Three days on a secluded estate, walking through expanses of tea and coffee plantations, trying to identify as many living organisms as we could. The Madhuvana Estate ‘Biobltiz’, as we called it, was organised by the Western Ghats Portal and The Shola Trust. Madhvana, situated about 3 kms from Devala town, is a 176 acre estate is owned by an indigenous people’s organisation, Adivasi Munnetra Sangam (AMS). It consists of about 125 acres of tea, cardamom, pepper and 50 acres native trees and plants with scattered coffee underneath.
We use the estate for conducting environment education camps for school children (insert link to older blog), as a space to get kids to look beyond tigers and elephants, and learn about lesser known flora and fauna. We believe that for long term conservation, we need to spread efforts and awareness well beyond protected areas, and reserve forests, to disturbed forests and human dominated landscapes that still harbour considerable biodiversity. Madhuvana, as the bioblitz shows, is a perfect example of this, and indigenous communities have been using these forests as a source of medicinal plants for some time now.
The Western Ghats Portal (WGP – http://thewesternghats.in), and in particular its ‘observation interface’ is a platform for sharing biodiversity information, bringing together like minded people – students, researchers, conservationists and wildlife enthusiasts. The Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot, is also home to a large human population. With increasing anthropogenic threats over the years (such as mining, deforestation and unsustainable tourism), the disseminating information about the importance of the region is perhaps the first step conserving it
Since both us and the WGP were interested in better documenting biodiversity, the Madhuvana bioblitz idea came to be.K.S. Seshadri, a research associate at ATREE, was looking for amphibians, Thomas from the WGP and Vinay (Seshadri’s cousin) and Nishita were looking for birds, Mahesh our in house ayurvedic doctor was looking for plants and butterflies and Tarsh supposedly for mammals. Ramesh and Subin were also around identifying various things. Overall, a mixed bunch of experts, amateurs and students, all learning from each other.
We all headed to the estate in the evening,
And after the four kilometre hike from town to the building, some refreshing tea and snacks and we were off for our first outing. It got dark quite soon, and the outing didn’t last very long since we were rather worried about finding one large mammal in particular – a rather moody single Asian Elephant that frequented the estate. So the first evening wound up rather early. After an early start (thanks to a loud “appadi podu” alarm tune at 5 am), the second day morning was spent identifying and photographing birds. After breakfast, we went down to the stream where most of the day was spent looking for amphibians. Since it had not rained for about a week, our best chance of spotting amphibians and reptiles was near the water. Thankfully there were no signs of recent elephant movements through the paths we were taking. Our last day was spent similarly, near the stream, and close to the large ficus trees where bird activity was maximum. Overall Seshadri did most of the serious work wading about looking for frogs. The bird identification was a nice lazy stroll, butterflies and plants were done in one quick trip by Mahesh, and mammals only left behind a few signs.
Across the three days we photographed around 13 species of frogs, the torrent toad, and 54 species of birds. The butterflies, moths, dragon flies, damsel flies, plants and trees have not yet been fully identified. AMalabar pit viper also graciously posed for a long time while everyone photographed it! A few of us saw nilgiri langurs and a malabar squirrel, while a pack of wild dogs seemed to follow us, leaving very fresh and smelly scat, though none of us saw them. Other mammal signs included elephant dung, barking deer calls, leopard, wildboar, porcupine and bear scat. All photographs will be put up on the Western Ghats portal, and hopefully experts will identify them all! We also hope to use all the pictures to in various kinds of education material when we bring school children for camps.
The trip was a great learning experience, especially for the youngsters in the group who have now developed an interest in birds. For most of us, it was fascinating to discover that identifying frogs was so hard, and that we know so little about them! As Seshadri said, “the only way to know your frog is to catch it”. The same species of frogs might differ in coloration and size, so a much closer look is necessary.
A big thanks to all those who took part in this!