Annual trip to Tiger land
- shivaram1970
- Jan 9, 2012
- 4 min read
This year for our annual trip me and Gayathri (daughter) visited the famous tiger reserves of Madhya Pradesh Bandavghar and Kanha. On the first leg of our trip we visited Bandavghar which is supposed to have the highest tiger density in India. We reached Bandavghar on Christmas Eve after an 18 hr train journey. We stayed at king’s lodge and the naturalist assigned to us was Girish who was a graduate in environmental science from Bangalore. He was working in these forests for only about 3 months. What he lacked in experience he made up with his enthusiasm and eagerness to please his clients. We had a total of six safaris in the Tala range which was known for its tiger density. But unfortunately all the action was happening in the Magdi range. After 4 safaris and no sight of sher khan we decided to shift to the Magdi range there too we were disappointed. We did see a good variety of birds’ .but the mammal sighting was restricted to a lone jackal which too gave us only a fleeting glimpse and preferred not to be photographed.
The highlight of the trip to bandavghar was new friends and meeting interesting people. I met an old English lady who was an ardent bhakt of lord Ganesha. She believed that he could do everything for her from helping her aircraft take off from a snow covered Heathrow airport to even showing her the elusive sher khan.
After 6 disappointing rides into the jungle at Bandavghar we moved to kanha. Kanha is about 6 hours drive from Bandavghar and the drive is very scenic and beautiful. Reached kanha with high hopes as me and Gayathri had our first ever tiger sighting here three years back. At kanha we stayed at the kanha earth lodge and here we were assigned Rana Karan a veteran naturalist to help us to sight the invisible sher khan. After hearing that we were tiger starved even after six safaris in Bandavghar he took upon himself the task of finding one for us. But unfortunately even he could not find one in four attempts.
On the last day of our stay at kanha which also happened to be the last day of the year we went into the jungle determined to sight the elusive tiger.karan could not accompany us as another group of guests wanted an English speaking naturalist with them. Santosh the driver fondly called santu by everyone was alone with us he requested one of his friends to park his jeep ahead in the line overnight so that we would have the advantage of entering the park first. We got up at 4am and reached the park gate at 4.45am. It was a long and anxious wait for the park to open. The park opens at 6.30 sharp this time we managed to get an experienced guide named Gyan to whom Santu explained that we needed to see the tiger as Karan had promised Gayathri that she would see one before she left.
We entered the park with our fingers crossed and a prayer on our lips. Gyan being experienced and clever decided to track the elephants as the mahouts were trying to find a tiger for the tiger show. This ploy paid rich dividends as we were blessed with the big cat crossing our path. She was the same tigress whom we had seen three years back. But this time her radio collar had been removed to enable her to reach a wound which she had picked up during a territory fight.
NOW
Then
After that wonderful moment the forest Gods had more delights in store for us. We saw a sloth bear which is very rare during this period as they go into hibernation during winters. We had another near sighting of the tiger as we were very close to it. We heard it growl but could not stay put because we had to return early so as to catch our return flight from Nagpur thanks to king fisher airlines.
The story our return journey was that king fisher airlines which had proudly announced the commencement of direct flights from Jabalpur to Mumbai sadly forgot to inform their guests of its cancellation. But thanks to improved connectivity in India I was able to book tickets from Nagpur on the net from my resort in kanha which was in the middle of nowhere. Also I got the taxi which was taking us to Jabalpur to take us to Nagpur instead.
We reached Mumbai at around 11pm.Thus ending an enjoyable and memorable 7 day trip to the tiger land of india.Thanks to Santu and Gyan it became memorable otherwise it would have been just enjoyable.
But as every trip does this trip also taught us a lesson of never visiting national parks during Christmas as it is too crowded and the animals are disturbed and avoid coming out.
The link below is of some of the photos that I managed to click on this trip.
Another reason for me to remember this trip would be that Gayathri took her first photo using my old Nikon D80 and the sigma 150-500 lens in manual mode. There is a bit of shake in the image because she shot it hand held. For me it is one of the best pictures as she was brave enough to try out the manual mode when she was shooting the tiger. The settings used by her with no guidance from anyone were shutter 1/125s, Apperture f/8 & ISO 1600.I have pasted the image below.
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