A for Agumbe...

I spent a few weeks of my summer in 2013 (actually during the monsoon) at Agumbe Rain­forest Research Station (ARRS) doing an internship on the microhabitats of frogs. I hadn’t heard about Agum­be until a friend of mine (Neha) mentioned it casually one day. Agumbe is a village in the Shimoga district of Karnata­ka. It is situated at an altitude of about 642 metres from sea level. It is known to be home to the world’s longest ven­omous snake, the King Cobra, which is also the flagship species of ARRS.

The day I reached Agumbe, I got off at the wrong place, Thirthahalli, which is about 30 km from Agumbe. After a lot of phone calls to the base camp, I got on to a bus to Agumbe. The path that led to the base was a kilometre or two away from the village and was densely forested on either side. The research station was inside a four-acre areca plantation. There were a few boys playing crick­et in the yard in front of the research station. I was greeted by Ram bhayya (Ramprasad), who was working on fish­es and frogs, and Jiggu (Jignasa Patel), who was a volunteer there. They intro­duced me to the others at the Station.

Every morning I woke up, to my sur­prise, at 5:30 AM, to the calls of the whistling thrush, which used to sit on the rooftop and whistle away to glory. When the whistling thrush stopped, it was Chikki and Naala’s duty to keep the music going with their barks, howls and growls. Chikki was the calm and composed one while Naala was the naughty one, even though she was the mother of four puppies. The Research Station was like a mini pet shop with various animals including tadpoles and the Malabar pit viper around. I had the pleasure of seeing these tadpoles at the different stages of their metamorpho­sis. I also spotted vine snakes and cat snakes during the course of my work.

Agumbe is rich in amphibian diver­sity. Even though we looked for them, it was their calls that made it easy to find the frogs. Pseudophilautus amboli, Raorchestes luteolus, Raorchestes tu­berohumerous, Ramanella marmorata, Rhacophorus malabaricus, Hylarana aurantiaca were a few that I saw. It is known that mouse deer, sambar deer, leopards, boars, slender lories (I was only lucky enough to hear them) and giant squirrels are abound in the in­terior of the forest though I got to see only a mouse deer. Once, Ram bhayya and I went to a meadow across a stream, in the forest in search of mammals. The path was blocked by fallen trees because of which our walk was more adventurous. There were only jungle fowls in the meadow. We saw some marks on the trees made by the Sam­bar deer. My luck with big mammals during field work was quite bad and my record still stands at one with a mouse deer saving my record from zilch.

It rained cats and dogs most of the time and when it did not, it was misty. On one such day, when rain was the norm, we decided to go swimming. While we stood there admiring the stream, a log came through and Siddharth, the director of ARRS then, jumped onto it and went down the stream like in ac­tion movies, minus all the safety belts. Nagana, the cook at the base, set up a net in the uncultivated paddy field to catch fish for later when the water lev­el would drop. Thanks to the heavy downpour, I never got to eat those fish but that was compensated for by the mouth-watering chicken and pork served at the base. He could make won­ders even out of simple vegetarian food.

While getting dreamy about the food and place, I must not forget to mention the leeches, the vampires of the rain­forest. When a group of us went to a waterfall, 1KB, (I am oblivious to the etymology), about 4 km away from the field station, I was made a good meal of by a few leeches. Though I had got­ten a few leech bites before, I had never seen 10-15 leeches at the same time on each leg. But 1KB was worth paying that price for. I stood on top of the waterfall stretching both my hands out and tak­ing in the view. I could see the whole of Shimoga from there. We spent some time playing in the water and then re­turned to the base, tired to the bones.

When I run the reels back, I see those wonderful days I spent in Agumbe.

In Search of The Hunting Hero of The Snow

The summer of 2011 was one of the most exciting holidays of my life. I went to Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh for a project on the Snow Leopard, the hero of the snow. This was the first time I was travelling all the way to the north to visit the Himalayas. We got into this project through Dr. Ramana Athreya and Dr. Charudutt Mishra of Nature Conservation Foundation, a non-governmental organization that works on conservation in various places across the country. After a long and tiring journey, we reached our base camp village called Kibber, at an altitude of 4200 m.

After resting for a day or two, we set out on our work and visited a village, Chicham which can be easily seen from Kibber, but is actually around 50 km by road due to a gorge separating the two. The best part of the visit was to cross the gorge in a “Joola” or a cable car. We also had an opportunity to camp for 3 days in Pin valley where nature has painted scenery using her magical brush. We were lucky to be a part of a nature camp held at an open field in Chomaling (4400m), near Kibber. It aimed at getting the children of Spiti to admire their surroundings, learn more about the plant and animal life and above all care for them. It was a great learning experience for me because I started to look at nature with an appreciative eye and hence discovered the hidden joy of observing even the tiniest of the creations.

I was in awe of the flora which includes beautiful flowers like Arnebia and Para aquilegia to thorny short bushes called Caragana. I spotted wild animals like the Blue Sheep, Ibex, Red Fox, Woolly Hare and not to forget a pair of Tibetan wolves just after their feast. I also saw domestic animals like Yak, Zomo (cross between a cow and a yak). Spiti has magnificent bird life for a cold desert with huge birds like the Golden Eagles, Lammergeyers, Himalayan Griffons and the common Raven to small birds like Horned larks, Wagtails, Finches etc.

The people of Spiti are very kind and ever willing to help. Though they have a native language, Spitian, most of them are comfortable with Hindi and quite a few can manage decent English. Their culture has had an obvious influence of the Tibetan culture. We got to witness one of the annual horse races where the horses were decorated with age-old cloth work and the jockey was clad in the traditional gown. Most of their culinary delicacies are made of meat and include momos, timos, tukpa, chirul etc. Their way of life and festivals is mostly dependent on the seasons, the busiest months being May to mid-August.

Even though I wasn’t lucky to see a snow leopard, I am glad to have spent some moments of my life in this lovely place. I got to meet various kinds of people - from field assistants, students to professors, each working in an exciting field of their own. I will never forget my Spitian Adventure!