Gold, Mammals and others at Bandipur....

April 30, 2008

First, the gold that I struck in Bandipur. Gold comes in many forms in the forest. Here’s a GOLDEN DRAGONFLY:

golden dragonfly bandipur 260408

And then there was the gold shower of the INDIAN LABURNUM, with its cascades of petals everywhere:

indian laburnum in flower

And of course, the gold of the sunset as we finished the evening safari, shot (with some difficulty) through the foliage:

sunset bandipur 260408

Then come

GAUR, or the INDIAN BISON, were really plentiful this time. I had one fellow pose for me..."you want my great haircut?" Gaur profile 270408 bandipur "Or a slightly different angle?" gaur portrait bandipur 270408 "Would you like to meet the others in my family? Here's the Missus.." gaur cow bandipur 260408 "And if you would like to see Junior, too...." gaur calf bandipur The conversation with the gaur over, I wanted to say hello to this beautiful SAMBAR DEER, but in true "show-the-backside-to-deponti" jungle behaviour (I think all animals and birds have to sign some kind of bond about this as soon as they are born...they have some unspecified doom coming to them if they face me or my camera from up close) he quickly went off in the opposite direction: sambar with antlers bandipur Then along came this handsome CHITAL (spotted deer) stag and posed with great aplomb;I clicked before he saw it was ME, and went off: chital stag with antlers bandipur 260408 LANGURS are always the picture of grace as they lope across the forest with their tail in the characteristic "loop", or sit around calmly. Here's the tale of a tail: thereby hangs a tail 260408 bandipur The langur was feeding on leaves and after the heavy shower that we had, it must have been a "clean" diet! langur eating leaves bandipur 270408 Bandipur is extra beautiful to me because of the murals at JLR. I revisited the LEOPARD that Sunni Dhairyam has painted so well: the leopard mural by Sunni Dhairyam bandipur 260408 Then, of course, were the other mammals that I went to meet; here are two wild females of the most dangerous mammal species there is, displaying typical feeding behaviour: neelu and katy at mysore siddharta 270408 And two wild males, displaying typical snapping behaviour: amogh and chirdeep bandipur260408

Had a wonderful time, saying hello to Bomma, Loki, Basavanna, Ganesh, and others, too….if only I had not had my wallet picked on the way to Bandipur, things would have been perfect…but..these things happen!