Farm Fauna - 2025 Edition

The first time I installed camera traps on our farm, they revealed an astonishing level of wildlife activity. Sadly, in the 6–8 years I’ve been monitoring the fauna here, I’ve noticed a discernible decline in sightings, mostly due to increased human activity. City folks bought up the surrounding land—especially during the pandemic—and what was once a contiguous habitat has become fragmented by the proliferation of hard fences.

I still follow my evening ritual of setting up camera traps in places frequented by animals, but these days, I’m prepared for empty pickings in the morning. This February, however, brought a surprise. Our resident leopard is still on the prowl, and judging by its appearance, it seems fairly well-fed.

Another animal caught on camera this month was an even bigger surprise. We store coconuts under one of the mango trees, and rarely does anything go missing. But over the past month, we noticed a few coconuts disappearing and assumed they were stolen. It left us a little unsettled since theft is uncommon in these parts. I had hidden a camera trap in the trees to gather evidence. This morning, when I reviewed the footage, the culprit turned out to be a porcupine—the first one ever captured by my camera traps.

My Sandalwood Teacher

As a farmer, when you choose a crop that’s not meant for the local terrain or climate, nature gives you very strong feedback. No matter how well you take care of the land preparation, or how you add the choicest manure, or how efficiently you control the weeds and pests, your sapling will still conspire to give up on you. Sadly, so much of modern agriculture is about going against the grain of nature and hence dealing with all pains that come with it. On the other end of the spectrum, where a plant species happens to be perfectly suited for the conditions, there is a beauty about the ease - no, inevitability - with which the plant grows. Like this particular Sandalwood tree that grows out of a crack in one of the large rocks on our farm. Probably dropped as a seed by a bird about 10 years ago, the plant has not only made itself at home in an unhelpful little place, but spawned a dozen other saplings of various sizes and ages, which judging by how they’ve thrived, all seem to have inherited the tenacity from their parent.

There are many things to like about the Sandalwood tree. It stays evergreen - and what a beautiful tint of green too - all year around. It seems unaffected by the insects that wreak havoc on our other plants in this season. It’s got a nice symmetrical conical foliage that makes it compete favourably in the aesthetics category against the proverbial poem. It’s not all form either because it supports a robust little ecosystem within and around it. At this time of the year it is covered with tiny flowers that seem to be quite a hit with the bees and other pollinating insects. These nectar-seekers attract the rest of the links in their food chain. There’s a species of spider, for instance, that builds massive webs to cash in on the bug bounty. The spiders in turn attract a whole bunch of sneaky sunbirds that pick off the insects stuck to the web, and I suspect, help themselves to the spiders too.


So the Sandalwood has many virtues, but most of all, the tree is known for its fragrance for which you need to wait for the wood to mature a bit. Sadly, in our own farm we’ll never experience that part of the life cycle because this tree will meet an untimely and tragic end. The fragrance of the wood, and its association with ritual purity in hindu tradition, have made the sandalwood a prized commodity. The economic incentives are so strong that even the nice people around these parts will be tipped over to the dark side. It’s already scripted; in the next couple of years, one of the villagers will trespass into the property, chop the tree off before it has even grown to the right level of hardness and girth, and will sell it off in the black market.

Initially I thought about installing electrified fences and other protection mechanisms for this budding sandalwood grove but that would be going against the grain. I went through grief and anger and those other stages but I now accept the eventuality of losing these trees. That’s the other thing that this tree’s given me, a grudgingly acquired ability to appreciate something and still be detached about it.

The Big Cat

 The denizens of Kurubarahalli Doddi - the nearest village from our farm - have had two unplanned feasts in the last couple of months. NN, one of the goatherds in the village, drives his livestock to a part of the local forest that's home to a particularly enterprising leopard. In two separate but eerily similar incidents, the leopard, in broad daylight and right under NN's nose, ambushed the herd and sunk its teeth into one of the goats. In each incident, NN managed to chase the predator, but didn't manage to the save the prey. In this community, when a goat dies the owner reaches out to his network and lines up a bunch of sellers for the meat and negotiates a price with the group. The distress sale usually happens within the two or three villages in this area that are all inhabited by the lambani community, a fascinating people that trace their lineage to a nomadic tribe that descended from the north of India. 

