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.
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The morning mist in the forest.
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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.
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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.
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And a lovely peacock
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Waited as much as we could , this lovely Barasingha didn’t turn its head towards us and, this is the best I could manage.
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And finally Manju’s masterpiece, I love this one
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We did get a few birds but nothing spectacular and, I wont bore you with those pics 🙂
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
No spectacular bird shots ?..tht peacock shot is as good as it gets :)..sometimes i think we are all too bothered about tack sharp documentary shots way too much 😉
Well got a few regular guys 🙂 . I realised that when you go chasing a tiger, pretty much everything else is thrown out of the window. Next time I shall resist the chase syndrome 🙂