Lessons from the Canopy. (Part 1: Theory meets Reality)

THEORY MEETS REALITY 

When I first arrived in Kudremukh for my thesis fieldwork, everything felt simple in my head. I had read the papers, refined my methods, prepared my datasheets, and imagined the next few months clearly — locate a troop of lion-tailed macaques, follow them, collect behavioural observations, and slowly build my dataset. In theory, it sounded almost straightforward.

Reality had other plans.

The first step was to complete some final paperwork at the Forest Department office. I walked in full of excitement, already imagining my first day in the forest. When the staff member handling my documents asked what species I would be studying, I confidently said, “Lion-tailed macaques.”

He paused.

“Lion-tailed macaques?” he repeated, looking puzzled.
“What is that?”

I pulled up a picture and showed him. He looked at it for a moment and casually replied, “No… this is not here. You’ll have to go to Agumbe for this.”

Kudremukh itself was a completely new place to me, and Agumbe? Definitely not where I had planned to work.

For a moment, everything inside me dropped. Had I come all the way here for a species that wasn’t even present? Had I misunderstood something so fundamental?

Thankfully, a senior officer overheard the conversation and stepped in. He confirmed that lion-tailed macaques did exist within the park — in a few specific ranges — and that I could continue my work there. Just like that, my hope returned. Paperwork was completed, permissions sorted, and I headed to the range office ready to begin.

But knowing a species exists in an area is very different from knowing where to find it.

The range office staff were aware that lion-tailed macaques lived somewhere in the forest, but when I asked where exactly, the answers became vague. Locations were suggested through guesswork, old sightings, and word-of-mouth memories. Eventually, a forest guard was assigned to accompany me, and we headed into the field.

My first day of fieldwork had nothing to do with macaques.

Instead, it introduced me to leeches.

Somewhere between walking through wet undergrowth and scanning the canopy for movement, I received my first leech bite. And then another. And another. By the end of the day, I was standing there slightly horrified at the amount of blood these tiny creatures seemed to extract with such efficiency. It was not the dramatic wildlife moment I had imagined, but it was certainly memorable.

The macaques, however, were nowhere to be seen.

The next day we tried again. And the next. And the next.

Every morning I entered the forest hopeful that this would be the day. Every evening I returned with nothing — no sightings, no calls, no troop movements, not even a distant rustle that could confidently be called a lion-tailed macaque.

Slowly, that early excitement began to fade into doubt.

Eventually I returned to the range office, unsure what the next step should be. That was when another forest guard walked in — Annappa uncle. When he heard what I was searching for, he casually mentioned that he often saw them near his house.

Just like that, hope returned again.

We decided to go the very next day. When we reached his house, he called out to Sudha akka, asking in Kannada, “Singalika bantha?” — Did the lion-tailed macaques come?

“Yes,” she replied. “They were just here… on my jackfruit tree.”

My heart instantly started racing.

We rushed toward the nearby forest patch where the troop might have moved. The canopy above us was dense and quiet, and for a moment it felt like we had already missed them again.

And then I saw it.

Just one individual, moving through the trees, leaping from one branch to another before disappearing deeper into the forest.

It lasted only seconds.

By the time we moved closer, the troop had vanished completely.

Still, that brief moment was enough to remind me that they were real, that they were here, and that the forest was simply asking for patience.

Theory had imagined a clear path.
Reality was teaching me something else entirely.

And my search had only just begun.