We've been hearing about leopards in this area in other contexts too. The person who owns a house on one of the main streets claims to see a leopard from his balcony every other day. One of them even made the leap to his terrace when they had tied their dog there. 

All these stories had made me eager to set up the camera trap and capture one of these leopards in our farm. We had conclusive evidence that at least two of them had walked right in front of our gate on one rainy night, leaving their unmistakable paw-prints in the wet soil. 

After months of waiting I finally caught a grainy footage of one of them right across our gate. When I reviewed the footage from the camera trap in the morning, and saw the timestamp on the video capture I realised that this big cat had walked on the path less than five minutes after I had set up the camera. Goosebumps! 

Mushrooms

They say nature reveals its secrets to its keenest students. Our caretaker, KN, is one such disciple. He combines an earthy wisdom with excellent observational skills, to the extent that it feels like he has one additional sense organ. This morning he came with a spring in his step, and he declared that the conditions were perfect for mushrooms. He sought out the places where he had seen them sprout last year, and lo and behold, right under the brush were these beauties.

 Another half an hour of scouting yielded enough of these mushrooms for our two households. This kind of mushroom is quite big with almost as much of its body under the ground as is over. Unlike other mushrooms that are more prominently visible in the farm this time of the year, these are fleshy in texture. 

By evening the mushrooms were ingested in the form of an exquisite tasting curry, thanks to KN's wife this time, who shared her recipe with us. Taking the cue from what he saw here, KN went to other such hotspots in his secret Mushroom map and went home with quite a haul. Given that the mushrooms blossom only one or two weeks in a year I hear that the KN household treated this as quite the celebration today. 

Farm Diary: The birds learn to tolerate me

 

As we spend more time at the farm this pandemic season the normally shy birds around here are getting accustomed to human presence, and are letting me have privileged access to their lives. Full post here. 

Farm Diary: Neem's nemesis

Neem trees have almost mythical status in these parts. The wood is said to be largely termite- and pest-resistant. Neem oil has the reputation of being an extremely effective pesticide among organic ones. Neem seeds sprout in the most barren of lands here, muscle their way through the competition (mostly weeds and other brush) and establish themselves in no time. They may do a lot of things right but they have one big vulnerability. 

There's a family of parasites called Loranthus or mistletoes that seem to have Neem's number.  The seeds of the parasite usually end up on the branch of the neem tree through bird droppings. Once there, they grow roots on the branch and start to grow their own branches usually drooping down from the host's branch. For a while, because they match the colour of their host, they make the foliage look robust and healthy. Over time, though, they start to crowd out the neem's own leaves.The host's branches develop thick nodes out of which no new branches or neem leaves sprout. And then over the course of a season or two the host dies completely. 

I don't have the "before" photos but the picture above is of a neem which succumbed to Loranthus this year. As I take stock now I realise we've lost dozens of healthy trees to this blight. From my research on the net I didn't find effective ways to combat this parasite without the use of chemicals. We've been experimenting with pruning off the affected branches right after the initial infestation, and so far that seems to have worked. 

Farm Diary: Nightlife in the farm

The area around our farm has a few protected state forests, but each of them is so small and fragmented that I always assumed none could shelter any megafauna within them. Many of the designated forest areas are only protected on paper, while on the ground much of that is encroached upon by the neighbouring land owners. Yet, the villagers are always talking about bears or leopards prowling around their settlements. For years I dismissed them as old wives’ tales. As I spent more time at the farm, however, the evidence of wildlife started to become clear. You’d see banana plants uprooted by unknown trespasses, termite mounds upended by what clearly look like bear claws, and the occasional exotic-looking faeces on the paths that lead to the forests.

