Tiger from BOR Wildlife Sanctuary (Maharashtra)

Tiger from BOR Wildlife Sanctuary (MAH) which is a 63 Sq Km. of Protected Area ! Although the area protected is very small, it has quite a good forested area surrounding it. There are several reports of tigers from these surrounding forests :)

In Feb 2010 I was in BOR, looking for tiger scat. Every day I would sample roads and trails in search of fresh tiger poop :).

While walking along a trail, me and Sachin (Forest Guard) came across a carcass of wild pig; we looked at it and then continued walking on the trail, hoping to get a scat.

On the way back somewhere near the spot where we saw the pig, we could hear a tiger roaring (Crazy !). We stood still; we could make out its movement based on the changing direction of the sound. After a while we headed back to the base. But at night we could still hear the tiger :)

Next day we deployed few camera traps in the surrounding area and also marked the GPS locations. After 4 days we returned to the sight and were very happy to see the captures.

The forest department staff was happy to see these images and was convinced that they can get basic idea about individual tigers with such opportunistic camera trapping and GPS locations.

The department dose not have the expertise and the number of equipments required to monitor tigers systematically. But these images helped in a way that they decided to use the cameras and GPS that they had to generate a very basic database of tigers in that area :)

Greater Painted Snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) Female

Greater Painted Snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) is a very cryptic species, found in shallow waters and fringes of ponds and marshes. They would just sit still or quickly enter some vegetation to escape.

One of the most interesting thing about them is that unlike most bird species where males are "Beautiful" than females, here the Females are more colourful. Females in this species mate with several males and its the male who takes care of the eggs and chicks.

This is a video of a female snipe which was busy foraging in shallow waters of Ambazhari Lake in Nagpur.

Jungle Bush Quail (Perdicula asiatica)

So far its just for a few seconds that I have seen these birds for, either running under a thick blanket of grass or when I happened to flush them while walking.

This video was taken in Bor Wildlife Sanctuary, where me and my friends saw around 3-4 Jungle bush quails coming down a hill. We waited for them to come all the way down where there was a open patch. After a few minutes there were around 8 quails moving around us, searching for food in the leaf-litter present in-between the rocks.

We saw them for around 10 min.

This was the best sighting of these birds I ever had.

Clown Bug !

Here is Bug; looks pretty normal !

But look at it this way:

What i can see is a very angry guy :(

Raised eyebrows

Wide open mouth

Flared Nostrils

Nice big mustache

Fancy beard

Also a hat !!!

Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus)

Nilgai Boselaphus tragocamelus is an antelope.

"Nil"= Blue & "gai"= Cow

But its the adult male whose coat is greyish-blue; the female have a brownish coat.

People often mistake female of Nilgai as a "Sambar".

This image is from "BOR wildlife sanctuary"; with the backwaters of the bor-dam.

Common Stonechat (Saxicola torquata) - Adult male

Common Stonechat Saxicola torquata (Adult male), a winter migrant.