Things Just Happen - Fixing Flats, Meeting a Monk and a Gaur Part 2

[Double click on any picture to enlarge it]


In addition to passing Wat Umong everyday on the way to work, I also pass a sign about Wildlife Conservation, but the road goes uphill. And it's hot. But one morning about a ten days ago, I rode up and discovered . . .well I'm not quite sure what. There's an office.



There's a huge bird cage full of bulbuls, and even when they're in a cage I can't get a good picture. I'd been thinking about cages and how awful it is to put birds in cages. This all arose from watching the birds off our balcony and how much space they use.









There were also some caged deer. I got to them from the backside so there were lots of fences between us.











And there was a free family of white crested laughing thrushes. I'm guessing this was the pair we'd seen at the garden restaurant behind Wat Ramphoeng a while back - it's less than a quarter mile away as the thrush flies. (It's on the tree trunk, lower left. Like always you can double click to enlarge the pictures.)




So as we walked around the lake after the monk chat and I saw a paved road that looked like it went out, I began to wonder if it went to the wildlife conservation area. It did. And now it was around five pm, cloudy, cool, and we saw the thrushes again. J moved very quickly when she saw a snake go by (I never saw it) and so we went past the picnic area to the nature trail.

It's the end of the dry season, so most things are very dry. But there was a small damned up lake and a kingfisher flew across. There were lots of birds, I got some on camera in just brief glimpses, not very good. And these red flowers.



Then we ran into this monk with a wheel barrow of old leaves and cow dung. He asked us what we were doing here - in curiosity, not challenging us - and we had a long discussion about birds, living things, where I work, Buddhism (this was where my Thai vocabulary began to fail me, but he did say that all living things love life more than anything else and there was a sign near by that said the same thing.) Which made it all the more curious when he spoke about an Alaskan friend - in the Air Force - who comes to Thailand frequently and is an avid fisher and hunter who likes antique guns. Then he told us there was a wild woowa. (I think cow must be the only animal we have in English for which there is no generic name for both the male and female - well I guess there's peacock too, and if I think about it I might think of more.) He said the monks can walk up to it and feed it and it licks their arms. Did we want to see it?





Well of course. So he walked us over to see if it was there. It was. It was this huge wild bull. Later I thought of the word gaur, googled it, and sure enough, that's what it was. It was staring straight at me in the distance as I tried to keep up with the monk. Joan stopped earlier. And it clearly wasn't comfortable with me either, so I stopped as the monk went on.


There were some small deer that appeared to be caged down there, but the bull was free and later ran off through the wildlife area. I have to say I was amazed to see a huge animal like that loose right here on the edge of Thailand's second biggest city. But from this area, it really looks like it's forest all the way up the mountain side of Doi (Mt) Suthep. And clearly this gaur has found friends among the monks who do feed it. I know we wouldn't have seen it had the monk not taken us over there (though we weren't far away) and that the gaur would have run off if we'd gotten close. As I think about it, it looked at us the way a moose does - trying to figure out who we were and whether we were a problem. We weren't wearing orange monk's robes.

The ultimateungulate has this description:

Body Length: 250-330 cm / 8.3-11 ft.
Shoulder Height: 170-220 cm / 5.6-7.2 ft.
Tail Length: 70-100 cm / 28-40 in.
Weight: 700-1000 kg / 1540-2200 lb.

The dark brown coat is short and dense, while the lower legs are white to tan in colour. There is a dewlap under the chin which extends between the front legs. There is a shoulder hump which is especially pronounced in adult males. The horns are found in both sexes, and grow from the sides of the head, curving upwards. Yellow at the base and turning black at the tips, they grow to a length of 80 cm / 32 inches. A bulging grey-tan ridge connects the horns on the forehead.

Ecology and Behavior

Where gaurs have not been disturbed, they are basically diurnal, being most active in the morning and late afternoon and resting during the hottest time of the day. However, where populations have been molested by human populations, the gaur has become largely nocturnal, rarely seen in the open after 8:00 in the morning. During the dry season, herds congregate and remain in small areas, dispersing into the hills with the arrival of the monsoon. While gaurs are dependent on water for drinking, they do not seem to bathe or wallow. When alarmed, gaurs crash into the jungle at a surprising speed. Gaurs live in herds led by a single adult male. During the peak of the breeding season, unattached males wander widely in search of receptive females. No serious fighting has been recorded between males, with size being the major factor in determining dominance. Males make a mating call of clear, resonant tones which may carry for more than 1.6 kilometers. Gaurs have also been known to make a whistling snort as an alarm call, and a low, cow-like moo. The average population density is about 0.6 animals per square kilometer, with herds having home ranges of around 80 square kilometers.

Family group: Small mixed herds of 2-40 individuals. Adult males may be solitary.
Diet: Grasses, shoots and fruit.
Main Predators: Tiger, leopard.

Distribution

Tropical woodlands in India, Indochina, and the Malay Peninsula.

Countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia), Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Viet Nam (IUCN, 2002).

I'm used to eucalyptus trees from growing up in Southern California, but I've never seen bark like this. It's a piece of art. The monk showed us a birds nest just on the other side of trunk.
He also said the cicadas sounded different before and after the rain, better before. Now I know where they got the sound they put in table saws. It's from the cicadas, but amplified a bit.

(click on the black arrow in the yellow square) Chiang Mai Forest Cicadas uploaded by AKRaven



As I said it is the dry season. Though the Thai New Year is coming up next week and the rains should be coming before long. The Songkran festival is when people soak each other with water and Chiang Mai is supposed to have the wildest Songkran festival. The moat around the old town has been filled with water and there were even people swimming in it Saturday when we came back from Mae Sai.





He said that a hummingbird like bird feeds on these tiny pink flowers. We see a bird like that from our balcony.







We walked back through the Wat grounds which has words of wisdom posted here and there on trees. Then we walked back to pick up my tire from the bike shop and headed home.


We've seen the signs for the Heinrich Böll Foundation when we first got here, but never actually found the place. Since the sign is right near the tire repair place, we decided to try to find it. We ended up at this compound at the end of a small back street. (Sorry it was getting dark, but I still think a little blur is better than the artificial light of a flash. This is what it really looked like.) And as I looked to see if the tiny street went further, I realized that it ended in part of the Wat Padaeng temple grounds just a short ways from our building. The dogs didn't like us cutting through their property, but they stayed up on the hill and did their barking from there.

When we got home and put the tire back on the bike, I discovered that the rear tire was now flat, so we took the bike back to the bike shop where he pulled out two thorns and put on two patches. At 20 Baht a patch, I was now almost $2 down because of thorns. It would be another 20 Baht when I discovered the rear tire flat again Monday (yesterday) morning and he found another thorn he'd missed in the bad evening light. But he had a good sense of humor and when I told him I hoped we wouldn't meet again soon, he said I could come by just to chat.