Viraj Karekar's Nature and Wildlife Photography: Wild Life From The Forests of Nagarahole

Karnataka is blessed with some of the most magnificent tropical forests of the Indian sub-continent. The state is endowed with varieties of forest vegetation with an enormous diversity of species. The floral diversity is so wide and varied that in some districts, all types of forest from wet evergreen to dry thorn forests are encountered within a distance of less than 100 km. About 60 of Karnataka’s forests are situated in the Western Ghats, one of the mega biodiversity hotspots of the world. The remaining forests situated in the Eastern Plains - although these have limited coverage - exhibit high degree of plant diversity including varieties of medicinal plants. Nagarahole and Bandipur Tiger Reserves are the best forests I got to visit. Sharing some images I got to capture during the my visit to Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

Witnessed some amazing wild life with Sloth Bear (my first time sighting), Indian Gaur in action, group of elephants, one of the chasing us, and beautiful sight of Peakock in its full display with their iridescent tail feathers to attract peahens. This was a very rare sighting that I got to witness. A memorable one from the forests of Bandipur.

All pictures captured with Nikon D850 + Tamron 150-600mm G2 Lens.

MUSCLES

Indian Gaur in action from the Bandipur Tiger Reserve. This was a very rare sighting that I got to witness!! A memorable one from the forests of Bandipur.

The Winner

The sloth bear, also known as the Indian bear. It has also been called "labiated bear" because of its long lower lip and palate used for sucking up insects.

The typical weight ranges from 80 to 145 kg (176 to 320 lb).

The paws are disproportionately large, and have highly developed, sickle-shaped, blunt claws which measure 10 cm (4 in) in length. Their toe pads are connected by a hairless web.

They have the longest tail in the bear family, which can grow to 15–18 cm (6–7 in). Their back legs are not very strong, though they are knee-jointed, and allow them to assume almost any position.[29] The ears are very large and floppy. The sloth bear is the only bear with long hair on its ears.

Sloth bear muzzles are thick and long, with small jaws and bulbous snouts with wide nostrils. They have long lower lips which can be stretched over the outer edge of their noses, and they lack upper incisors, thus allowing them to suck up large numbers of insects. The teeth are usually in poor condition, due to the amount of soil they suck up and chew when feeding on insects. The back of the palate is long and broad, as is typical in other ant-eating mammals

Peacock at its full display

Peafowl Calling

Awesome view during morning walk in the forest area

Adult males generally weigh from 588 to 1,500 kg (1,296 to 3,307 lb)

Pugmark tracking is a technique that has been used by wildlife conservationists track animals and identify the distribution of species in areas where they operate.

A photograph to remember

Found this guy during the safari a few feet away from the pug mark.

Found this happy calf enjoying some food

A newborn calf will attract the attention of all the herd members. Adults and most of the other young will gather around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. For the first few days, the mother limits access to her young.

Musth or must is a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants characterized by aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones. It has been known in Asian elephants for 3000 years. Elephants are polygynous breeders (a mating system in which one male lives and mates with multiple females but each female only mates with a single male), and most copulations occur during rainfall. An oestrous cow uses pheromones in her urine and vaginal secretions to signal her readiness to mate. A bull will follow a potential mate and assess her condition with the flehmen response, which requires him to collect a chemical sample with his trunk and taste it with the vomeronasal organ at the roof of the mouth.

It was trying to sense us with its trunk being higher

And then it decides to chase us

At this time, it was pretty closer to us

Started running parallel to our jeep

Followed us for a bit

The tusks of an elephant are modified second incisors in the upper jaw. They replace deciduous milk teeth at 6–12 months of age and keep growing at about 17 cm (7 in) a year. As the tusk develops, it is topped with smooth, cone-shaped enamel that eventually wanes.

The dentine is known as ivory and has a cross-section of intersecting lines, known as "engine turning", which create diamond-shaped patterns. Being living tissue, tusks are fairly soft and about as dense as the mineral calcite.

Elephants are usually right- or left-tusked, similar to humans, who are typically right- or left-handed. The dominant, or "master" tusk, is typically more worn down, as it is shorter and blunter.

Asian males can have tusks as long as Africans', but they are usually slimmer and lighter; the largest recorded was 302 cm (9 ft 11 in) long and weighed 39 kg (86 lb).