LabSci went on a Jungle Trek

Sanjay Gandhi National Park at the outskirt of Mumbai city is a patch of wild existing within the island of concrete.

Late evening of last Saturday, LabSci headed out to the National Park for observing wildlife and insects. We met our extremely knowledgeable naturalist colleague at Thane, and he acted as our guide for the evening.

As we entered the National Park, we saw a specially created butterfly garden, which was full of colourful flowers. We were told that it was a pretty sight in the mornings when lots of butterflies hover about. It is, however, a bad idea to indiscriminately fabricate any habitat in the wild - In this case, the caterpillar, which is the young one of a butterfly, eats away the leaves of surrounding plants, thus causing an un-natural drop in the foliage of the place.

While we were still discussing the importance of natural order, our guide spotted some leopard tracks and scat (euphemism for poop!). By poking around the scat, he could tell us that it was a leopard cub’s doing. We got excited knowing that a leopard could be around.

We moved on and observed a lot of interesting flora, the acacia tree, its flower and seeds, the palash tree, the flame of the forest flower and a lot of semar (silk cotton) trees.

 

We also found a fully closed semar pod - it was so efficiently packed by mother nature, that on opening it, we could not believe the amount of cotton silk it could hold!

Further into the forest, we also saw scratch marks on a lot of tree trunks. This is the leopard’s way of marking its territory. A peculiar smell of urine greeted us after a while. Our guide informed us that it was the distinctive smell of a leopard but it might hide on seeing us, as leopards are known to be very shy and they scare easily.

It was getting dark as we trekked deeper into the wild, and we took out our trusty torches. We sighted a huge termite hill and the odd bit was that there were many dead insect husks clinging to the outside of the hill. It seemed as if the termites had attacked and killed the insects instantly and then slowly absorbed their nutrients (Burrp! Fun fact – termites are one of the largest producers of methane gas).

Here we learnt a very interesting fact about termite hills – that such hills are always constructed in a way so that the wall which faces west is the thickest. This is because the afternoon sun from west is always very hot and the thick wall acts as a protection against the strong heat. So next time we get lost in a forest at night, we can tell the direction just by finding a termite hill!

It soon became pitch dark and we passed an area where the trail bed was swarming with beautiful orange cotton stainer beetles. They give out a very foul smell if irritated, so we padded along swiftly; we had a hard time trying to walk on the rocks so as not to squash them.

Finally, we reached the top-most part of our trail and clicked the lovely city lights, while our backs faced the dense dark forest area.

As we moved downhill, the only natural source of light was a faint half moon. Amazingly, our guide spotted a camouflaged lizard on a tree trunk. We would not have spotted it; even while the guide was pointing at the lizard, it took us some time before we could see it.

We also managed to see a few wicked looking spiders. It was 9 PM by the time we reached the base and waited for about an hour on the Machan (observation deck) hoping to see the elusive leopard, but the big cat decided to give us a miss that day.

As we moved out of the forest later, said good nights and got back in our car, we marveled at the miracles of nature and loved the fact that our city has its own natural forest.

We will be back Mr. Leopard, and all we ask for is a little glimpse.