Welcome To The Kingfisher Wildlife Diaries – John Bailey
January 18th 2010
Bump in the Night
A Southern Indian jungle. My team and I are having supper. Bola, head guide appears. Elephants he says. Just yards from where we are sitting. Quietly, without any light, we make our way towards the thick scrub. Bola stops us and we listen. Just ten yards away the animals are moving, a tribe, Bola says, of around fifteen beasts. We squat low to see their massive shapes against the dark night sky. You can hear their dung falling on the sun-baked earth. Hear their tails swish. The occasional muffled trumpet as the creatures clash over a particularly succulent bush.
Their progress is slow for they are feeding hard. Trees are torn down. Bushes pulverised. The tension is palpable. I look at my companions and see their faces tight with excitement, etched with awe. To be so close, to be such a part of this nocturnal feast.
After twenty minutes, we sense the creatures are drawing away from us, disappearing into the night jungle. Then, they are gone. We return wonderingly, to our meal, in almost total silence, each of us lost in our thoughts.
The members of the team were predominantly in India for the fishing but, it's important to remember that most fishermen are dedicated naturalists, too. And what wildlife there is still down on the subcontinent. I honestly saw a leopard pass through my binoculars' field of vision. Wild boar. Monkeys. Crocs. Endless species of deer. Buffalo. Jungle cats. A mongoose or two. Snakes. A scorpion and more species of birds than you could begin to count.
But I'm still looking forward to Norfolk as it comes out of this winter freeze. Walks along the Wensum and around the Kingfisher Lakes. Holkham beach. The marshes at Cley and Salthouse. What an incredibly rich world this is.