Sighting of a Leopard…

It was a great day for me today, as I got a rare chance of seeing a leopard live in the wilderness for the first (and probably the last :-)) time in my life. It was an hour before the sunset and the place was around 5-6 km North of Faisal Mosque (half way from Tilhar village). This part of Margallas offers pure natural environment as there is no human settlement nearby and even not many trekkers wander here.
It was two of us me and Usman Zafar. We started our hike from behind the Kuwait hostel of International Islamic University and joined Trail 4. We continued on Trail 4 for about an hour where a smaller trail branches off towards right. While we always continue on the path going straight that goes to Tilhar/Monal, this time we were in a mood of finding a new way of returning back. I always wondered where this path ultimately leads to as it apparently turns down towards right so we decided to explore it. On this trail, after a walk for about 10 minutes, there was a curve when I felt like there was some movement ahead of me. I took a few steps forward and phew, it appeared and it was nothing else but a leopard. It was not more than a few meters away from us but we never got an eye contact and it immediately ran away in the opposite direction with its specific movement. We could only see it for a few seconds as it fast disappeared into the bushes. To me it looked like an adult one. It was not very tall and would have a height of something around 2.5 – 3 feet.
There have been some leopard sightings on Margallaz in the past too. Just a couple of months ago, a partially paralyzed male leopard was sighted and later caught near the Kilinjhar village. It is good to see this beautiful car surviving in Margalla hills despite not very favorable conditions (increasing human interferences and decreasing prey)