While I am sitting by the window side of my house, sipping a hot cup of tea and looking at dusk sky which is painted red, I plunge myself deep in my thoughtS remembering one of those beautiful morning sky of Buxa.
Remembering those days, I opened my laptop to browse through those photographs which I had clicked back then. Seeing this particular photograph of me and Sitaram (My friend and field assistant), who was like my shadow during our field work days. Seeing the photograph (selfie) , I got reminded of this beautiful hike that we had done in last march to see a hornbill nest. This hike was through a streamlet and the mouth of the streamlet was about 4km from our base camp in Jainti Village. We started our base camp around 7 o’clock and as we reached the mouth of streamlet it was about 7:30. The sun was out, it was march and when you walk on an almost dry streamlet which is filled with Dolomite and sandstone then you can envisage the heat you feel. As we started walking upstream, the streamlet started getting narrower and deeper while the side walls became steeper. As we walked, cloud cover came in to save us from the scorching sun. We walked, observing and smelling the poops of macaques, Wild dogs and Wild ungulates on our way.
It was for almost an hour that we hiked upstream, the gradient was steep therefore we thought of taking a biscuit-break. We sat below a huge boulder behind us, giving a support like a sofa behind. Some 15-20 minutes have passed, both of us we sat facing downstream ignoring the fact that someone can approach us from behind. We were relax, while I hear very lightly a sound of a screeching feet trying to adjust on the soft limestone rocks behind, as I glanced behind, I see something in a reddish-brown fur just bolted away back as it didnt noticed us sitting below. I just jumped onto the boulder behind us to see what was that animal, when I stood up it was very mesmerizing to see two wild dogs are running away seeing us. The look on the face of second individual while it took a glance at our position before fleeing behind the bushes on the side of rocky embankment was just so adorable, just like saying “why are you here…please go away!”. While this event was on contemporaneously rain started, it was not heavy but it was drizzling and guess what because it was sunny at the start, both of us didn’t carry our raincoat but luckily we had our umbrellas in our bag. It is really funny and pathetic at same time, walking with an umbrella on hand when hiking upstream where you every minute you have to use both of your arms to climb up huge boulders.
A screenshot from one of videos that we took of the streamlet.
At last, We reached to that point, near the hornbill nest. Actually the nest tree was very far from the point where we stood but then it was good place to get an observation. While we waited there it was getting more and more cloudy and literally all the trees around us were covered up by the clouds. We sat on one of the big boulders, holding our umbrellas one one hand, binoculars hanging around neck, while the only sound could be water gushing downstream just 2 feet below from the place where we had sat. We used the leaves of Hattipaile tree (Pterospermum acerifolium) as a mattress on the boulder, these are big leaves, generally in the shape of elephants feet. As we had to sit there for sometime, we thought of doing bird watching as there were lot of birds in close proximity taking shed under the small trees from the heavy rain. Most of the birds were the commoner so i just plugged off my binocs from my eyes, but to my dismay the bird which I had hankering to see, just scooped infront of us to rest just for fraction of few seconds before getting lost into the dense undergrowth that before Sitaram could ask me what is the name of this beauty, I uttered “Red headed Trogon” hearing this Sitaram was just open-mouthed.
This picture of a Red-headed Trogon was snapped few days later.
In the meantime, the rain stopped and we take a closer look at the cavity and other cues before confirming that it was not an active hornbill nest. Both of us were kind of bit disheartened when we realized it, but in forest it is always about surprises. Giving this line a though, both us started walking back downstream. As we were walking, it again started drizzling but this time we didn’t stop we continued as we knew the rain will get heavier with time seeing the clouds so we had to be back early. Sitaram was walking in front of me, there was steep gorge in front of me and as I tried to get down I saw sitaram signalling me to slow down. As I came slowly closer to point where he stood, he told me to look towards the adjacent cliff and we see something that a wildlife researcher might get flabbergasted seeing it. One female Brown goral is feeding on the grass growing on steep landslides while being followed by a fawn. It was such an amazing feeling, that even sun turned out behind the clouds to see them, giving us proper light to take a good video of them without any hindrance. As the mother and fawn departed both me and sitaram were delighted to get a glimpse of the beautiful wildlife sightings throughout the day, while we hurled down back to our car as the rain chased us back to our base camp to have lunch with us!
The picture from that day!
As I finish writing it for today, it already got dark now and cool breeze is blowing as I am still by the window side looking at the street lights, wish I was could go back again there to live those moments.
shomeclicks 
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