Kabini Diaries -Spot Bellied Eagle Owl

 Scientific Name :Bubo nipalensis

The spot-bellied eagle-owl, also known as the forest eagle-owl is a large bird of prey with a formidable appearance. It is a forest-inhabiting species found in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. 

The overall plumage of these spot-bellied eagle-owl species is dark brown on the head, upper wings and upper parts. The throat and the under parts are pale brown. The upper parts are barred and mottled pale brown. The flanks have black and white horizontal stripes. The breast, belly and under tail have broad dark brown spots. The ear-tufts are long and slanting, having feathers of different sizes. The facial disc is pale buff. The legs and feet are feathered except for the terminal digits of the toes. The nostrils are round. The beak is curved and yellowish. The long curved talons are steel gray. The irises are dark brown. The juveniles are much paler. The call of spot-bellied owl is a deep, booming "hoo hoo" sound. They also make loud screaming sound.

These spot-bellied eagle-owl species are highly forest dependent. These species occur in altitudes from 300 to 3000 meters. The natural ecosystem of these spot-bellied eagle-owl species includes subtropical and tropical moist lowland forests, foothill forests, moist deciduous forests, subtropical and tropical moist montane (mountainous or highland) forests, dense evergreen forests and montane wet temperate forests.

Spot bellied eagle owl is considered to be rare and as one naturalist stated that a sighting of one owl of this speices is equivalent to having sighted 5 tigers or 8 leopards on a single safari at Nagarhole  We have been fortunate in sighting this rare beauty and that too on a clean perch giving us good photographic opportunities. 

Information Courtesy: Google 

Ghost of the forest - Elusive black panther

I was very fortunate to sight for the first time in my life the elusive black panther of Nagarhole forest twice on back to back safaris during my visit beginning of this year after three years of being sighted there. This sighting did make me read and learn more about these elusive creatures  and I have penned down few interesting information from Wikipedia and other sources

Color of the skin:

The Black Panther is merely a colloquial name given to a melanistic colour variation of a leopard or jaguar, and is derived from the genus name, Panthera. Black panthers in Asia and Africa are black leopards and black panthers in the Americas are black jaguars. Melanism (a Greek word meaning black pigment) is an over development of the dark-colored pigment melanin in the skin or its appendages and is the opposite of albinism. Close inspection of these cats will show that the spots and rosettes are still present but much harder to see due to the darker color of the coat.

Black Panther’s Historical Connection:

Ancient Egyptians revered black panther as goddess  whose name is Bast ( daughter of Amon-Ra) and later the name was tinkered by the Greek to mean  (Soul of Isis) Ba-Aset .  She is one of the well-loved goddesses of Egypt; especially lower Egypt.  Many temples and statues were built to her honor by her cult following in the cities of Memphis, Heliopolis, and Herakliopolis. However, of all the cities, none could surpass the reverence she received in the city of Busbastis near the Delta, which was named after her. Every year, in the months of April and May, the historian Herodotus noted that her yearly festivals drew some 700,000 people in huge ships singing songs and dancing as they head to the city. Prodigious amounts of wine were drunk in these festivals. Upon reaching Bubastis, great sacrifices were made. This annual festival went by different names including “Festival of Bast”, “Procession of Bast”, “Bast Goes Forth from Bubastis” and “Bast Guards the Two Lands”. The festivals continued until the destruction of the city in 350 BC by the Persians. What remains today are just ruins to remind us of its one-time glory and splendor  

 Black panthers are very shy and in the event you have been lucky to have sighted one it would more or less lounging on a distant tree. Due to the black color skin the black panther would find it difficult to camouflage itself like the normal leopards for  it can be seen quite easily even if the stalking their prey… possibly this is the reason for its shyness . But during the recent days I have been seeing the reports of regular sighting of this magnificent animal often which makes me conclude that the animal is becoming bolder day by day. The image above is with lots of clutter.. dry branches of the tree but then we may never get the perfect background and the foreground settings in the wild. I hope that you like these images and enjoy the same.

Does an endangered tiger deserve this inspite being a national animal !!!

