The foggy morning had given solution to a superb solar. Regardless of the chilliness within the air, I may really feel sweat beginning to bead down my neck as my area assistant and I made our solution to a waterhole within the Kanha Tiger Reserve. It was December 2019, and I had simply began the fieldwork element of my MSc challenge. I needed to determine and study spatial and temporal patterns in how wild ungulates in Kanha used waterholes: when and the place the animals most well-liked to drink water. The majority of my information was collected utilizing digital camera traps.
Strolling by the jungle, I used to be excited. Simply two weeks earlier than, I had arrange my first batch of digital camera traps. My plan that day was to retrieve them and see what I had discovered. For a younger researcher like me, it felt like I used to be strolling in the direction of buried treasure.
Digicam traps, or path cameras, sometimes encompass a digital camera unit together with a movement sensor. They are often calibrated to take a set variety of images or report movies each time motion is detected. As soon as put in, they’re able to passively accumulating timestamped data of wildlife presence in a non-intrusive method. For my challenge, I wanted to know which species had been visiting waterholes for a interval of at the least two weeks.
Organising a digital camera entice at a watering gap.
Photograph Credit score: Tara Rajendran
Upon reaching the waterhole, I used to be relieved to see that my digital camera traps had been intact and roughly pointing in the identical course I had left them in. I’ve typically been requested whether or not animals discover the digital camera traps. The machine itself is sufficiently small to carry in a single hand. Whereas older fashions are often geared up with a flash for nighttime, many more and more function an array of Infrared LEDs which emit no seen mild.
The machine is stationary and operates silently. It’s fairly affordable to imagine that they may go unnoticed by animals. Over the course of my fieldwork, although, I discovered that this was not often the case.
Most animals seem to grasp when a digital camera entice has been set. The grownup ungulates, particularly chital, sambar, barasingha, and wild boar often got here shut for a cursory sniff, after which they ignored the traps. The preliminary inspection often yielded hilarious selfies, with solely a watch, ear or antler seen. The carnivores nearly all the time got here and spent a couple of minutes sniffing across the traps.
Right here I’m pretending to be a tiger with the intention to make sure that the digital camera entice was working. I later went and checked the digital camera entice to confirm that images had been being taken as anticipated.
Photograph Credit score: Tara Rajendran
One enterprising tigress thought it was a good suggestion to scent-mark one in every of my digital camera traps. As I used to be going by the photograph data, I may see her method and rub her cheek in opposition to the entice, after which she proceeded to liberally spray her urine throughout my entice. Evidently, the following few images had been extraordinarily blurry!
In contrast to their elders, who had been happy with just a few curious sniffs, tiger cubs engaged in a extra thorough inspection by nudging, poking, pushing and even gnawing on the traps. They as soon as chewed up a strap and left the digital camera entice utterly tilted and barely hooked up to its put up.
However the species which gave me essentially the most bother throughout fieldwork was a species I used to be not even finding out, the langur. I discovered that langur troops often frequented waterholes round midday.
Deep contained in the forest, these small swimming pools supplied a cool respite from the scorching noontime warmth. A troop would keep at a waterhole wherever between one to 2 hours, with the adults unfold out, resting, grooming and infrequently consuming. Throughout this time, the juveniles would play. Their toys of alternative, after all, had been my poor digital camera traps.
A tigress and her cubs having a midnight drink. This digital camera entice had an array of infrared LEDs for nighttime images. Regardless of not emitting any seen mild, the entice makes a faint whirring noise when a photograph is taken and that may very well be what the tigers are taking a look at.
Photograph Credit score: Tara Rajendran
At bigger waterholes, the cameras had been positioned all alongside the perimeter. This meant that, in lots of images, a number of digital camera traps had been seen secured to wood posts. This setup additionally gave me photographic proof of the sheer period of time the langurs spent fidgeting with the digital camera traps. Monkeys actually know easy methods to method an issue from all angles.
I’ve images of them peering into the digital camera entice from the entrance and sideways, and even climbing on high of the wood posts simply to bend over and study the entice from that angle. I used to tug the straps so tight that my arms had been rubbed uncooked, however, simply by sheer persistence, they managed to dislodge many a entice, even utterly untying just a few.
Out of all of the animals who inadvertently dislodged my digital camera traps, solely wild boars have my sympathy. Whereas going by some footage recorded in the course of the preliminary phases of my challenge, I discovered a video the place there have been no animals to be seen, however the digital camera was swaying gently back and forth.
The thriller was unexpectedly solved just a few days later when, whereas on area, I noticed a wild boar having fun with an extended leisurely scratch by rubbing itself in opposition to the canvas straps wound all alongside the wood put up.
A few gaur (Indian bison) inspecting the digital camera entice.
Photograph Credit score: Tara Rajendran
Regardless of the good images and humorous tales that had been an inevitable results of wildlife interacting with the traps, there was all the time an opportunity of dropping information. The forest guards at Kanha had been my guardian angels on this regard. They used to accompany me on my periodic visits to completely different waterholes and had been greater than keen to maintain a watch out for any displaced digital camera traps whereas out on patrol. Many occasions, they requested me concerning the numerous potential settings and had been curious concerning the ensuing images.
Once I began my fieldwork, my high concern was ensuring I had sufficient information. In my head, I had a tough plan of the process to observe. I knew that the images needed to be organised in a selected method, and every photograph needed to be tagged with all of the completely different species current in it. What I had not anticipated was the sheer quantity of images. By the tip of my fieldwork, I had amassed over 1.5 lakh images.
In sheer panic on the quantity of unanticipated work, I spent all my free time tagging images over countless cups of tea on the native dhaba. By the tip of my third cup, there would often be a crowd of curious onlookers gathered round to look at. Regardless of my steady efforts, I used to be unable to maintain up with the sheer quantity of images pouring in.
On this state of panic, I recruited my dad and mom and fiancé as unpaid labor. I supplied them a crash course in figuring out ungulates and utilizing the tagging software program. It was by their relentless efforts that I used to be in a position to keep on schedule. I solely realized how far we had all come once I overheard my dad and mom, utterly of their very own curiosity, talk about the consuming habits of the barasingha!
It seems to be like this chital is saying “Yikes! we’re being watched!”
Photograph Credit score: Tara Rajendran
Tara Rajendran forayed into the sphere of wildlife and ecology after she was bored by the unchanging lifetime of an IT skilled. After having fun with the great campus life at NCBS which challenged her mental and bodily capabilities, she just lately wrapped up a 12 months lengthy challenge at WWF India. Among the most memorable moments of her life are from her fieldwork days spent within the forests of central India. She hopes to get extra writing completed throughout lockdown.
This sequence is an initiative by the Nature Conservation Basis, underneath their programme Nature Communication to encourage nature content material in all Indian languages. In the event you’re concerned about writing on nature and birds, please refill this form.
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