Скачать или смотреть Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, Aug 2021

A brief visit to the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, a small protected areas along the Cauvery River in south India, turned out to be productive in unexpected ways, including for three different sightings of Sloth Bear, all with cubs, an Indian Rock Python with a belly full of something substantial, and a sighting of the uncommon White-naped Woodpecker. There were also several sightings of the patchily distributed Grizzled Giant Squirrel and Mugger Crocodile, four species of Owls, Stork-billed Kingfisher, Lesser Fish and Bonelli’s Eagles, among a modest diversity of birds and other wildlife. Among the animals I had hoped to see, realistically, but did not, were Smooth-coated Otter and Yellow-throated Bulbul, and there were also those that I had hoped to see, with a wing and a prayer, like Rusty Spotted Cat and Ratel, both species recorded on camera traps from the landscape, that proved duly elusive. This visit was in the middle of the ‘wet’ season, when the open woodland is relatively lush, and, significantly, when the Jamun (Syzygium cumini), a riverine species here, were fruiting copiously – a major attraction for Sloth Bear, as it turned out, and also a well known food source for a plethora of frugivores. There were also a variety of macro-fauna, including congregations of butterflies, mostly Plain Tiger and Common Crow, feeding on plant juice from a shrub along the river, various dragonflies, a skink, Oriental Garden Lizard and South Indian Rock Agama. This brief visit highlighted the productiveness of this modest stretch of protected area along the river, despite obvious disturbances like livestock grazing within the sanctuary, and likely others like collection of forest produce and possibly a background hum of illegal small game hunting/fishing. Troublingly, though, there is talk of a new dam downstream, that will spell doom to this wilderness, not just a significant corridor of forest connecting the Eastern and Western Ghats.

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