EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Dawn on elephant-back, Corbett National Park, northern India

Explanation:    This is the best way to get around in the remote parks of India: on elephant-back, 3 meters (10 feet) off the ground and mostly safe from venomous snakes and attacks from tigers, although we still have to pick off the leeches that find their way under boots and pant legs. 

Into the dense cold fog of pre-dawn.  The mahuts signal
each other to circle around to catch sight of a tigress.

It is a cold dawn and a wet fog hugs the river grassland this morning. The piston-like legs of our elephant quietly, surely move us over streams and deep into the heart of Corbett National Park and Tiger Reserve along the Ramganga River of northern India.  Our mahut sits atop the elephant's neck and deftly steers our mount with his feet and with occasional directions barked in Hindi.  

We are on the hunt to sight a tigress.  At four a.m. this morning I arose and sat on the cliff above the river floodplain, and underneath a sky of dense stars peering through windows in the fog, I heard the echoed roar of a tiger out in the distant darkness.  She is here, somewhere.

From elephant-back we sight peacocks, kingfishers, a fish owl, a king vulture, black-necked storks, sandpipers, Indian cormorants, shrikes, bulbuls, and a crested hawk-eagle ... On we press, searching for sign of the tigress, the elusive phantom of the tall elephant grass.  [To be continued in next week's EPOW.]

Heading into the tall elephant grass at sunrise.

The dense sabai elephant grass will eventually grow nearly 7 meters (20 feet) tall!