A little bit of wildlife

I've been interested to see the different flora and fauna that exists in Koraput. Many things are familiar - sparrows, crows, cows etc and of course some are variants on the familiar - bats with huge wingspan and spiders come to mind. I was curious to see the occupant of this spider's web but all I managed to spot was one fat hairy leg lurking at the bottom of the funnel.


I have tried many times to get photos of the big bats flying overhead without the aid of a tripod but this is the best I have managed - pitiful isn't it?!

You see cows wandering around everywhere here, eating cast-off vegetables, cardboard and sometimes even pulling posters off walls to munch when something takes their fancy. What I like to watch is the way that they seem to love being groomed by birds that are presumably feeding off parasites.

I am still on the lookout for the bears and tigers that are said to exist in the vicinity.
I've seen a couple of snakes, something that I think was a praying mantis (regular followers of my blog may remember a photo of a green insect on some of my laundry in October last year),  insects and butterflies constantly darting through the air, cockroaches and ants scuttling around, the all too numerous feral dogs and inevitable rats.
I share my house with lizards and as they seem to like feeding off mosquitoes I am happy to share my accommodation with them.  I was surprised by a splashing noise last week, late at night, just as I was dropping off to sleep.  I assumed at first it was something to do with my water filter so got up to investigate, half expecting to find it had overflowed or broken but it looked completely normal. Curious and slightly alarmed by a continued splashing coming from somewhere around the bathroom I ventured forth, half-expecting to see something emerging from the squat toilet.  I found that a lizard had fallen off the wall and into a bucket of soapy water that I'd left, soaking some laundry.  The poor thing had tried to get out but couldn't cope with the slippery, wet plastic walls of the bucket and was trapped. I grapped a big slotted spoon from the kitchen to fish it out and scrutinised it to try to work out if it was still alive when it leapt off the spoon and scuttled off across the room, leaving a trail of soapy water behind it. I guess it was still alive.