Krishnan Photography

Another back-breaking six hour drive from Kanha- Kisli is, Bandhavgarh. The road is being resurfaced for most parts so be prepared for a pretty tough ride Checked into Tiger Trails resort and tied up the morning safari with Mukesh Burman ( Mob: +919425344631 ) immediately. Mukesh is highly recommended. I promptly put all my batteries to charge and unpacked all gear for the morning ride. And what a morning it was to be…. A little into the Tala gate with Vikas our stud driver, trying to sniff out them stripes, I felt pretty hopeful. Soon we came across a huge jam of vehicles, and sure enough, the Jhurjhura female was out on a stroll with her three cubs. We were at the fag end of the convoy and I could barely catch glimpses of the tigers from in between the jeeps and trees. The “J Boys” were right ahead of us and had a superb view of the tigers. Soon the tigers moved across the meadow to the hill opposite. That was our chance and Vikas did some deft positioning and we got a few distant but clear views. Then the tigers decided to cross back to the trees and that’s when we got our first good (photographically speaking) view.

The momma tigress first crossed over with one cub following. They waited beneath the trees for the other two cubs to catch up. The dappled light and some good positioning by Vikas got me a few nice shots.

Two of the three cubs made it across the line of tourist jeeps. The third cub got a bit scared by all the jeeps and, ran back into the tall grass.

Vikas knew the tiger’s routine and moved on ahead on the trail where the track switched back. There was only one more jeep here. Soon sure enough, the same tigress and the two cubs were eyeing to cross the track almost right in front of us.

First the mum crossed over.

Then cub one

Then we saw cub two, kind of undecided. Then suddenly in a flash cub two made a dash across the track to its mom. WOW what a sight it is to see them stripes :-)  I was already in focus and tracking the tiger cub but, the sheer speed of his dart ( from dead stationary) caught me by surprise and, I got a blur of a shot

But this was not all, the track wound around a hill and Vikas immediately drove on ahead to the end of the track. Sure enough we caught up with the “J boys” already clicking merrily away at the three tigers. The “J Boys” were gracious enough to give our jeep some space and, it is here that I made some of my best shots of the trip. The tigress was marking territory by spraying urine .

The momma tiger waited along with her two cubs calling out for the third cub to join her. Calling her cub

By now the time was creepin’  to 10.30 AM, and we had to start back so as to clear out of the main gate before 11 AM. On the evening ride we saw the elusive “Bokha” a huge male marking his territory. He first sniffed the tree and then reached up to scratch his claws.

The next morning was a quiet one in comparison. Try as we might, the elusive cat stayed hidden from sight. One of the jeeps did see a Leopard on the tracks very early in the morning. We decided to do look at the long billed vultures at the Bandgavgarh fort.

The cliffs are where the vultures nest and there were many  vultures soaring by afternoon. The afternoon hot air is pretty tough for photography and the shimmering heat waves make focusing pretty much impossible. All the same got a few half decent shots of these magnificent birds. Best time I guess would be early morning when the sun would be at the back but, the valley would be in shadow and there wouldn’t be thermals that early in the morning.

Third day morning we got lucky. The elephants had tracked the Mirchani family. Soon, we climbed up on the back of “Vanraj” who was deftly steered by his mahout E A Kuttapan. Kuttapan set up some serious angles but in the hurry, I set the borrowed D200 I was using on “Jpeg Only”. Yes, stuff happens when you are in the wild with, an unfamiliar body!

The evening ride was the last . Try as we might, we came up almost on to a tiger . So pretty much as was in the pic below Just pugmarks and, very  fresh ones at that.

But I did get one parting peacock shot from the park. ISO 800, NO NR

All in all we had seen nine distinct individuals (tigers) in six safari rides over three days.

That evening had another wildlife surprise for us. Soon after we got back to the resort, a Palm Civet was spotted foraging some leftovers.  I promptly clamped on the 300mm 2.8 and was able to get a full flash shot of this rather shy animal, and that too, right inside the resort!

The evening at Tiger Trails we had a fitting finale to the trip, a Tribal dance by the locals.

Bandhavgarh, We shall be back in May

Hot Tip: Dust is a real menace on safaris. Get cloth covers made for camera + long lenses to stow in while on the move. Absolute must.

