. They run down their prey, usually large ungulates like the chital, sambar, even gaur, bringing it down and start feeding even before the victim is dead.
We moved too; as quickly as the track would permit. When we reached the spot where the dholes had disappeared there was nothing but an impregnable wall of lantana. There was some vigorous movement in the scrub and it looked like action was still going on. Then the bushes parted and one of the dogs appeared, followed, a moment later by the second one. They were leaping up and yapping at something above them.
It wasn’t a deer. There was a leopard struggling to stand on the fork of a tree trunk. The leopard ( Panthera pardus ) is a creature of the night; hunting after sundown and dragging its kill to the safety of the tree tops. Agile climbers, they are rarely active during the day and lie up on the branches or rocky outcrops till evening.
This one was young and obviously inexperienced, and seemed more concerned about retaining a hold on the tree. The idea of falling into the path of two vicious dogs couldn’t have been appealing. After a bit of experimenting, the poor beast finally found itself a stable position. When it noticed that we were furiously clicking away, its expression changed from consternation to embarrassment! It turned its face away and hid behind the trunk!
Eventually the dogs realised that their victim wasn’t about to give up its perch, so they appeared to lose interest in tormenting the leopard and started walking away. After a few metres one of them flopped down and started rolling in the grass not 15 feet from our vehicle. The other too decided that a bit of rest was in order, and settled down beside its partner.
Meanwhile, the leopard had seen the dogs move off but the dense scrub prevented it from seeing them lying near the track. It turned and leapt off into bushes below. The dogs seemed to have been waiting for this moment and they were off in a flash. For the next few seconds we could hear the three crashing through the lantana. Our concern for the leopard was evidently misplaced, for a minute later it reappeared on another tree further inside the jungle. Of the dogs, there was no sign.
The storm seemed to have waited for this final scene to be played out. When the skies opened up soon after, we were soaked to the skin in seconds, but sighting two of Bandipur’s top predators in a drama that lasted some 20 minutes gives us a tale to narrate to our grandchildren.
— The writer is an ophthalmologist with a passion for wildlife conservation and photography. tigertracker@gmail.com woodcrawler@hotmail.com. He blogs at http://woodcrawler.blogspot.com/