A Stream of Thought

There is nothing more enticing than following a stream.

Over an extended weekend, Ravi, an old friend and resident of Chikmagalur, and I picked our way over rocks and the clear, cold waters of a rushing stream that originates in the stunning Shola forests and grasslands in the Bababudangiri range.  Ravi stepped over the rocks with nimble, light steps, while I clambered, hunkered, dithered and huffed my way, driven by his gentle encouragement.
We were searching for signs of that elusive superstar, the small-clawed otter.

The signs were faint and few: the odd dried powdery remains of a crab on a rock here, a paw print that wasn't quite one there, the distinctive detached last digit not apparent in the busy wet mud.  Mud that carried prints of hoofs of barking deer and gaur, and tiny ones of a sharply clawed unidentified mammal.  Mouse deer - the Indian Chevrotain, an evolutionary oddball about which I have read and heard - were regular by the stream too, of that we had been told.

Yet, of the small-clawed otter, Aonyx cinereus, there was little sign, nothing that spoke with finality, that said Yes, I was Here a While Ago and Left This For You to Study.  Surprising, but hardly unusual, for there is much that Science does not know about the reclusive Citizen of the Stream in its wild habitat.  Perhaps it is better that way?

So, we climbed on, searching.  Around us was a rich wet deciduous forest with sunshine streaming through, each of these giant trees around us, silver oak aside, a champion for biodiversity.  The water tasted faintly of honey and treasured memory and the rocks, weathered by the stream, had patterns of fantasy, glistening in the morning light.  We stepped gingerly past cream coloured coffee beans that had been cured by a civet and was now its gift to the forest - a recurring deposit, shall we say? - and a stunning spider's web that spanned the stream's width. 

A Podcast ?

At length, we reached a point high up where the stream went underground, emerging above us, a sign that we would have to stop here and go home.

Away from the stream's whoosh, as it cascaded down the hill, we heard the Whistling Schoolboy - the Malabar Whistling Thrush, a bird of immense character and another Citizen of the Stream.  It sang as it always does - a soft, mellifluous, seemingly lonely serenade by the Purple Pied Piper of our wet forests.  Well, not purple really, but close enough to enable alliteration to prevail over the detail of colour.  There were two of them now, singing to each other as they flitted along the stream and, for a brief moment, flew into the canopy beside it.  They are the Rock Stars of the Cascade (but they don't know it.  Yet).

We listened and walked on reluctantly until the symphony of sound faded away, stored in fond, magical memory.

Forests, streams and wildlife meshed in intricate design; none ends where the other begins, but the end of one is the end of another.

March 3rd 2021

World Wildlife Day