I woke up to the rising sun and the melodious calls of the common hawk cuckoo and the Indian pitta – a summer visitor to the region. I was staying at a forest rest house in the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra.
Still groggy, I grabbed my camera and quickly left the rest house, determined to capture the elusive Indian pitta on film. Known as the “Navrang” or “bird of nine colours”, it’s a delight for photographers. I followed its calls, but to my dismay, the sounds faded, and the bird remained out of sight. However, something else lifted my spirits on my way back—a jungle owlet’s call.
This tiny bird, with its endearing appearance, remarkable hunting skills, and distinctive calls, is a prized sighting. This time, luck was on my side. The calls led me straight to the owlet, perched conspicuously on a tree branch. I spent considerable time observing and photographing the owlet, jotting down notes on its behaviour. At one point, it locked eyes with me, a moment that left me spellbound before it returned to preening its feathers. Soon, it closed its eyes, signalling that it was time for me to bid farewell to this nocturnal creature and return to the rest house.
Our rest house, my temporary home shared with colleagues from the BNHS, is nestled within the bamboo-dominated forests of the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. This reserve is a slice of paradise in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur District, a region heavily industrialized with numerous mines, making it the hottest district in the state. The Tadoba National Park, part of the Tiger Reserve, is Maharashtra’s oldest and largest national park. Today, the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve is home to around 97 tigers and is renowned nationwide for its stunning beauty and rich biodiversity.
It was now time for some hard work. I needed to draw water from a well near the rest house for bathing. A few days earlier, a fierce thunderstorm had damaged the solar power system, leaving us without electricity and unable to pump water to the taps. After a refreshing bath, I enjoyed a cup of black tea with my colleagues, Bhaskar Das and Hemant Bajpai. Adding lemongrass leaves made the tea incredibly refreshing – a perfect start to the day.
After breakfast, we set off in a car driven by the ever-cheerful Mithun from the forest department to the field station, about ten kilometres away. The field station is where we conduct our vulture monitoring activities. Ten white-backed vultures, bred in captivity at the BNHS Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre in Pinjore, Haryana, have been brought here for future release into the wild.
The goal is to restore vulture populations in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, which, like the rest of the country, has suffered a near-complete loss of these scavengers due to the extensive use of vulture-toxic veterinary drugs like diclofenac and other NSAIDs. This project is a joint venture between the BNHS and the Maharashtra Forest Department to revive these crucial birds.
The ten white-backed vultures are housed at our field station in a pre-release aviary. A monitoring room allows us to observe their daily activities via CCTV footage without disturbing them. We closely monitor their health, feeding habits, activity levels, and responses to environmental conditions. Additionally, we conduct research to ensure that when the vultures are released, they find an environment conducive to their survival in the wild.
As usual, my colleagues and I began our day at the field station by monitoring the vultures’ activities and noting our observations. Today was exceptionally hot, with temperatures soaring above 45 degrees Celsius. A life-threatening heat wave was sweeping outside, and the metal roof of our monitoring room made it almost unbearably hot inside. We only had two wall fans to provide some relief from the heat. Even the drinking water at our field station had become so warm that it was undrinkable. Fortunately, the forest department’s fire-watching staff came to our rescue with cooler water from another source, allowing us to quench our thirst from their bottles. Meanwhile, we closely monitored the vultures’ responses to the extreme heat to ensure their well-being. While at the field station, we also handled tasks requiring internet access and cell phone signals, as our rest house is in a remote area without such amenities. We made sure to charge our laptops, cameras, phones, and power banks since the rest house often suffers from power outages.
We packed up around 6:00 p.m. after making our final vulture monitoring entry and drove back to the rest house. This time, however, we weren’t alone. A magnificent tiger was walking in front of our vehicle. Maintaining a respectful distance, we followed the tiger for about 500 meters before it vanished into the dense bamboo thickets along the roadside.
Upon returning to the rest house, we enjoyed a good cup of tea and spent time chatting with our cook, a local from the nearby village who works for the forest department. There’s always something new to learn from the locals about the forest, wildlife, and how they coexist with the wild animals around them. Every day, he travels a kilometre to Kolsa Village to access a network connection, allowing him to call home and check on his family. Otherwise, he remains mostly out of touch with his loved ones.
During dinner, which tasted heavenly after such a long day, I could hear the distant calls of nightjars. Paying closer attention, I distinguished the sounds of four different species: the Savanna nightjar (Caprimulgus affinis), Indian nightjar (Caprimulgus asiaticus), Jerdon’s nightjar (Caprimulgus atripennis), and jungle nightjar (Caprimulgus indicus).
After dinner, we all went up to the terrace to sleep since the fans weren’t working in our rooms due to the power outage. Lying beneath a star-studded sky, I realized that while our day was ending, the forest’s nightlife was just beginning. The peaceful atmosphere, the sounds of nature, and the thoughts of my loved ones back home soon lulled me into a deep sleep. A new day would dawn tomorrow, another day spent in the lap of nature, experiencing its raw and enchanting beauty. This thought filled me with hope and happiness as I drifted into the world of dreams.
About the author: Bhanu Pratap Singh is a conservation biologist and passionate photographer with a master’s degree in wildlife science.