There are a few of us who are lucky, and there are a few who are very lucky! Ill let Praveen, our guest who saw this rare flower, that too from the matchan, narrate the entire incident that happened on a lazy morning a few weeks ago
It was late October, Tuesday morning as I remember, we… me and my wife stayed in the wooden cottage as we usually do, and by 6:30 in the morning we came out to the balcony and saw that there were some elephants in the grasslands. We went to the watchtower which is at the edge of the fencing close to the watchtower, but the elephants saw us coming and moved further back. So no scope for good shots. There were some deer and they kept grazing, completely ignoring us. Soon Babu, the resident boy came to the watchtower with coffee and we sat there enjoying the views for 10 minutes or so. There was no sign of alarm, the deer was grazing peacefully and then my wife thought she heard a sound from near the watchtower, she turned and looked and saw Orange and black stripes.
Thankfully, she did not call out to me, she tapped my shoulder and we both peered down to see the cat focused on the deer. Maybe I should have waited, but I decided to take a photo and the clicking sound made it look straight at us. Maybe it knew that we were there already, maybe it was not bothered by our presence, but the clicking noise unnerved him… or her and it walked back into the bush. It was not more than 15 feet away from the foot of the watchtower. The deer kept grazing oblivious to what we had seen as both of us sat there in sheer disbelief!
An interesting adventure from the jungles of Wayanad.
Anil
