8/1/10- an adult sloth bear for 45 mins or more from tonga pathar to karia, aam pani puthan foraging next to the road. Andrea and richard cantor during afternoon drive.

19/1/10- afternoon boat ride spotted 5 or more wild dogs on the edge of the lagda banks on a sambar kill. mike and jannifer davies, nim,jagdish

27/10/09- subadult leopard on a tree from elephant back in kundi nalla. 10:30 am
arjun and gautam khatau, anant, sandeep fellows.

12/11/09- 5 wild dogs seen on the pattan side from the Mel camp. full day walking safari.
jeni and andrew smith , anant, ashish.

23/11/09- sloth bear on foot and hide from madai maidan to baghe nalla(rroda pahari); afternoon walk. Gill and Richard Davison, Nim and Hari Prasad

24/11/09 – 5 wild dogs chasing sambar near rroda pahari while walking back towards madhai . late morning- paul cook, anant,hare prasad, female black buck. The dogs lost interest in the sambar and were curious about our hoofed companion, later.

26/11/09 – Male Northern Goshawk around the lodge. Hashim, Nim and Anant.

30/11/09- sloth bear from elephant back in the morning, leopard and 2 wild dogs in the afternoon drive – stephen mills and group.

16/12/09- Black capped kingfisher at Son Bhadra view point – Durgi Singh, Jyoti, Punam Kumar, Ashish Pandey, Anant while having tea – morning drive

20/ 12/09- 2 rufous bellied eagles over camp soaring fairly low. Nim, Anant

31/12/09- heard tigers mating close to the road in a ravine in the Son Bhadra mel camp area during afternoon drive- Paul Hewitt and Mrs. Hewitt ,Anant, Papu,Hari Lal.

Two new birds for me in Satpura: a black-capped kingfisher on a bare snag in the middle of the river. Never seen one before in such an exposed area. Must be on it’s way back East. They certainly spread down through the valleys of central India in the winter being regularly reported from Pench. The other was a pair of black-bellied terns.

LOG 2

Mary Peacock and party reported some really unusual behaviour by Giant Squirrels. One of the pair that is regularly seen near Kharet Nala was caught by a Crested Hawk-eagle upon which its companion attacked the eagle and forced it to release it’s putative prey!

A pack of nine wild dogs seen regularly through late February. On 1st March only 8 dogs were seen in the Peeliya area, west of Madhai Rest House. On the evening of 2nd March returning from a boat trip we went into the inlet near Madhai and came upon a very large crocodile trying to tear something apart. On closer inspection this turned out to be a wild dog, still whole with patches of fur missing where the croc had had a go at it. For a while the croc hung about and then left. The dog had disappeared by the next day. I estimated the size of the croc at about 10 feet and this could perhaps be one of the big individuals we were seeing earlier in the year at the Sonbhadra-Denwa confluence which has come down river with the reduction of water levels.

LOG 2

The river trips have been fascinating with large flocks of India Cormorant (shag) engaged in communal fishing. One just doesn’t get tired of watching the way they herd the fish into the shallows, dive almost simultaneously with the water boiling over and then surfacing and moving on in a great splashing, roil of water. The waders are in full force gathering before the migration. Greenshanks all down the river, flocks of Little Stints with perhaps Temmincks as well although hard to tell in the uncertain light. The Little terns have gathered in hundreds and one can see the scoops in the sand banks where they will be nesting. They need to breed and rear their young before the rising waters in the monsoon flood the nests. An Osprey down river from Dhaba camp completes this idyllic picture.

As we returned we complained – only half joking - that we hadn’t yet seen a leopard and somehow were convinced that with our incredible luck a leopard was just waiting for us around the corner. Not this time, though! Forsyth is happening already!