When the monsoons set in this year, and as we were spending more time at the farm, the evidence started stacking up. These prints below left in the soft mud by a leopard mother and cub walking right outside our gate convinced me that the night-life here is more exciting than I had led myself to believe.

I got myself a camera trap to find out what happens around here at night time. The very first morning this peacock sashayed across the camera’s path.

There was a surprise visitor the next night. I had no idea that jungle cats lived around here.

A few nights later, this magnificent tusker walked on the path. Even while I was engrossed in reviewing the footage our caretaker pointed my attention to our broken fence. The elephant had walked right into our property. We reconstructed the events of the night based on the footsteps that our visitor had left behind. He had uprooted a few banana shoots, broken some branches of mango trees, but mostly had found our farm uninteresting. Then, as if to tell us who’s boss around these parts he made a new hole in the fence to get out.

Some days later it rained pretty heavily. Responding to some strange ancient instinct winged termites started pouring out of holes in the ground. That night the camera caught another exquisite visitor, a sloth bear. This one had come inside the farm too, and judging by the number of termite mounds it had opened up, had spent quite a bit of time at the property.

Meanwhile, the leopard continues to leave its pugmark around here but it seems to have this knack of evading the camera. We keep waiting.

Lockdown in the farm

 

Seven years ago we bought a mango farm in part to scratch an intergenerational itch that I've explained (sort of) in other posts. This post is about how that farm has come to play such a major role in our lives in these last few bizarre months.

For much of the time we’ve owned this parcel of land we’ve visited the farm over for short visits, mostly weekends. All along, I’ve nursed this hope of spending longer periods of time at the farm and execute more meaningful plans there. Given that I was still a salary-slave all those wishes were stowed away for some distant future, possibly post-retirement, until two unconnected events conspired to hasten my plans. First, Mr. Mukesh Ambani’s hairy ambitions brought high speed internet to even the rocks of Ramanagara where our farm is located. And then the pandemic happened. We no longer needed to be in Bengaluru. Scratch that. We were better off being away from Bengaluru.

Suddenly it became possible to work out of Ramanagara for weeks together. The privileges of staying there are endless. Most days, my alarm clock is a flock of peafowl that trumpet loudly just before dawn. Since there’s no interaction with humans other than my close family I don’t ever have to wear a mask. While in Bangalore, during the lockdown, I get frustrated about the lack of opportunity to exercise, at the farm I clock 4000 steps before breakfast without trying too hard. And waking up to the sight of the dramatic monsoon clouds over the granite hills that surround us is enough of a dopamine fix that makes up for all the other privileges lost during this period of lockdown. In short, it feels like a celebration.

Yet, after a week or two, we do have to come back to town - and that rhythm is dictated usually by the need to refill our LPG cylinder. When we do get back to the city we get to see the joys of urban life with a fresh pair of eyes - hot water, the washing machine, Netflix - and life feels like yet another celebration but of a different flavour. We’ve found the ultimate cheat code against hedonic adaptation.

I’m still hoping that we wade through this pandemic without a major hit to our health and if that happens, this period will remain one of my fondest memories.

Farm Diary: The Mango Cultivars

Conventional wisdom says that Mango trees yield a big harvest every other season. I'm not sure what drives that behaviour, but since last summer was thin pickings, we were excited about the current season. Sure enough we had a bounty this time. The frequent rains this year also seem to have helped; the farm is green and fresh almost as it would look like in the early months of monsoon. With the trees still laden with the fruits I got a chance to inventory the various cultivars in our farm. The count is evenly split across the three main varieties.

1. Sindhura: This is the fruit that you are most likely to see in the juice centers across Bangalore. It tends to be smaller in size and the skin is fairly thin. One way to identify this cultivar is by the pinkish/reddish hue on the fruit before it ripens.

