India, Dec. 7 -- During the day, the sun's glare cuts off earth from its location in the cosmic array. The celestial dome is veiled in sky blues. It is during the night, coronated by poets as the queen of darkness, that we glimpse our pale blue dot of earth islanded in the splendour of space and a stream of stars. Just as twinkling stars creep out one by one from cosmic crevices as the night deepens, down in the Kansal jungles of the Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary phantom-like creatures of the night were stirring from their distaste for daylight. It is in such protected, sacred jungles that the ascetic's desire for silence, solitude and a primeval darkness not stabbed by modern light pollution attains consummation. The forests & wildlife department in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, and supported by a cross-sectoral spectrum of citizens conducted the Rapid Assessment of Biodiversity (wildlife survey) for UT Chandigarh from November 20-27, 2025, the fourth such survey since 2010. This writer was part of the nocturnal survey in the Kansal jungles for herpetofauna and avifauna (snakes, frogs, nightjars, owls etc). I list some vignettes from the nocturnal trove of Chandigarh's natural heritage. A decaying tree with flaking bark loomed in the darkness. A WII scientist with a headlamp tapped the bark with a snake hook, as if knocking on a dying door. We were foxed by his search. But the young scientist knew what he was doing. And, lo behold, a lizard species of the Hemidactylus genus was revealed sheltering within the dry, flaking bark. The bark was for the lizard a veritable quilt in a night whose temperature had dipped to single digits. The Kansal jungle is dotted with water bodies. We saw no snakes as they were quilted over for the deep winter in varying states of inactivity. But there were small frogs displaying a cavalier disregard for 'General Winter'. They had ascended into the frosting grass of the banks to feed on insects in the inky darkness. These were skittering frogs, probably the species, Euphlyctis adolfi. And then, an owl/owlet disembarked from a tree along the banks as the diffused, glimmer-and-fade beams from the scientists' flashlights flushed it out. It was too far for species identification but it was a spectacle of mystical vanishment. The bird's belly and underwings appeared whitish in the beams and it flew into the arms of the mist, as if a ghostly lady in white satin had tip-toed into shadows between moonbeams. The survey team then diverted from the water bodies and traversed the trekking trails that criss-cross Kansal. The flashlights caught another bird of prey, still as a statue in a tree. It was roosting with one leg tucked in and not too high from the ground. The bird had tactfully ensured that there was a thick canopy much above the branch selected for the nocturnal perch. That warded off night frost dripping from the openness above. It was a female Besra hawk, with yellow eyes that gleamed like startled suns. A Sambar's alarm call punctuated the brooding silence at regular intervals. The answer came in a snarl that crept out from the ravines with understated lethality. A leopard had digressed from its standard of silence and solitariness. It was winter when dispersed leopards come together briefly to mate. The courtship period is characterised by the merging couple emitting snarls / growls to "share location"!...