Rainforest!

Research in the rainforest had long been a tantalizing proposition for me. Rumbling down the jeep track on that first foggy morning, I was full of excitement for the days to follow, and sheer joy for being in a rainforest. As luck would have it, Paromita, a sprightly co-volunteer, showed me around the research station. I was awestruck by the beauty of the place, its pools and streams and dense forest. There are two resident Malabar Pit Vipers, countless little geckos and nocturnal visitors – scorpions - that warrant a thorough shoe check every morning. Large Brahminy skinks chase one another, and occasionally little snakes, on the leaf litter. A little white macaque skull sits with an old grey bovine one at the entrance.

ARRS is located on a small erstwhile plantation of areca nut and paddy, surrounded by forest. Kalinga Mane (Kannada for Home of the King Cobra) houses the neat and very comfortable dormitory, kitchen and open dining area. The office is one of the classiest I have seen, with traditional carved columns and doors, and a great view. The adjoining library is compact and cosy and contains a diverse collection of journals, magazines, encyclopaedias, field guides and even fiction. There are three lovely cottages on the premises at strategic locations.

One of the resident Malabar Pit Vipers

My work as a volunteer here was to collect data on dragonflies. We were observing their activity throughout the day at a little pool in the paddy field. This meant that we often heard and saw birds and even the Malabar Giant Squirrel at close quarters! Paromita and I would quietly stalk the species of our interest, swoop down on them with an insect net, gently mark their wingtips with colour codes and release them. We tracked their hunting flights and rather aggressive territorial chases and ended up basking in the sun with them all day. Some very interesting and heartening discussions would ensue during these hours.

Just a casual walk around the place could mean encountering at least a dozen species. Look down and you will find ants (procession ants, jumping ants, golden-backed ants, weaver ants and so on), slugs, snakes, scorpions, tracks and droppings (of boars, cattle, deer, leopards, civets to name a few). Look up in the trees and you will find birds, frogs (bush frogs, gliding frogs, etc), lizards (Calotes and Dracos) and mammals (giant squirrels, gliding squirrels, slender loris, civets). And it is equally important to look straight ahead as there are many spiders of all sizes, shapes and colours (funnel spiders, wood spiders, giant wood spiders, jumping spiders and many more) in their elaborate webs.

Procession ants carrying their 'crabby' prey

Mornings are often begun with the enchanting song of the endemic Malabar Whistling Thrush that likes to perch on the dormitory roof. Woodpeckers are especially active in the mornings, and the reverberations of hollow tree trunks being hammered can deceive one into thinking that these birds are quite large. They are in fact flamboyant little things that deftly maintain minimum visibility despite being right before or above you or swiftly changing trees. The Racket-tailed Drongos are unabashed in their playful banter, sometimes making startlingly complex combinations of screeches and whistles. Yellow-browed Bulbuls, another endemic species abound here, often flocking with different birds to make a collective effort at disturbing and thus seeking out insects. Giant Squirrels can get quite loud and White-bellied Treepies dominate the soundscape with what Joris, another co-volunteer, described as computer game sounds. The Malabar Grey Hornbill takes the cake, though. Its signature cackling calls would always crack us up and reiterate the importance of laughter.

The station is run mainly on solar power. By day, skylights in the traditional tiled roofs allow bright diffused sunlight to bathe the indoors. The bathrooms provide the luxury of hot water, a by-product of cooking. Evenings are illuminated by LED lamps, but more so by conversations over dinner. Some nights we would watch superb documentaries – not only published ones, but also some awesome footage recorded by researchers during the King Cobra Telemetry Project and an ongoing study on Yellow Wattled Lapwings.

Outside the office

Ajay Giri is the resident snake rescuer. He is often summoned even in distant villages when the situation is too tricky or the snake too risky for local rescuers. Witnessing four King Cobra rescues and two Spectacled Cobra rescues left me in wide-eyed wonder! The snakes are found in small tanks and wells, attics, sheds, even in living rooms, on gates, and trees. Ajay records the GPS coordinates, location and time of capture and release as well as the situation of the snake confrontation. The vital statistics of the snake are recorded too! The composed manner in which Ajay handles the snake and the situation is admirable and insightful, and so is the interaction that follows the rescue. The villagers talk to him about all kinds of wildlife, conflict, risks and habitats and he hands out informative leaflets to them. A joint decision is made on where the snake should be relocated and the site owner, often accompanied by neighbours, witnesses the release in a forest in the proximity.

