TALES FROM WESTERN GHATS

This is about an interesting incident involving a herd of sambhars, which took place during the last decade inside Mukurthi National Park, Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. It was August, the peak monsoon season. We luckily got an opportunity to accompany an anti-poaching watcher aka APW on his regular beat inside the park. The route was Upper Bhavani camp, Madippu Malai, Earthen Dam, and Western Catchment No.1, and then back via Bangithapal Rest House, totaling about 20 kms to be covered in 6 hours.

About an hour into the trek, we were past the mesmerizing Madippu Malai. We were heartily clicking our cameras capturing those magic moments of monsoon in the mountains. Suddenly, the APW leading us slackened his stride, slowly came to a standstill, motioned us to do the same. He brought a finger to his lips, signaling us to be silent. Then, he pivoted his head towards the hillock to our left and looked intently. We followed suit and trained our eyes to that particular area and scanned studiously. Bingo! we found what caught the eyes of our APW, a herd of sambar deer, around half a dozen, grazing on that slope. We could have been easily more than a mile away as the crow flies from them. As I fumbled to focus my x28 optical zoom camera, the APW muttered, “they have already spotted us”, and sure enough my viewfinder showed the leading stag staring straight at us with its ears wide out.

The sambars have a well-established protocol for such situations. They always have a look-out in the herd to warn about “danger” including predators like tiger, panther, and wild dog, and of course, humans and vehicles. At the first sight, sound, or smell of “danger”, the look-out would become stone still, stare intently at the source, and swivel its flared-out ears towards it. Once the “danger” was spotted and its identity confirmed, the look-out’s tail goes straight up in the air, signaling others that there is something afoot. All of this is done in absolute silence because the look-out does not want the “danger” to spot the herd, which is usually the case most of the times. Then, the look-out assesses the “danger” and its intention. If it is a predator and the predator does not know the presence of the herd, then the herd silently vanishes into a nearby thicket. On the other hand if the predator is seen stalking the herd, then the look-out stamps down its leg hard on the ground a few times and barks out a loud warning sound that can be heard over a mile. However, if the “danger” is "harmless" as in the case of humans or vehicles, then the look-out just keeps an eye on the “danger” and herd goes on with their business of grazing. They do not mind being spotted on.

Coming to our story, long before our APW spotted the herd, the look-out had spotted, assessed, and ascertained us to be safe. As our commotion slowly ebbed, the look-out kept staring at us with its ears directed towards us. We just could not get a satisfying snap of this sambar herd as they were somewhat camouflaged against the grass slope. As we watched, the herd kept grazing and going up the slope towards the ridge. We then realized that once they were on the ridge, we stood a great chance of capturing them silhouetted against the clear sky background. And now, the roles were reversed. We stood still with our eyes focused on the herd watching them nibble the grass, raise their head to throw an occasional cursory glance at us, and inch their way up. After what seemed an eternity, the look-out reached the ridge first, followed by others. An immensely satisfying “shooting” session ensued, we can say!

Here comes the interesting epilogue, which we did not notice at all during the incident. Once we were back in the camp, we went through all the images, and we were simply astounded to see that in all the images (more than a dozen), the look-out kept staring straight at us with its ears flared-out! That’s one hell of a look-out!!