Wild Cows (try and keep a straight face)

Ashok, India’s most delightful auto driver cum Diu natural history guide, insisted there were wild cows in the woods where the lions live (Sasan Gir descended Asiatic Lions).  In my mind the concept of “wild cow” spun around as I tried to find a reference; some visual anchor to make sense of this phrase.  I found nothing and walked on in silence watching chipmunks scurrying on their busy errands over the forest floor.  That was until I pointed out a buffalo to Ashok who replied “No, its not a buffalo, the colour is buffalo but this is wild cow”.  Now this hulk of a beast was a little distance away but I managed to get a few shots of its oddly goat like face before we startled it and it sprung to standing to reveal its full peculiar form.

Now I like animals, I watch David Attenborough and I know my mammals but I had never seen anything like this dark grey reindeer bison.  Danny, who was rapidly photographing this Narnian beast lectures in all things natural he offered up a diagnosis that it possibly belonged to the goat/sheep group of animals …despite its mass.  Neither one of us had seen anything like it in the flesh or print.  On the church roof that night, Mica the Finn just laughed protractedly at the photos, it was something normally dreamed up by the stoned rather than shown to them!  Ashok at all times remained quietly confident with his identification of a wild cow.

Unless anyone can advise me differently (offers invited!), here is a Wild Cow….