Dhiraj Bhaisare, the research administrator is a treasure trove of knowledge. Walking with him around the area gave us much to appreciate. He showed us India’s smallest (Oriental Grass Jewel) and largest (Southern Birdwing) butterflies, the Hump-nosed Pit Viper we could have either missed or stepped on, and a beautiful Nilgiri Forest Lizard that we may not have otherwise identified, all on one walk. He also has detailed answers to practically all kinds of questions and casually drops thought-provoking questions and ideas around.

Ramprasad Rao is an amphibian and ichthyofauna researcher. He was kind enough to take us to the serene Jogi Gundi falls and the spectacular Onaki Abbe falls. Walking through the forest, he gave us bytes on trees, geckos, frogs, fish and scat, and very convincingly mimicked some bird calls. The Malabar Whistling Thrush began to sing with him! He also took us to the forest to extract a wild bee colony one morning. I was delighted to see him gently cup handfuls of bees out of a tree hollow and into the bee box. After much persuasion on my part and concerned hesitation on his, I finally tried it myself. It was a great feeling, fuzzy buzzing bees all over my hands! He also showed us jumping frogs, torrent frog tadpoles, skittering frogs, and allowed us to record their body measurements for his morphometry project. This awesome threesome is the soul of the research station. Keeping the station well-maintained is a local staff including the cook Nagaraj who never fails to please with hot nutritious and flavourful meals.

View from Onaki Abbe falls

There is a pair of camera traps in the forest, one recording video clips and another taking pictures. Going through the records, we saw many deer, a group of ten wild boars, quite some cattle and of course humans including us captured on camera. One of the mornings, a leopard walked down the path around 11am. At 4pm that day, we went down the very same path; we returned though, and the leopard didn’t. As though that wasn’t thrill enough, we used to go out every single night with torches. Occasionally we’d carry a UV light too, to spot the fluorescent green scorpions emerging from their burrows in the pitch dark night. We spotted frogs, snakes, slugs and the Malabar Gliding Squirrel a couple of times. The Slender Loris was often heard but seldom seen. We were absolutely thrilled to find Sri Lanka Frogmouths with the help of recorded calls. However we couldn’t come up with a suitable study design for them. Either way, we made the most of it by gazing at the tremendously clear star-strewn sky every night.

A monthly phenomenon, the light trap set up by Deepak, JRF at NCBS, is a sight to behold. A simple square cloth enclosure open to sky, it attracts moths of at least 30 different species (yes, I counted) between 9pm and 3am (those are the work hours). The first to arrive are pearly white beauties, some with heavy gold and silver designs adorning their wings. They literally look like jewels. As the night progresses, an array of moths convene on the walls, turning them into works of living biological art. The iridescence, camouflage, patterns, and above all, the astounding variety is awe-inspiring. Naturally, it also is a feast for frogs and lizards. Hawk moths are the group of interest here, and Deepak collects specimens and records every new species encountered to add to the list of moths of the Western Ghats.

A stream in the forest

Fortunate as I am, Romulus Whitaker visited along with Zai and Nikhil Whitaker and Dr. Gowri Mallapur while I was volunteering. Cheerful, charming and very friendly, he spoke to us about our experiences and shared his own. He is widely known and respected for his herpetology and conservation initiatives; I later also found out that he has done a lot more than that! Joris and I undertook a small survey on the habitat occupancy of the grassland around the station. The lapwings had begun to arrive from places within a 100km radius to pair and nest in the grassland. The environment was very charged and I learned a lot of things in my nineteen days at the station. Now I sit with my laptop, sifting through the collected data looking for trends and patterns. This was a life-building experience, and I aspire to return to ARRS and contribute some good research.