This is a common topic of discussions these days and i am not an expert but a wild life lover who is frustrated and angry with the happening in our country with scant respect being shown to the endangered National animal Tiger . When a death of a Tiger  is reported there are flurry of activities by wildlife lovers and conservationists trying to get the relevant authorities to investigate the deaths and punish the people responsible in the event these deaths are unnatural.But then the government departments are just not bothered to do in depth investigations into the matter and this does frustrates most wild life lovers and the reactions can be seen on the social media networks. We did have a twitter storm to various government official to introduce accountability and stricter laws to protect these endangered tiger since it is not prevailing now.

Just couple of weeks back a well known and most photographed tiger of Bandipur named Prince was found dead and the FD initially gave out a statement that the tiger had died due to old age and starvation but kept the identity of the tiger shrouded. Wild life enthusiast delved deeper to find the identity of this tiger and finally when they were able to match the stripes they found it was the Prince. Body images given to the media did not tell the whole story as the face of the tiger was covered and it was then noticed by one wildlife reported that the tigers snout was missing and this led to protest by wildlife lovers at Bangalore demanding investigation into this matter and for having more transparencies in reporting findings of such deaths of the national animal. Finally the culprits to this gruesome cutting of the tiger snout were arrested and three canines of the tiger recovered from them.

Recent finding of tiger Shrinivas’s body buried in a farm land outskirts of Tadoba is sending shockwaves among the wildlife lovers and conservationists. He was the son of the legendary tiger Jai from UKWLS who has gone missing now for over a year and is suspected to be poached though there has been sporadic reporting of having been sighted in various parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh & Telengana. If a radio collared tiger is able to be killed by electrocution just imagine the fate of other tigers from the core forests that are not monitored at all. We may never get to know the true count of mortality of our national animal. The government agency NTCA claims that there have been only 9 deaths in the month of April 2017 however the record maintained by CLAW of the reported deaths from all parts of India stands at 14 tiger deaths this month.

In fact there are many more deaths of tigers that have taken place but has not been reported to the authorities and the reason I say this is because I read the following post on the CLAW portal wherein a member states that in the last 6 months three full grown tigers have been killed by truckers in Kaali Ghat section that connects Chalisgaon to Aurangabad …. See the screenshot of that post and the author is desperately trying to get in touch with concerned authorities to save a tigress with two cubs. Hats off to such wildlifers.. in a small way he is making an attempt to help saving the tiger.  

 There are so many tigers missing from the various regions and as their bodies / body parts are not found are not listed at dead. I did write about this last year too and you can read it here .There has been a recent case where one Tiger by named Ookan went missing from Tadoba in 2012 has been found this year in March 2017 hale and healthy nearly 100 kms away from where he was last sighted. This does bring cheer to wild lifers but this is one off case that was solved on the list of these missing tiger. The balance of the missing tigers may be dead with the bodies being hidden by perpetrators in fear of being convicted or the body parts have already been exported out of India.

  

Coming back to the death of Shrinivas , the farmer confessed that the electrified  fence he had put around the farm had killed the tiger but this does not account for the injured paw. Farmer stated that he removed the radio collar and threw it away from his farm and buried the body. The department states that it was due to the radio collar they were able to trace the last known location of Shrinivas and on intense search found the body.

The images of the body being dug out tells it all ... such an pathetic end to a magnificent animal.The arrested farmer has already got bail as per the post I read on social media. This is the kind of punishment one gets for killing a national animal that is endangered and it just shows how helpless we wild life lovers are. A strict punishment may have deterred others who think of poaching animals but with this sort of ruling they would hardly think twice before poaching… for they can get away with murder.

 

 I sincerely hope that the Government of India wakes up to the reality of the situation prevailing in the ground with respect to the endangered national animal instead of thinking all is fine by reading the reports of pencil pushers, who only make reports that are flowery to make on International symposiums or for the matter of getting funds.

PS: Image & post courtesy – CLAW portal on facebook. & Dhananjay Kumar

CLAW- Please revert back if you feel the same is inappropriate so that i can withdraw the blog.

HERD MENTALITY

 

Image Courtesy: Google Images

The recent peaceful protests at Chennai for allowing Jallikattu a traditional sport of rural TamilNadu ended on the 8^thday with riots and violence though the state had passed the bill allowing this sport due to infiltration of the crowd by unscrupulous persons. This protest have thrown up  positives such as collective youth power, maintaining peace and order and so forth, negatives such herd mentality(blind following because other are doing), dilution of the cause by adding unrelated requests. I am not going to go into the details of this protests as it has been widely covered by media and written as well instead going to write about the cry for the ban of aerated drinks .

