Satpura - more thunderstorms!!!

13th February 2018 – Satpura Park

Late into the night we had torrential rain and thunderstorms. At one point the lightning and thunder came at about the same time so, close by.  Even when we woke there was still thunder around.

Gill had an unfortunate experience being woken up by something brushing her face. She got up to and noticed a mouse disappearing into the bathroom. She does seem to attract interesting visitors into her bedroom!!

We climbed aboard the truck and started out. Sid had to use four wheel-drive as we were sliding around so much. There was some rain as we started, but that started to get heavier and the time between lightning and thunder was becoming shorter. The rain started to get heavier and I called to Sid that we needed to abandon this outing. Rapidly putting on ponchos we turned around and back to the lodge.

About 20 minutes after we’d got back to camp the rain stopped and the air cleared. I wandered round camp looking for anything interesting to see or photograph. On one track I noticed that there was a troop off monkeys in the trees and decided to back away. Apart from some crows I saw no other birds although I could hear some.

After lunch we started out at 14:45 for the park. This time there was a bit of rain, but nothing more although we could hear thunder. Sid gave us some ponchos to wear just in case. As we reached the park entrance and transferred across there was more rumbling, but no more rain.

Almost hidden from view.

Four Horned Antelope - quite shy.

We drove into a section that we’d not been before and started looking for birds and mammals. They must have known something as there was nothing to see. The rain started to get worse and then came down in torrents so we headed for the Elephant station and cover. There everyone else had turned up so we sheltered from the downpour. After about 30 minutes the rain stopped so we headed out again. A lot of people were searching for the sloth bear, but we wanted to see other things. After a long time we spotted a barking antelope. The male has four horns, two large one at the rear and two smaller at the back. It was quite difficult to photograph as it stayed hidden in the foliage. Despite this Tamsin and I managed to get some good ones of this quite shy and increasingly rare antelope. We would have preferred to have seen more and from our discussions with people over dinner who have come back to Satpura many times, that would normally be the case. Lets hope that’s the worst of the weather and we get better viewing at Kanha and Pench parks.

Hog wash!