Wildlife and Nature have always interested me. Like most of you I have also dreamt of befriending wild beasts. Most us have read about people who have been able to keep wild animals in their back yards and have managed to include them as part of their families. We hear of these amazing stories and also the bonds they were able to create with wild animals over years. Some stories that come to mind are that of Christian the Lion and also of Kevin Richardson the lion whisperer. For readers who haven’t heard of either can use the below links to watch the videos on YouTube, Christian the lion at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVNTdWbVBgcatch?v=zVNTdWbVBgc and Kevin Richardson the Lion Whisperer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsXG-TyqrFIXG-TyqrFI.
On the contrary these animals are called “Wild” because they are. They are unpredictable and tend to attack when they are threatened or feel insecure. We have numerous examples of Wild animals in captivity that have attacked their trainers without provocation or suck their teeth into their owner’s legs or hands without warning. I feel man has never has been able to domesticate cats, he has tried and failed. Even the domestic cat comes home for food and the next moment is gone doing its own thing. The canine story is different; the canines have always shared a warm bond with man.
Some of us decided to explore the wild and so decided a trip to Tadoba or TATR (Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve). Sabarish and Wasim my colleagues from Dell had been planning a trip in May 2009. I was not interested initially but later decided to join them. We left Hyderabad on 1st May from Hitech city, Hyderabad at about 12:30 AM. The total distance is about 450 KMs and took us a good 9 hours to get there. Vishnu a friend of ours had also joined us for the trip. We talked about a lot of stuff en route, the traffic was not very bad but we drove at our own pace and were not in a real rush to reach our destination. We reached at about 9:30 AM; we decided to take some rest and planned to take the afternoon drive into the forest. We were more interested in seeing a tiger than anything else. The park offers two trips into the forest to all tourists. The first starts is from 6AM to 11AM and the second from 3 PM to 7 PM. The cost is not much, comes to about 270 rupees including a guide and a car’s entry. The best part of the reserve is that it is not very commercial unlike the other tiger reserves in India. We woke up in the afternoon and made the first visit into the forest. We wanted to track a tiger but of course didn’t find one immediately. We saw a lot of Wild Gaur (the Indian Bison) and tons of deer. We saw an owl and some eagles as well. We later spotted a tiger at a distance. It was across a lake, it was too far for us to take a picture. We somehow caught some glimpses through Wasim’s video camera. The day ended with not much of spotting.
Enclosed are some pictures of what we managed to see: The forest is mostly dry and deciduous. Water is scarce during the summer months, the authorities water the man made water holes to help the wild thrive.
2nd May 2009, Saturday: The second day began early; we woke up at 3 AM and got ready. The plan was to do the morning trip and the afternoon trip into the forest. We had to queue up before the others got in line. We managed to procure passes to get in. We are all ready to get in by 5:30 AM, we wanted to be the first to ensure we spot some tiger tracks and that way catch the elusive cat in the wild. We saw the Gaur and some deer again. We nearly missed seeing a bear, he just ran in, must have been too shy.
On the contrary these animals are called “Wild” because they are. They are unpredictable and tend to attack when they are threatened or feel insecure. We have numerous examples of Wild animals in captivity that have attacked their trainers without provocation or suck their teeth into their owner’s legs or hands without warning. I feel man has never has been able to domesticate cats, he has tried and failed. Even the domestic cat comes home for food and the next moment is gone doing its own thing. The canine story is different; the canines have always shared a warm bond with man.
Some of us decided to explore the wild and so decided a trip to Tadoba or TATR (Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve). Sabarish and Wasim my colleagues from Dell had been planning a trip in May 2009. I was not interested initially but later decided to join them. We left Hyderabad on 1st May from Hitech city, Hyderabad at about 12:30 AM. The total distance is about 450 KMs and took us a good 9 hours to get there. Vishnu a friend of ours had also joined us for the trip. We talked about a lot of stuff en route, the traffic was not very bad but we drove at our own pace and were not in a real rush to reach our destination. We reached at about 9:30 AM; we decided to take some rest and planned to take the afternoon drive into the forest. We were more interested in seeing a tiger than anything else. The park offers two trips into the forest to all tourists. The first starts is from 6AM to 11AM and the second from 3 PM to 7 PM. The cost is not much, comes to about 270 rupees including a guide and a car’s entry. The best part of the reserve is that it is not very commercial unlike the other tiger reserves in India. We woke up in the afternoon and made the first visit into the forest. We wanted to track a tiger but of course didn’t find one immediately. We saw a lot of Wild Gaur (the Indian Bison) and tons of deer. We saw an owl and some eagles as well. We later spotted a tiger at a distance. It was across a lake, it was too far for us to take a picture. We somehow caught some glimpses through Wasim’s video camera. The day ended with not much of spotting.
Enclosed are some pictures of what we managed to see: The forest is mostly dry and deciduous. Water is scarce during the summer months, the authorities water the man made water holes to help the wild thrive.
2nd May 2009, Saturday: The second day began early; we woke up at 3 AM and got ready. The plan was to do the morning trip and the afternoon trip into the forest. We had to queue up before the others got in line. We managed to procure passes to get in. We are all ready to get in by 5:30 AM, we wanted to be the first to ensure we spot some tiger tracks and that way catch the elusive cat in the wild. We saw the Gaur and some deer again. We nearly missed seeing a bear, he just ran in, must have been too shy.
Gaur
Early morning
We kept looking but only found more deer and langur. We decided to take a dirt track that leads deeper into the forest. Down the track we slowed down to see if we could see any pug marks and indeed we found some, we saw a tiger's pug marks and next to it the pug marks of a cub. This was an amazing site and gave us some hope that we would spot a tiger sooner or later.
We listened to our guide chattering away about himself and his experiece in the forest. Vasant was a knowlegble fellow though. He knew the way and also told us about many things about the forest. He decided we move towards the other side of the forest as the tiger must have passed towards the front side judging by the pug marks. We got onto the main road and we saw a tiger atlast. It was a tigress walking away from us, but we were glad we saw one atlast in the wild!
We were overjoyed to see a tiger at last but we were not content. We wanted another close encounter. A closer look at the animal. We tried going around the 650 Sq Km forest in search of a tiger. We saw some beautiful stretches and also some other animals but not a tiger. We had a quick lunch, took some rest and were back in line at the gate for another trip into the forest. We were to leave early the next day, we wanted to make most of the afternoon trip. The afternoon was quite eventful, we saw a pack of wild dogs, more deer and also the beautiful Tadoba lake.
We were told the best thing is to wait at a waterhole patiently for a tiger to arrive, we did just that. Vasant directed us to a water hole where we waited patiently for the tiger to arrive, atlast a tigress did. She appeared pregnant. She walked into the pool, sat there for sometime and drank water gingerly. She was not happy with the noise around, she got disturbed later and crossed the road and went away from where she had come. The sight was amazing. We got some lovely pictures of he
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We decided to go around and see the other parts and come back in sometime. When we got back we saw a lot of crowd around the same area. We waited. We heard calls of deer indicating a tiger is near and as we predicted we saw the tigress appeared again for another drink. This time it was getting dark but never the less the experience was beyond explanation. We had to leave as it was time for the gates to close. We had a nice dinner and went to bed. We had to leave early the next morning as we had stuff to do that evening in Hyderabad. Sabarish had some family commitments and so did Vishnu. I was really keen to go Sunday morning as well but I stuck to the unanimous decision the team had taken. I couldn't wait to get back home to tell the tales of the tiger.
Awesome photography Pavan. Hope to see more in future. All the best for your adventures... :)
ReplyDeleteKaushik M