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Wild hacks: How to read a jungle like a book
A forest isn’t just big cats. It’s a whole novel, packed with side characters, tiny heroes and ancient lore. Here’s how to browse through the jungle book
The birds know it. The bees know it. Even Disney movies know it: Forests are made of magic. New paths are forged every day as elephants amble along in search of snacks. Toppled tree trunks become home to families of rodents, insects and birds. The arrival of a single new bird can shake up the whole jungle. Both sounds and stillness tell stories. And somewhere, something is always watching.
Most tourists, however, have tunnel vision for big cats and larger animals. They drive through, expectations high, DSLR at the ready. But believe that if they haven’t had an Insta-worthy sighting, they saw nothing.
There’s no such thing as a nothing safari, wildlife experts say. “Chasing a tiger or a leopard is exciting. But there is so much more to see and experience in the forest,” says Aly Rashid, director and naturalist at Jehan Numa Wilderness. He runs forest lodges in the Satpura region of Madhya Pradesh and organises wildlife trips around the world.
It’s possible to read a forest like a book. Here are some tips from him and other experts.
Take it slow. Whether it’s your first safari or your 50th, zooming through will only make an exciting jungle seem like a blur. “If you move quietly and stop frequently to scan the surroundings and listen carefully, fascinating scenes often unfold,” says Shekar Dattatri, wildlife filmmaker and conservationist. “Have a knowledgeable and passionate naturalist by your side,” he recommends. Naturalist Karthikeyan S suggests that you let your guide know that you’re also interested in the local lore. “You will never return from a forest disappointed.”
At the Bori Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, naturalist Khadir Khan often points out a tiny shrine, right in the thick of the jungle, which has bidis and mahua flowers scattered around it. It is the temple of Bara Dev, worshipped by the Gond community that lived inside the forest until they were relocated a few years ago. Safari guides and drivers continue to leave offerings there, “especially after a wish is fulfilled,” says Khan.
In the Kemri shrubland, on the outskirts of Udaipur, naturalist Chandravijay Singh Hada can’t stop marvelling at how resilient the forest is. The 150-hectare retreat around Chunda Shikar Oudi, once a hunting camp, was almost destroyed by unregulated grazing and tree felling. “But with conservation efforts over 30 years, the forest came back to life,” he says. Today, it’s home to the Rusty Spotted Cat (the smallest spotted cat in the world) and the dramatic colourful fan-throated lizard. Each is part of the story of the forest.
Other forests have stories about man-made fire lines, abandoned animal dwellings and signs of an ancient flood. And if your safari is during the day, ask your guide for signs of what went on during the night. “Nocturnal animals leave interesting cues,” says Hada. What looks like a trail left by a broom may be a sign that a porcupine was on its nightly rounds.
Look down and up. Khan delights in showing visitors a maze of white webs, not on the trees but the forest floor, catching the sun like silver threads. These funnel webs are a sighting in themselves – their silk-lined tube or burrow at the narrow end is where the spider hides as it lures tiny insects into the web.
Don’t be surprised if a bone falls from the sky directly into your rocky path. It’s likely a Bearded Vulture deploying her favourite hack to crush the bone and get to the delicious marrow within. “Every vulture has different food preferences and hunts differently,” says Hada.
Ask the guide which birds are tourists too. In the monsoon, tiny warblers fly into the Khemri mangroves, just for the buffet. They polish off a caterpillar in about a minute, eating thousands of them in a day and preventing the insects from wiping out the trees and plants.
Track the side-characters. Herpetologist Sandeep Das loves frogs: “There are so many, each with specific behaviour and characteristics.” The Purple Frog lives underground for the year and emerges for one day to lay eggs – that’s a rarer sighting than a tiger. Bullfrogs can polish off 1,000 insects a day – watching nature’s pest control in action is a privilege. Dancing frogs, no bigger than coins, live in streams near waterfalls, and have smartly realised that their mating calls are drowned by the noise of the water. So they sit on rocks and wave or flag their foot to attract mates.
Ornithologist Nithin Divakar says that few tourists realise how much drama little animals can generate. When he visited the Gomantong Cave in Malaysia, he waited until dusk. That’s when millions of free-tailed bats would rush out of the cave, forming different formations in the sky. “This spectacle continues for an hour. It’s like nothing I’ve seen before,” he says. He wasn’t the only one watching. A couple of Rufous-bellied eagles were out too, waiting to prey on the bats.
Become a branch supervisor. Trees have dramatic stories to tell. Researcher Vinaya K says that there’s lots of action in in-between zones, especially in the mangroves that grow in between the sea and woods. Here, a single tree can stretch its roots over hundreds of metres, surviving on both salt water from the sea and sweet water from land, and guarding land from floods.
But good guides will point out their other clever hacks. “They have tiny flowers, not more than a centimetre long, which honeybees pollinate. “For me, these insects are super heroes, helping the mangroves multiply, saving us from big disasters,” says Vinaya. “The next time you go to the forest, spend time at the fringes and see how beautiful this ecosystem is.”
Wildlife researcher Shilpa Satheesan is always on the lookout for a ficus, rising majestically, contributing more than its fair share to the jungle. “A single ficus can do more for the local ecology than 100 other trees,” says Satheesan. Spotting one in the forest is like meeting the local superhero.
But like many superheroes, the ficus’s powers come from unlikely places. In this case, tiny figwasps which enter the tree’s fruit to feast, lay eggs and die in them. The baby wasps, when they emerge, end up pollinating the species. “It’s all heroism and sacrifice,” says Satheesan. A guide will know exactly how to spot the fruit and eggs.
From HT Brunch, January 10, 2026
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