These pictures are a part of the DSLR Camera trapping that I produced at the Aarey Milk Colony in Mumbai. These artificial water holes have been created for birds by nature caring people. Wonderfully though, this waterholes have now become a life saving resource for a number of domestic and wild animals, including Leopards and Civets.
If you are using any of the pictures, please do give credit to Ranjeet Jadhav/AareyGP
URBAN LEOPARDS OF MUMBAI
Clicked when the glorious lights of the winter evening touched the woods of Mumbai's Aarey Milk Colony.
This little one is not been named yet by us. But for starters, the cub is one of the two sub-adult cubs of Biyanca, a female leopard, who resides in Aarey. Just like his mother, this baby leopard was also born in Aarey and patrols the territory with his mother.
Do not go by his innocent eyes! As playful and curious like any other kid, he is always on a mission to inspect and dissect new things that he comes across in the forest. And well, this time around it was my DSLR camera trap that caught the attention of these mysterious eyes. So much so that, those tiny paws even tried to fling one of our flash units (only out of curiosity) when it triggered to click his pictures.
However, the second time when it reached the trail with his mother, he seemed to be pretty much gotten used to the flashlights. Perhaps, he must have understood the purpose of the flashbulbs and thought of rather posing for a picture (or let's just assume that way ). A lesson we all can learn from this small instance - if they can co-adapt and co-exist, why can't we? After all, we humans are considered the most evolved species on Earth!
A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH CHANDANI!
Monsoon had just ended. I was on a nature trail with my friends. While walking into the Aarey forest, we noticed a bunch of kites hovering over a meadow. Out of curiosity, we decided to check out what were the birds looking for. We walked through the direction, but thanks to the monsoon, the landscape was lush green, beautiful and all of that, but surely a hindrance to our tracking. Due to the dense foliage, we struggled for a while to figure out the exact location, but ultimately managed to get near the spot.
After a quick scanning of the grassy field, two of my friends, who were behind me, roughly at a distance of 10 feet away, whispered to me that there is an animal resting 30-40 feet away from us ahead. He asked me to hide and look to my left. What I saw after that was inexpressible. I was pleasantly surprised to see a leopard heated on the sun and green meadow. She was Chandani!
I have spotted leopards in the night on many occasions, but seeing this beauty in broad daylight was a different experience altogether. It was a magical sight to see Chandani, gracing the green carpet under the setting sun.
Without wasting much time, I began doing what I love doing the best - click pictures of the wild big cat! I must say, Chandani was kind enough to let us click her pictures. She stared us for a few minutes and allowed us to capture her beauty. But, as the big cats are known for their strong presence of mind and a prompt reflex, this one too, within a fraction of a second vanished away into the bushes.
An interesting take from this event, I would like to share is - We were not in a jeep or a safari while clicking her pictures, which busts the myth that leopards attack humans. She could have easily jumped on us to attack. But, that's not their nature, as leopards are most adaptive of the big wild cats. They can stay in human habitat as well as in the forest.