For all Bandhavgarh pics >>>Click Here

A back-breaking five hours from Pench , we drove into Tuli resorts at Kanha. The rooms were splendid and we got lucky with meeting Karan Modi, who was mentioned to us by the “Bandra Boys” whilst at Pench. Immediately on reaching, I called up our safari driver and tied up the details. Our guide was Jai Singh, an amazing guy and very highly recommended. The three safari rides over two days threw up two tigers and a few others. It is indeed a very pretty forest. My first tiger in the wild, was a collared male five minutes into the morning ride on the Indri trail. The light was way too low and and I was pretty much zero prepared. This huge guy was lazing by the track, yawned , looked at us and, yep got a coupla superbly blurred shots in the excitement. And immediately after this tiger sighting, I heard this comment from the back of our jeep ” They must not be allowed to die !”. At that instant,  I too murmured a silent prayer for “The Oh Magnificent One”.

03 November 2008, 0612H AM ( wish I had a D3 here) : D200, 70-200mm VR @ 200mm ISO 1000 , F3.5, 1/40th cropped from horizontal.

The morning mist in the forest.

With the D200 as a backup, I realised the difference the  between the files of the D2X and D200. Basically a lot. I am only now learning to massage the D200 RAW files and they need a lot more massaging than the files from the D2X.

We got back and Karan told us about a male he saw at Sarhi. We changed our evening route to Sarhi and went looking for “Barasinghas”. See them we did but, they were pretty far away. On the way back Jai Singh brought us to the place where the morning tiger was sighted going into the undergrowth. Sure enough we saw fresh pugmarks.  About a hundred meters ahead, we saw a glorious uncollared male walking up the track. Just as I started to shoot, another vehicle from “Wild Chalet Resorts” came up from behind. We gave them space to view the tiger from ahead and I stopped shooting till they would  allow me again. But, that was not to be, the kept ahead and finally sped away and the scared tiger, scampered into the undergrowth. So much for being the gentleman I told myself. Surprisingly it was the “Wild Chalet resorts naturalist with the Aussie bush hat,  (I’ll call him “Robinson Crusoe”  since he was on crutches who is to blame for this) . An uncouth and obnoxious guy and, I made a mental note to give him my mind later.

The Sarhi tiger.

The next morning safari we hit the meadows directly. The elephants were out searching for the cats and, I did get to make a few nice moody elephant-scapes.

And a lovely peacock

Waited  as much as we could , this lovely Barasingha didn’t turn its head towards us  and, this is the best I could manage.

And finally Manju’s masterpiece, I love this one

We did get a few birds but nothing spectacular and, I wont bore you with those pics

Hoopoe @ ISO800

We then grabbed a early lunch and started for Bandhavgarh .

Kanha does need a full four to five full days to do it a little justice. Three safaris was, way too short …..

For all the Kanha pics >>>Click Here

We had planned a trip to Kanha - Bandhavgarh to do some tiger watching in the wild. As luck would have it, we did not get the first day booking at Kanha . Hence we decided to stay one night at Pench. Pench is about a two and a half hour drive from Nagpur. That gave us two safari rides at Pench. We did the Pyorthadi (pronounced Pyor-th’di I think) route in the evening and the morning looking for leopards but, no luck. We did spot jackals and birds though.  Jammed into a resort safari jeep with six total passengers….tough on getting any half decent pictures. But, we did meet a few “Bandra Boys” who were pretty… cool . Of course we missed a tigress and her cubs on the track by five minutes.  Here is this Jackalscape pic from Pench.

In the pic on the right above, the Jackal turned to look for a second but, I missed the focus by a mile. Usual things that happen while photographing wildlife ….

A Crested Serpent Eagle silhouette.

We stayed at Tuli Resort. Pretty good Id say, from a stay point of view, but for the safari,  quite a mess. Felt real strange trying do some photography with a bawling six month old also in the jeep…. sigh . Bandra Boys..you missed this one

I also met up Sandeep Desai , a numero uno wildlife photographer and exchanged notes. He highly recommended Mogli’s Resort. Besides they had a jeep which was tripod friendly as well.

For all the Pench pics, Click Here

 A few months back, I had gone over to a friends place in Delhi.  He is a photography buff as well and, he asked me to get a few images on a USB stick. I had just got back from Tadoba. So  I promptly dumped a bunch of straight out of the camera jpegs into a flash drive and, went over to his place.

He plugged in the flash drive to his Sony 40 inch TV and ran a slideshow.  My jaw just dropped at what I saw. The big screen makes such a huge difference that, you have to see it, to believe it.

The pictures, pretty much jumped out of the screen and,  it seemed to me that I was back in the “transparency days” ! The Sony “X” series can also be colour calibrated and used as an external monitor as well. I am not saying that this is like an Eizo graphics monitor  but,  it is a 10 bit panel and the TV runs a customised embedded linux operating system.

You could try it out at any of the Sony showrooms I would think.  So go on try it, I would interested to hear if it impressed you !