The Sundarbans: Jan 2015: Enjoying morning sun in winter, may be looking out for prey

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Canon 550D, 75-300mm, f8, 1/640

[Samrat Sarkar]

awesome.. in his own world...
samrat

[Shyamala Kumar]

Lovely habitat shot.The curious cat peeping out from the safety of of his jungle on to the world outside.Thanks for sharing.

[Mrudul Godbole]

It was nice to see it basking in the morning sun. Nice display of habitat. You captured it nicely in the short span, it made its appearance . Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

When I was trying to setup my equipment and search for the jungle cat through my long lens, Saktipada ji had already fired his shots and was checking the sharpness in his LCD screen. He was displaying catlike agility.

This image is representative of the jungle cat in Sundarban as it shows the habitat. The barrings on the flanks also cut off the continuity of the body profile. We could sight it as one of the guides knew the location. Else, it would have been difficult. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Lovely ...gazing out on to the banks of that amorphous land of tides and tales only to lock eyes with one who has lived in both..

A pair of them were spotted in a residential complex in a well developed area in calicut recently and this is what the president of the association had to say:
" Recently two wild cats were spotted in our community, quite a big size. They are really dangerous according to reports and may attack you direct, the solution is that to raise the ...Blah, blah "

If jungle cats were to attack people directly on encounter I shd be in a Kheema form by now...

TFS
Roopak

[Sabyasachi Patra]

People need to be educated that jungle cats don't attack people. Unfortunately, we have failed to remove misconceptions about our wildlife. Hopefully one day we will be able to succeed.

Old hunting literature suggests that leopard cats can kill dogs and even attack people.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Agree with you patra sab, but it is a real tough job convincing people... I quoted this because it happened in a gated community in which I own a house. The pair was trapped in a empty out house, hearing abt this incident I went all the way to calicut to see if i cud get a glimpse of them and also see how they got in. The FD was prompt in removing them so I could not see the pair. The tough part was try as i might I was not able to convince the association that they are generally harmless. they now want to raise the compound wall by another few feet which again is quite useless as a jungle cat will easily jump over it. Its just stuck me that if you cannot convince people whom you know on such simple things what chance do we have with the world in general with issues much bigger....in any case one needs to try and so we all should...

Rgds
Roopak

[Prasad Dingankar]

Nice capture Shaktida, and the discussion as wel. Isn't it a pitty, that most common people in our country are so self centered that they also think that every living creature in the wild will harm their existance.

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Lovely picture Saktida. The vegetation has come out wonderfully well and gives us a true picture of how the jungle cat lives in the Sundarbans. The cat looks vigilant, ears up sensing any prey that may be spotted. There seems to be a drop right in front of where the cat is surveying the surroundings. I cant imagine how wonderful it might have been had a prey been sighted and the cat pouncing from where it is now. Thanks for sharing Saktida.