2. Raspuri: This is my favorite cultivar. Has a thick skin and is extremely juicy inside. It is pretty messy to eat, and some would say that's what is so much fun about this type.

3. Badami is the poor man's alphonso. The pulp is orangeish and has fewer fibres, so you don't have to floss at the end of a binge. Fetches the highest price in the local markets here.

While 90% of the trees in the farm belong to one of these dominant types there are some interesting oddball varieties.
4. Shiri: We have exactly one tree of this variety, that my caretaker calls Shiri but I can't seem to map it to any known cultivar, although it seems to resemble the Dasheri a little bit. The skin is thick, and the ripe fruit remains green on the outside. This type doesn't get any takers in the mandi, and so we end up taking most of them home. Thankfully, I love the taste so I have no complaints about the lack of demand in the market. 

5. Omelette: We have three or four trees of this variety. The picture doesn't convey a sense of proportion but this is a huge fruit, some individual fruits growing to as much as a kilogram in weight. They are used for making pickles. 

6. Naati: Finally, this one is a plebeian variety and goes unharvested every year. Looks like many of our trees are grafts, and you see this variety showing up on one section of some of the trees. 

Farm Diary: 1. First Big Summer of Mangoes

Under a blazing afternoon sun, three of us are picking mangoes off the ground, discarding the ones that seem damaged or unfresh, and making a heap out of the others, to be collected later. Every now and then, we skin one of the mangoes we have picked, and take a bite of the pulp. We discard the ones that don’t meet the very highest standard we have set for our collection today. We devour the ones that make the cut. One of the pickers is my dad, who in an unusual eschewal of grace and dignity, has mango juice dripping down his forearms, and has pieces of the fruit sticking to his chin. The other companion is my cousin, who is relishing both the fruit and the abandon with which we are attacking them. At that moment, I can’t help feel that this is the way food has to be eaten.

That yearning of the primitive is one of the factors that made me buy this farm, located off a village called Kavanapura, in the district of Ramanagara. I come from a family of farmers. In fact, my father is one of the few non-farmers in a lineage that goes back several generations on both the maternal and paternal branches of the family tree. Even people who pursued white-collar careers - and that includes both my grandfathers, and several of my uncles- returned to the farmland for their retirements. Having idolised them through childhood, that path now seems like the natural progression of life. The romanticism aside, I do have a dystopian view of the future both for my city, and for the globe. At some point I would like to lead a carbon-neutral existence and I do want to have a place to move to before the whole of Bangalore starts to look like the Outer ring road (which is not far away). Along with those other reasons, my friends, rather uncharitably, also accuse me of picking this sport because I don’t know how else to spend my money.

For the nearly three years that I’ve owned the land, I’ve only involved myself passively. This year I started to participate a little more closely. The picture that you see above is an effort to maintain a log of every tree in the farm and to track their growth and progress. (Hypocrisy alert: for all the “yearning of the primitive” I’m a sucker for data capture, gadgets and tech.) I now know that we have five distinct cultivars growing in this land. Raspuri, my favorite variety, is well represented. Badami, the most profitable of them, grows on a couple of dozen trees too. The third variety is Sindura which is the staple of the Ganesh juice centers that you see around every corner in Bangalore. The fourth variety, used mostly for pickles, is oddly named Omelette. This season I discovered a fifth variety that our lessee calls “Shiri”. I did a little research and can only conclude that this is actually the Dasheri, which is popular in the north of the country. Dasheri is a real juicy treat inside the unappetising cover, which is green and thick even on ripe mangoes. We happen to have just one tree of this kind, and that’s where we spent most of our time this afternoon. Over the last few weeks we’ve repeated the savagery of our picking routines. And for the first time in three years I feel intimately connected with every tree in the property. Since this season was a good one for mangos, the next year is likely to be slim pickings. But we do have plans for this monsoon and I’m hoping to document my experiences religiously. Watch this space.