We are at Virajpet PWD IB now. Today's walk, we saw a Sambar. In fact, he saw us first. He was a well built stag. He stood still looking in our direction and we stood still looking at it. He then turned back and moved slowly into dense cover. After a while he came out again to check out on us from behind the bushes, and realising we are still around he finally retreated deep inside. We got a good view because he was slightly higher up on the hill slope. It was an amazing encounter. This forest is a reserve forest and not a protected area where the density of animals is usually much higher. So a chance meeting with this Sambar on this hill made me feel good. It was a dense forest, seemingly undisturbed. We kept going down and down and down hundreds of meters. The substrate was leafy and wet - sunlight probably did not penetrate these depths. It was a good walk.
I also saw my first Emerald Dove today through the window of a crowded bus doing a slow steep uphill. And in the morning I saw a pair of Chestnut Tailed Starlings, the southern race. They were perched on a big tree just outside the IB compound.
As we came out of the forest, the trail merged into a pagdandi on the edge of the forest. The pagdandi slowly merged into a jeepable dirt road through plantations, which led to a potholed tar road through a village, which eventually led us to the highway. And C remarked - this is development.
Virajpet PWD IB
Sambar
View from a high point
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