Picto Diary - 11 January 2016 (Supplement 3) Negani!

A different route.... a different leopard, I said.

My four previous "Nigel" sightings were fantastic, but, same place tonight? same cat? The guides assured that Nigel would be there...and that a search for another cat in another place had a good chance of being fruitless. But serendipity's call was too loud... as it often is with me, and I said, "go a different place... lets find Nagani," the full sized, two year old, female suspected to be in the area, but whose location had not yet been pinpointed by the Jawai camp's roving trackers.

Dusk. TIMDT and Mwah (sic), separated from the other members of the Margaret Taylor Dance Troupe en route to see Nigel, and rode, driven by Chagan and accompanied by Jawai camp guide boss Varun, to an area near four prominent granite outcrops. On our right, coming out of the trees, was one of the Jawai camp trackers. Chagan stopped the vehicle. The tracker and Varun conversed in Hindi for a moment after which Chagan drove the Maruti to the base of the first of four granite outcrop dome like structures which figure prominently in the Jawai area.

Above: Tracker

"Turn around, Steve," said Varun. "Look at the sunset!"

Varun knew where to stop. The sun set bordered by the granite outcrop on the left, as we looked back, and the billion year old Aravali mountains and Jawai Lake on the right. Could there be a more perfect sunset image than this special place in the Rajasthani desert?

Above: Sunset, Rajasthani desert.

In the waning light, Chagan nudged the Maruti safari vehicle forward, through the valley, along the side of the side of the granite domes on the right. Looking left we could see farmland... wheat and canola. TIMDT and Mwah (sic) marveled at how the leopards and mankind could share the same area. There are 6000 leopards in India, plus or minus, and unlike tigers, which are restricted to certain preserve habitats, leopards range the entire sub continent.

Above: Farmland adjacent to granite outcrops.

We arrived adjacent to the final granite dome in a somber dusk. Time to see Nagani was running out. Chagan parked the Maruti on a granite platform and we waited quietly for a final look.

Above: Four granite outcrops and wildlife guides, Varun and Chagan, in Maruti. Looking towards the fourth granite outcrop in the distance.

"Monkey's," I whispered. "There (I pointed up)... leumurs... running up to the summit!" There were a lot of them. And, they were screaming. Their cries reverberated against the massive stone outcrop, back to our "jeep." They must have been spooked by something.

"There!" whispered Varun. "A wild boar!" A very large, dark, boar snorted and made its way through the bushes one hundred feet ahead... now stopping to hide behind a tree... now, snorting and moving. "There!" whispered Varun, again... but, pointing, this time, to the boar's left. Discernable in the growing dusk was leopard Nagani... stalking the boar. Slowly, deliberately, one front paw forward... stop.... the other front paw forward... stop. Slinking... prowling... preying.

Could this be true? At the end of a leopard safari hunt we were seeing the leopard sighting of a lifetime? A leopard stalking its prey?

Nagani stopped. The lemurs were still screaming... no longer discernable up on the granite outcrop above in the growing dark. The boar, spooked by something, trotted up the hill a bit.. and stopped again. But Nagani didn't follow. She apparently gave up the hunt and began walking from our left to our right, through an open area, into the brush on a rise to our right.

Chagan repositioned the Maruti in the direction of where Nagani was last seen and both Varun and Chagan began searching the now dark area with high powered, hand held lights.

There! No one needed say a thing. There! Fifty feet away. Nagani, head and shoulders fully visible, lying down, facing the light, licking her paws. Occasionally she would turn her head left, then right, and her eyes would flash like a disembodied wraith's orbs in a haunted house.

Chagan eased the Maruti closer... using gravity to advance the vehicle down the slight incline where we were positioned. Now 35 feet away!

For 20 minutes we watched as Nagani alternately licked her paws, looked left, looked right, looked straight, stood up. walked left... lay down again. In the process I took an image with my highly sophisticated wild life camera... the Samsung Galaxy Note III.

Above: Negani!

Finally, Nagani stood and walked back to a position out of our sight and we, elated on our leopard sighting high, returned to the camp.

"Why didn't Nagani take the boar,?" I asked Varun. "She was licking her paws which signified that she had recently eaten. Instinct caused her to stalk the boar... but, when push came to shove she decided that taking on the boar, a doable but difficult effort for a leopard, could wait for another day."

Serendipity strikes again. Once again rewarded for taking the alternate path.