Streaming Now....
2024
It is a lovely, light morning and we sit on the large rocks in the stream, munching our sandwiches (apricot jam is the filling plus some cheese). As I look up at this cascade at this time of late winter, I know that today will test my climbing and balancing skills (in reverse order). Some people - like Dinesh, our fabulous tracker-cum-guide-cum plant encyclopaedia - are naturals at this: they climb easily, skip lightly on rocks and move like they are on land. If you can think of an opposite to this, picture me there, huffing my way up, slipping on dry rock, planting my stick in sand for dear life and holding everyone back at half their pace.
But there is nothing - nothing - that I love more than walking up a stream. Every step and turn is picturebook pretty and the morning rays lend an ethereal glow to the drooping canopy which, in this stream, is rich and intact.
When I walk up a stream, Life rocks (it isn't a pun you would take to though).
We do this study, of course, to search for spraints (i.e., poop, for the uninitiated) of the small clawed otter, a reclusive, almost furtive, animal, which is, despite its tiny size, possibly the apex predator in the streams of the Brahmagiris. Also, it does poop a lot, most of it being crab remains, mixed with the scales of tiny fish and bits of the odd mollusc. Crab remains, for the large part, though (it's tough belonging to the Brachyura family, if it isn't an otter, it's a jackal or a waterbird. Oops, we forgot humans and there's even a crab-eating mongoose).
Spraints (for now) are the most reliable method of assessing the density of their population, and, when friends wrangle that information out of me, it excites some conversation (“You actually do that? You follow, what’s that called again, yes, spraint? Go get a life, Gops.”).
I disagree. On a scale of 1 to 10, if Private Equity were 4, this would be a 10. Perception is everything.
Sandwiches washed down with stream water - crystal clear, fast flowing and with a light chill - we begin our climb.
We see fairly regular signs of old-ish spraint (which is defined as more than two days old) and only a couple of fresh spraint sites as we climb the 1.5 kilometres upstream over the next four hours. At one point, where there’s fresh spraint in front of the rock formation by the stream, a smell of fish exudes and Dinesh and I speculate if, in those small, yet deep, crevices in the rocks, a couple of otters are watching us, waiting for us to go.
We move on, of course.
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Is kilroy here? |
The climb is peppered with Dinesh’s commentary on trees, flowers and bees. He is a local, has lived a hardy life by this stream and knows it better than any other.
Take a look at the canopy and fruits of this beautiful mid-sized tree by the stream. This is a sub-species of Myristica, M. beddomai, and the tree, as is often the case, along densely forested streams, leans over the stream, shading it from the sun, the fruits resembling the sapotas that I love so much (drool....)
I immediately offer to help him set up a small nursery with the seeds, yet wonder if coffee planters will have the patience to wait the years out till these trees yield.
We live in a world that has forgotten to wait. Even for trees to grow. That rush isn't just to get things done, it's dopamine release as well, yet at the end of the day - or year or decade or, well, one's life - we'd wonder what we got done.
So much for philosophy.
This climb forces slowness, a happy slothfulness. Us, the stream and our mascot.
A bit later, we come across fresh spraint, but, no, this isn't spraint at all. Spot the difference.
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You otter know. This is me. |
Another predator cum crab-tormentor.
Another nocturnal, reclusive creature.
The brown fish owl isn't kilroy. But he/she was here.
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Hey, did I climb up that? |