 

On its heels of the above mentioned protest a new wave of demands have cropped up and one being banning of Pepsi and Coca Cola products and the reasons being said is that these MNC’s are using up huge quantum of water in their production thereby depriving the farmers of much needed water for farming.At Coimbatore and surrounding areas Pepsi co and Coca Cola products have gone out of the shelf and now there is demand for its ban throughout Tamil Nadu  Read the news HERE.

I am not a fan of these products and I personally do not drink them but asking for ban of the products should have rational thinking and not herd mentality that is prevailing these days. The call for ban has been clamoring on health grounds for last 6-7 years and yet the very people asking for the ban now were happily consuming these products. Now suddenly the youth of Tamil Nadu have attained nirvana and have deemed that these drinks are eroding into the water resources....my question is that is this ban only against these MNC's or also all other Indian aerated drinks which use similar quantities of water in production of these drinks??? Anyway i only hope that this demand is not being driven by some unscrupulous persons for their person gains . I leave it to the readers to fuel their grey cells in this matter and come out with their thoughts independently instead of blindly following what is being done by peers. 

I have reproduced some of the funny interactions i read  about this ban on social media network-Facebook

Person 1: Why to ban Pepsi and Cola

Person 2: Oh they are American products

Person 1: What you think FB/ Twitter is on which you are posting, I phones, Mac books etc  ;) 

                                                                           ***

Person A: Then what about mixing of drinks

Person B: Only water

Person A: ohh this water would not affect the farmers???

Person B: To make 300ml Pepsi 17 liters of ground water is used but then for mixing my drinks  I use

                 only 1 liter of water , and as a future farmer i am saving 16 Ltrs of natural resources 

                                                                           ***

Migrant worker

Image Courtesy :- Google Images

One of the many heart rendering tale of the plight of migrant worker in the gulf I heard recently from a friend who knew this person who worked in gulf for over 25 years staying a forced bachelor during his entire adult life. One Devan from Kerala, eldest of three siblings came to gulf way back 1986 as a technician and being the eldest son the onus of taking care of the entire family was on him. He toiled for 3 continuous years working from morning to evening and also till night so that he earns a bit more with overtime and then proceeded on 2 months leave to home. During this leave the wedding of his first of two sisters was conducted and it was a lavish affair burdening him with loans. So he leaves back for work in gulf. While he was here the next 3 years his parents had seen a girl for him and also a groom for the second sister and wanted both the weddings be done during the time their son comes on leave. This took place during early 1993 and when it was time to return back for work in gulf Devan’s wife was   pregnant with their child.

Devan goes back to work alone since in his position he will not get family status and in few months’ time he gets the news that his wife has given birth to a son. His joy had no bounds for and was waiting for his leave which was in 1996. He toils even harder for the responsibility of the upkeep of his wife, son and aged parents are still on and towards the end of three and half years he proceeds on his vacations of 2 months. He goes with a thought of discussing with his wife of leaving the job at gulf and finding some suitable employment in Kerala itself so that he could stay with his family. During the vacation wife becomes pregnant again and his added responsibilities did not allow him to discuss the thoughts of relocating to Kerala with his wife. He had now on his own decided the he would work for 2 more terms of 3 years and then retire. So back he goes and keeps working until 2004 during the ensuing period both his parents have passed on and also his youngest sister and her children has come back home due to differences with her husband.

During his leave in 2004 he broaches the topic of returning back to India and settling down at Kerala itself as he is missing the family, but this time the wife says that it is better that Devan keeps working abroad as it ensures good living for her and their children and also the burden of the sister’s family does not hurt much. Now with these discussions Devan is forced to back to gulf for work and during his leave after every 2 or 3 years he keeps discussing about his coming back to Kerala. However now both children are on the verge of entering the college for higher education and also to maintain a status symbol in the society he had built a house on ancestral property he has no choice but to keep working in gulf living away from the family and earning for them.

Devan, finally went back to Kerala permanently in 2014 in a coffin.  He died a lonely death far away from home with only his fellow workers and staff around him. He toiled his entire life leaving like a third class citizen in Gulf country so that his family back home can lead a comfortable life. This is the story of so many workers from India…the burden of taking care of entire family rests on their shoulders and they do take care of it with a smile on their face without giving much thought about their own pleasures of family life. 

This is a true story.