One page, two topics. Connection a bit tenuous... Just two "wild places" topics for which no home had yet been found by the time I was finishing the first pass over reporting about the trip!

The first part of this page is about our game drive in the core area of the Satpura National Park. You can jump down to the second part, about the wilderness around Shimla, if you wish.

Satpura National Park

Game Drive

One of the highlights of the trip was our marvelous encounter with a sloth bear and her cub. (-WP-)(Links so tagged are to Wikipedia pages, and open in a new tab or window. Just close it to get back here.)

"Baloo", to Jungle Book fans. Quite like the real Paddington, even if he was of course not an Indian sloth bear, but a Peruvian spectacled bear... although he looks a lot more like a sloth bear. Maybe when Peggy Fortnum went to London zoo, only a sloth bear was in residence? Wikipedia says that the first Paddington was a toy, which led to the stories. (I say "real Paddington" to distinguish the "proper", Fortnum/ Horden/ BBC Paddington from later imitations.)

If you had a deprived childhood, search YouTube for "Paddington Bear Horden". (Michael Horden narrated). In March 2014, this link let to a good example.

They were out, foraging their evening meal of termite larvae, and just ignored us. So we not only had the sight of this lovely creature, but witnessed some interesting behaviour.

That image, alas, an edited version of something from WikiCommons, by Shyamal... not my own. From the images on offer there, it seems I am not alone in finding capturing the charm of this small bear adequately!

It was explained to us that the bears "make the rounds" of the many termite mounds in their territory, periodically making a small opening, and sniffing. Rather like a shopper buying melons at the market. Minus the "small opening" bit, of course.

Inside the mounds, the termites create "nursuries", and "the right time" to "harvest" a mound is when a nursury is full of fat rich larvae, just about to hatch.

Bears were at far side of the trees in the view on the right, when we first saw them.

When a suitable mound is identified, there is no holding back. Those big paws open it up easily, and the pointed face, with much puffing, is pushed down into the colony, and the bear has a feast.

On left: mother and cub... really! Brilliant photo? No. My photo? Yes!

I have a simple video clip, taken with my Lumix "point and shoot", of the mother in a mound. I will try to get it online. The soundtrack is almost as much fun as the images.

In the early stages of our encounter, Momma was perhaps 200m from us, and Cub was between her and us. Something that it was drummed into me as a child playing in the New England woods is generally not a good topography. Cub didn't seem the least interested in us, but in his quest for the perfect termite mound, he kept getting closer to us and further from Mom. Eventually, she was still about 200m away... and he was perhaps 50m. But by then, the indiffernce to us of both of them was becoming clear. Whew.

Mother Bear by that time had started working her way towards us as well. Eventually, they were both as close as you could ever wish... perhaps 12m for quite a while, according to the notes I made at the time. We shared their company for about 35 minutes.

And also the Indian wild dog, the dhole.

It was only a glimpse, but most of us saw one or more dhole, as a pack moved, parallel to us, about 50m from us through the woods, partially screened by some sparse bamboo. Seeing a dhole, while not as exciting, admittedly, is probably more remarkable than seeing a tiger. Rare. Nomadic (and thus hard for the guides to "produce on demand".

The image on the left from WikiCommons; thank you Kalyanvarma.

Wilderness around Shimla

We spent three days, from March 10th, at Wildflower Hall, a little way to the east of Shimla.

While we were "only" in the "foothills" of the mighty Himalayas, anywhere else, what was around us would count as serious mountains.

There has been some "overspill" from Shimla, so long established as an outpost of "modern" civilization... but the hills are still "in charge", and man's efforts to demean them still incomplete.

I found the biology interesting. The town, and our hotel, were at about 8,000 feet... and yet there were some of the most magnificent trees I have ever seen. I am used to the mountains of Colorado, similar altitude. However, they don't get the water that the Shimla mountains get, and Denver's annual pattern of insolation is different, being ten degrees further north than Shilma's 30 degrees.

Left: Deodar forest, in grounds of hotel.

Above: From my hotel room window. (Only small bits of the slopes were terraced for agriculture.)

I can't adequately convey the magnificence of these trees. They were huge. The girth was not insubstantial, but it was particularly the height that impressed. And the apparently mature, well established forest.

Doesn't do it justice.... despite a 2 hour effort... but may give some idea of the magnificent deodar forest at 8,000 feet near Shimla. These trees were very tall. And the trunks are dramatically straight, not "wonky", as they are in this very imperfect composite which I had to do for lack of a sufficiently wide angle lens.

If, earlier, you decided to skip over my account of our game drive in Satpura National Park, the link will take you back to the top of it.

qSECTION HEADING

May you use photos from this site? Want to contact me?

If you find yourself wanting to use a photo on this site, please see my page about using web-published material which is copyright TK Boyd. If you want to contact me, here's my eddress, or you can use the contact form. (Email best, as the contact form is often abused, and I don't read all messages arriving that way.) Corrections to bad information on the pages very welcome... don't be shy!

Page has been tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. Mostly passes. There were two "unknown attributes" in Google Translate and Google+ button code. Sigh.