The vivid memory of the relentless rain on 13 and 14 January 1986 will forever be etched in my mind. The thunderstorm roared, hammering away on the tiled roof of the Vontimitta Forest Rest House in Andhra Pradesh, darkening the late afternoon and creating a dusk that should have been at least four hours away. I was worried. Not because of the rain or the thunder, but because I was anxious to return to the forests of Lankamalai hills, near Siddavatam, north of the Pennar River, to search for the Jerdon’s Courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus), a bird that had not been seen or reported for the previous eighty-six years.
The hills of the Eastern Ghats near Vontimitta had swallowed the sun before it had begun its journey towards the western horizon. I could not see the lightning from where I sat on the steps of the Rest House, though the thunder could be heard rolling all around non-stop for more than an hour. I had driven north from Palamaner in the Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh and arrived at Vontimitta via Tirupati at around 4 p.m., on 12 January 1986. After staying overnight at the Vontimitta Forest Rest House, I was keen to get back on my Enfield Bullet 350cc motorcycle and head, first to Siddavatam and then further north to Badvel, to continue the search for the unseen and elusive bird.
As I sat on the steps thinking that the day was gone, the range forest officer (RFO) of Vontimitta came, wrapped in his enormously huge black raincoat, to tell me that the RFO of the Siddavatam Range had called and informed him that his foresters had permitted Aitanna, a bird trapper, to enter the Lankamalai forests near Reddipalli village, located along the Sagileru River, a tributary of the Pennar. It seemed that he had been ‘searching some forest areas on my behalf, for the birds that I had asked him to keep a look out for’.
‘Did they mention the name of the bird?’ I asked the RFO of Vontimitta.
‘Some bird called “nela nemili” that Aitanna thinks you would be interested in,’ he replied.
I was disappointed as the name nela nemili was the Telugu word for the Lesser Florican – a highly improbable sighting or capture for a nocturnal bird trapper in the dense scrub forest area at the foothills of the Lankamalai hill ranges. Before I had travelled south to Palamaner to help Dr N. Sivaganesan, my Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) colleague, track a herd of seven elephants that had strayed into Andhra Pradesh from Karnataka (that is a different story altogether), Aitanna had volunteered to keep a lookout for the Jerdon’s Courser at Lankamalai.
However, I was curious. I knew that Aitanna was aware of the nela nemili and its significant difference from the Jerdon’s Courser and other cursorial birds (those that do not perch on trees) that are present in the foothill forests of Lankamalai. He had informed me earlier that he had seen the nela nemili in the grazing grounds of the Sagileru Valley, towards the Turupukonda hills (of the Velikonda Range). I was sure that he would not place the nela nemili at Lankamalai.
We had argued about that on an earlier visit. Something was amiss, I felt. Aitanna would not have made such a telling mistake in conveying the information, and
he would have also not informed the RFO of Siddavatam unless he felt that it was important to pass on the message to me at Vontimitta. I had to reach Reddipalli, thunderstorm or not, I decided.
Earlier in the day, I had driven north to Cuddapah city and met Divisional Forest Officer Yusuf Sharif of the Indian Forest Service (IFS), to inform him of my presence and my intended survey in the Lankamalai area. He was aware that I was in touch with bird trappers and small game-shikaris from the native communities. To get to Lankamalai now, I would have to cross the Pennar River over a very low causeway on the 50 km road running from Vontimitta to Reddipalli via Bhakarapet and Siddavatam. I decided to risk the drive and reached the causeway over the Pennar, south of Siddavatam town. The water-level markers on the causeway clearly indicated that it was not safe to drive across. I had to return to Vontimitta.
It rained through the night of 13 January and the entire day on 14 January, heavily enough to make day seem like night. As the hours dragged by, I grew impatient. I kept watching the thunderstorm across the Vontimitta Valley, with the Velikonda and the northern Palakonda hill ranges on either side, and the darkened Vontimitta Lake in front foregrounded by the magnificent gopurams of the ancient Kodanda Ramaswamy Temple standing in stark silhouette against the rain.This was a tremendous photo montage that I cannot forget, even after all the decades since.
At noon on 14 January, I stopped the Madhavaram- Siddavatam-Badvel bus and requested the bus driver to pass on a message to Aitanna at Reddipalli, about my arrival at Vontimitta and my difficulty in not being able to drive to Reddipalli.The bus driver explained that it might be difficult for him to pass on the message if the causeway was still ‘blocked’by the flooded river. The rain slowed down around midnight and the fury abated around 6 a.m. on 15 January. I decided to take advantage of the slow drizzle and rode out of Vontimitta village at 7 a.m.
The overflowing Pennar River and the thunderstorm had damaged the causeway and some of its surface had been washed away. But some motorcyclists were bravely driving over it and I followed, copying them carefully. I eventually made it across the causeway, drove past Siddavatam and reached Aitanna’s house at Reddipalli by 8 a.m. His family, his neighbour’s family and what seemed like half the village were crowded around the house.They were probably curious about this crazy stranger (me!) who had driven through a thunderstorm and across a flooded causeway just to see a bird.
Aitanna announced that he had trapped a bird that he wanted me to take a look at. He brought it out from the chicken coop where he had secured it safely in a wicker basket. The bird sat comfortably in his closed palms, with its legs dangling between his fingers; it had settled so low in Aitanna’s hands that only the top of its head could be seen. At that moment, with all the waiting at Vontimitta, and the continuing downpour at Reddipalli behind me, I was quite tired and waited impatiently for Aitanna to open his palms. I didn’t think then that I would get to see the Jerdon’s Courser so easily.
Excerpted with permission from In Search of Rare Birds published by Indian Pitta, Juggernaut. Price: Rs 350
Photo sources: Jerdon’s courser, forest.
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