The thing about the word “May” is that when it is used as a noun it stands for the month named after the Roman goddess Maia—mother or the greater one. But drop the upper case and we have a modal verb that could mean granting permission, expressing the possibility of something happening, or articulating a desire depending on how you use it. What was even more amusing is that over the past month I got to experience all these meanings of may, invariably during my birding trails.
We’ll get to those but first let me tell you about the time I experienced motherhood in third person.
Much like nature, the omnipresence of mothers around us makes us take their presence for granted. Enter Sharmili — a tigress mother from the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.
True to her name, Sharmili or the shy one didn’t come out in the open to give us a look but there she was, lying across a puddle with four of the cutest cubs I had ever seen. She might not have been visible to us, but she was watching us all the while, one could almost feel a penetrating gaze from across the bushes. Lazying around with her cubs who would come around for a peek-a-boo once in a while, she radiated a sense of assurance that could actually be felt by us mortals too. As luck would have it — over the next few days our group was graced to be in presence of not one but three tigress mothers namely— Choti Madhu, Collarwali and W.
As I flipped on the treacherous side of the thirties this month, I couldn’t help but wonder how little I have experienced in the time I have been around. The urge to somehow compress time into getting more from it was at it’s peak this month and it led to this rather ambitious attempt to do a near 24-hour birding trail in the birding hotspot of Bhigwan. Our group of four, the youngest among which was an eight year old bundle of energy, pushed our physical and more importantly mental limits to pull this off.
The results were exhilarating to say the least. Bhigwan was then playing host to a lot of migratory birds who had delayed their return journey and hence showing off their breeding plumage — a sight that would otherwise entail a trip to snow-clad plateaus further north. As we continued our trail into the night, the Indian Nightjar graced us in numbers along with Palm Civets and Jungle Cats. At the crack of dawn we came face to face (quite literally) with the rather elusive Stripped Hyena. On our return leg, we sighted the majestic Indian Eagle Owl in full glory. 350 documented sightings as of 3/5/2022 — check!
With age has come the understanding that merely chasing my desires is not going to get me anywhere. The agony and pain of trying to control that what is not to be is a real deal. That we are here to play our part, then part is something I would tell my 20 year old self should I ever get the chance to do so. I would also take my 20 year old self to sight the Indian Pitta because that would mean he would not wait for another ten years to start birding. The Pitta has this effect on you — myriad colors at rest, flashes of blue in flight, melodious two-tone call, peek-a-boo pattern of foraging and perching in the clear for just that wee bit. Tell me again why you’d not join in.
But the Pitta is not always necessary to get more folks into the birding fold. The now routine trail to TS Chanakya mudflats this month had a new member. Amruta More came in for the Flamingos but stayed back for the solitary Western Reef Egret, the Black Drongos, Painted Storks and more so for the Ashy Prinias. The excitement of having a new member on a trail is infectious and probably the reason why @vinosejay (Anthony) was at his spotting best, with a new found liking for these Nikon binoculars to moot! This trail was also a master class in attracting over chasing what you desire — nothing else explains the list of probable lifers we made for Anthony the night before the trail and then ticking off a one after the other the next day.
Evenings with clouds on the horizon and the occasional spell of showers are signally the end of May as it would. So before the rains arrive and bring with them a brief birding hiatus, an end-of-season trail to the ARAI hillock was in order. The Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher is a summer migrant to these parts and so is the Twany-bellied Babbler. Spotting them along with the usual suspects was an apt sign off to what has been an humbling and fulfilling season.
Every trail I visited this month had something special to offer. The Osprey doing it’s talon cleaning shenanigans and sighting half a dozen Nightjars in a single field at Bhigwan. A sea of pink (Flamingos) at TS Chanakya. Spotting the Oriental Honey Buzzard in it’s pale morph, Crested Serpent Eagle watching over its jungle kingdom, the Indian Roller perching close by for that perfect shot, the flurry of colors that the Pitta flashed, the mesmerizing flight of the Indian Paradise Flycatcher, and the incandescent calling of the Common-hawk Cuckoo at the Tadoba Tiger Reserve.
Once you are in a jungle the vast expanse of land, towering trees, undulating terrain and almost unending trails can make one realize how puny we are in the grand scheme of things. The magnanimity of the Indian Gaur, the chilling stare of the Indian Wild Dog, the rushing frenzy of the Wild Boar were all on display as we trudged along tracks worn more by time than by man in the dry deciduous forests of central India not giving two hoots to the blistering heat or the friable dust all round!
Nature has been exceptionally benevolent over me this season or as some of my birding mentors call it —extended beginners’ luck at play. But like a true mother she kept the best for the end of an otherwise intense season. One can only hope that what I witnessed in the month of May was only the beginning of yet another spell of humbling experiences.
Trip report of the Tadoba trails can be accessed here, along with checklists from TS Chanakya and ARAI trails.
Big shout out for the folks at Jungle Ken for their meticulous management of our Tadoba trip. Can’t think of anyone to do it better.
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