Wildbuzz: An ardent devotee of Sun God

Ultra-marathon runner Munish Jauhar has a hawk’s eye when it comes to spotting perfectly-camouflaged serpents in the Sukhna Lake’s flanking bush jungles. A few years back, he spotted a highly venomous Russell’s viper just a few yards off the “Bird Walk” at the regulatory end, merged into the fallen and drab foliage. On a training run at the lake recently, Jauhar’s roving eye picked up a huge rock python (10-12 feet). Like everyone else, the python had grabbed the opportunity of a few hours of weak sunlight in the mid-afternoon to emerge partially and absorb some much-need solar heat.

“The python was so still. Not a blink of the eye or the flicker of its forked tongue. It was difficult to determine what was more still and silent: the looped serpent or fallen leaves. It was just four feet from me and about 10 yards from the lake’s promenade where people walk. I don’t know how my eye chanced upon it. Initially, it looked like a viper and I stepped back quickly. But I soon realised it was a python. I was able to manage pictures of the python with my cell phone from just a few feet and without disturbing it. The serpent was obliging, like a professional model in a studio!” Jauhar told this writer.

The Jauhar python is a resident of a bush jungle strip adjoining a pond at the regulatory end. The pond attracts wetland birds, some nesting in the bushes next to water while others are transnational or local/regional migrants. That provides the python lurking in the bushes with a ready supply of prey to ambush.

Pythons have been observed on top of trees at the Sukhna Nature Trail, absorbing heat as the sun filters weakly through the thick Prosopis juliflora canopy.

Squirrel dares a mighty eagle

The head priest at the Sri Umamaheshwaram temple nestling deep in the Nallamala jungle, a 100-km from Hyderbabad, possesses a sharp eye for wild creatures. So, when Dr Nisarga, an accomplished wildlife photographer and chief cardiac surgeon at KIMS Hospitals, Hyderabad, came scouring the jungle, the priest gifted him a ready tip-off. The priest had observed a majestic changeable hawk eagle occupying an observation perch on a nearby tree for years. The eagle would prey on young langurs on that tree without inviting counter-attacks from adult langurs.

Nisarga made for the tree and was blessed to witness an incredible five minutes of the “tables turned”. This mighty eagle species can hunt young peacocks. It is known to prey on young Malabar giant squirrels and even attempts hunting adult squirrels. But something quite different was brewing here that day.

“An adult squirrel left its bough in the tree’s middle and charged straight up to the eagle. Discharging a volley of agitated and intimidating calls, the squirrel tried to grab at the eagle’s legs. The surprised eagle took a bit of time to react and warded off the attack with its legs. It was either a territorial fight or the squirrel wanted to deter the eagle from its regular perch as it posed a threat to its young ones. So relentless was the squirrel’s heckling that the mighty eagle beat a retreat, abandoning its perch in a huff of flight feathers,” Nisarga told this writer.

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