Croaks : The Wonderful World of Bandhavgarh Frogs, by Siddharth Edeke, Program Officer, The Corbett Foundation
Bandhavgarh national park is known and acknowledged world wide as ‘the land of tigers’ attracts hundreds of photographers and thousands of tourists every year. The very thought of seeing wildlife at its best attracts many researchers and wildlife scientists to this fascinating tiger country who come here for documentation and study. A lot has already been talked about the tigers and other dominant mammals of Bandhavgarh like bear and leopard through numerous published articles, photos and scientific papers. Well, all this is when the season is on and people are flocking to see wildlife.
But there are few lucky people like us who get to stay at Bandhavagarh even during the ‘off season’. I am talking about the monsoon which has been at its best here in Bandhavgarh in 2010. Thanks to The Corbett Foundation for whom I work and Infinity resorts which has been my place of residence, I got to see and document some of the best amphibian life in Bandhavgarh. My encounter with amphibians began on June 20th when Bandhavgarh saw its first heavy rains of the year. It was already late for the monsoon but nevertheless it was here.
It rained very heavily for a couple of hours making me all tired and wanting to go to bed early. I guess I must have slept for some time but was suddenly awake at around 10 pm in the night. The rain had stopped but had awakened thousands of sleeping beauties as it parted. The entire Infinity campus was buzzing with loud croaks “trr..trr..trr…”, wakk..wakk..wakk…, pukk…pukk..pukk…, there were so many calls I almost went deaf. Amazed with what I am going to see in the next few minutes I set out with my torch and my camera into this wonderful world of croaks not knowing what was coming my way.
It was a beautiful sight altogether. I thought of it as a phenomenon, something one can see just once in his or her lifetime. There were small puddles and streams created by the rains that had just swept Bandhavgarh and in those puddles were not ten, not hundred, but thousands of tiny little frogs and I had no clue from where they had emerged. With lot of enthusiasm I dared to count those just to give it a try but soon gave up looking at their huge numbers. They were everywhere- on land, on trees and in the water, there were few known faces while the rest of the visitors were completely new to me. In the known faces we had Hoplobatrachus tigerinus, commonly called the Bull frog who was trying to voice himself amongst thousands of other croaking frogs. Compared to the others, Bull frogs were a minority that night and were trying the best to make the presence felt with their huge football like sizes.
Bandhavgarh national park is known and acknowledged world wide as ‘the land of tigers’ attracts hundreds of photographers and thousands of tourists every year. The very thought of seeing wildlife at its best attracts many researchers and wildlife scientists to this fascinating tiger country who come here for documentation and study. A lot has already been talked about the tigers and other dominant mammals of Bandhavgarh like bear and leopard through numerous published articles, photos and scientific papers. Well, all this is when the season is on and people are flocking to see wildlife.
But there are few lucky people like us who get to stay at Bandhavagarh even during the ‘off season’. I am talking about the monsoon which has been at its best here in Bandhavgarh in 2010. Thanks to The Corbett Foundation for whom I work and Infinity resorts which has been my place of residence, I got to see and document some of the best amphibian life in Bandhavgarh. My encounter with amphibians began on June 20th when Bandhavgarh saw its first heavy rains of the year. It was already late for the monsoon but nevertheless it was here.
It rained very heavily for a couple of hours making me all tired and wanting to go to bed early. I guess I must have slept for some time but was suddenly awake at around 10 pm in the night. The rain had stopped but had awakened thousands of sleeping beauties as it parted. The entire Infinity campus was buzzing with loud croaks “trr..trr..trr…”, wakk..wakk..wakk…, pukk…pukk..pukk…, there were so many calls I almost went deaf. Amazed with what I am going to see in the next few minutes I set out with my torch and my camera into this wonderful world of croaks not knowing what was coming my way.
It was a beautiful sight altogether. I thought of it as a phenomenon, something one can see just once in his or her lifetime. There were small puddles and streams created by the rains that had just swept Bandhavgarh and in those puddles were not ten, not hundred, but thousands of tiny little frogs and I had no clue from where they had emerged. With lot of enthusiasm I dared to count those just to give it a try but soon gave up looking at their huge numbers. They were everywhere- on land, on trees and in the water, there were few known faces while the rest of the visitors were completely new to me. In the known faces we had Hoplobatrachus tigerinus, commonly called the Bull frog who was trying to voice himself amongst thousands of other croaking frogs. Compared to the others, Bull frogs were a minority that night and were trying the best to make the presence felt with their huge football like sizes.
The next sets of visitors were the narrow- mouth Burrowing Frogs, (Spaherotheca breviceps) who were croaking at the top of their voice and trying to attract mates. Some were really lucky to find their suitable partners and one could sense the love in the air.
.jpg)
To be continued...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment