[W.A.G.7]

I am restless person when it comes to photography. I have to go to a wildlife sanctuary at-least once a year. Otherwise I cannot concentrate on anything. This year I decided to go to Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

I have already been to Bandhavgadh, Ranthambhore, Kanha and Gir forests; though on T-bhp I have only uploaded the Kanha trip report (http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ark-visit.html). Despite being from Maharashtra, I had never before visited Tadoba, so this trip had to happen before any other trip.

As before the entire camp was arranged by Foliage Outdoors based in Pune (Foliage Outdoors.com | Wildlife, Adventure, Treks, One-Day Outings, Camps - Pune, Mumbai). The total cost of the camp was 11,700/- which included 4 safaris. Since I took 2 extra safaris I incurred additional expenditure of 5000/- (2500/- per safari). The total cost included everything i.e. Pune-Nagpur travel by Garibrath, Nagpur-Chandrapur travel by Innova, charges for 4 safaris in the jungle and all meals (breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner) at the resort.

The resort where we stayed was Chhava Kolara Resort. This is a nice clean resort with good rooms and service. Thankfully our room was an A/C room. This is situated only about half a kilometer away from the Kolara gate. We didn't choose the Moharli gate, as it was quite crowded. From this newly opened Kolara gate, there is a permit only for about 9 vehicles (not sure), so this gate doesn't become too crowded with gypsies. If you guys want to check out the rates & stay you can call the owners directly - Alok Pande (90211 28158, 98600 1538) or Sagar Chitaley (93726 05885). They make arrangements for the gypsy safari as well, so don't forget to ask them for a total package.

Here are the pics, for any information required; please reply to this thread or PM me.

This is a very famous cartoon, but how true this is. People go in a jungle and demand to see the tiger. In which case, nature doesn't show you even a bird!! If however you go with an open mind, without expecting anything; nature will show you even those creatures which you never expected to see in the first place.


Instruction board in Marathi which explains the rules and timings.


The road to nowhere, this road is always present in any Indian jungle!


As soon as we enter the jungle, we spot fresh pugmarks near the Pandherpauni area.


Pugmarks don't lie, and we get a glimpse of our first tiger hardly 15 mins later.

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For some reason, my remaining pics don't show in the first post. Anyways here are the next set of pics.

The heat was terrible. Both prey and predator were too drained out by the hot temperature. Despite the presence of a tiger at the water hole, all animals were casually coming by and drinking water. Even the tiger in the lower right corner was too lazy to get out of the water!


Here are 3 of the 4 cubs of the female tigress in the Telia area. This is tank no 2.


You can see one male and one female cub.


Check out the expression on the face of the tiger on the right!


The noise in the gypsies soon catches their attention.


They turn around and start to come over.


They are more attracted by the people in gypsies.


Meanwhile here are the two other cubs in the water.


Biting each other is fun!!


And here's the dominant male running about just everywhere!

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Ok, for the sake of convenience, I am keeping it to 10 photos per post. That will help me to keep a track of photos as well.

While 2 others watch from the water, the dominant male decides to attack its'sibling, which tries to scramble to safety.


"Buddy, can you swim in water??" is what the tiger seems to be asking to the one in water.


"If you doubt my swimming abilities, I will bite you!" Well, that's what the other one replied!!


"If you say anything to me, I will slap you hard!" 2 tigers in conversation, the 3rd one looking somewhere else, while the 4th one is watching, who will slap whom first!


Two of them move to the other part, and start playing in the water.


What's going on??


I Love You!!! A tiger's way of displaying love for each other!!!


How do you strangle your best friend? This is how to do it tiger style!!


Of course, it's not as easy as it seems. If your friend turns out to be stronger than you, he pushes you in the water and then splashes water on you !!


And if you don't like getting wet in the water, you get angry and storm off!!

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Contd. from the above post...

This is one of the best photos of tiger that I have got in any Indian jungle.


Even though they fight, they still like each other! Yes!!


Leaving the cubs behind, we go to another water hole in Pandherpauni and wait. Soon enough a tiger appears on the water hole.


She climbs the embankment and ...


... and settles down on the top for everyone to photograph!!


Awww, what a cute expression


Meanwhile downstairs, another tiger arrives from nowhere.


The tiger wants to get into the water, but is unsure from where to go ...


The tiger paces restlessly near the water.


So, to help him out of his predicament, the one on the top arrives down the embankment.

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Both tigers near the water hole.


While one of them waits below, the tigress decides to come up to investigate.


Walking towards the gypsies


The next 3 photos show her waiting patiently for everyone in the gypsies to photograph her.




After that she comes straight forward towards our gypsy. If I had put out my hand, I could have stroked her on her head!!


Walking and walking


So near, she doesn't even fit fully even when zoomed out


Now she waits for us to photograph her


Walking parallely by our gypsy



Now crosses the road, in front of our gypsy.


And now walking back towards other vehicles, on the other side.

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She goes near the Splendor ...


... and sits in front of it. This tigress liked to have her pics taken; wasn't bothered one minute about all the people. The other two tigers refused to come out of the water hole.


Dead straight!


The Johnny walker series...


This is the Wagdoh male, also known as the Bhokhna. His right eye has some problem.


These are the only two shots that we got of him, he was sitting way too inside.


Another shot of the Pandherpauni tigress walking straight towards us.


Yawwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnn


Feeling sleepy.


Waking up on hearing sambar alarm calls.

[W.A.G.7]

This is one of the best pictures of a tiger that I have got till date. Why would anyone want to kill such a magnificent animal?


Trying to sleep, but then your body doesn't fit properly on the bed!!


The pose in the two photos!!! The instant she gave the pose, you should have heard the shutter sounds of the cameras from all the gypsies. Nikons & Canons firing away, each one on continuous shooting mode !!!! There must be a crazy amount of pictures that everyone took in those two minutes !



Quoting Jim Corbett, with a slight twist of my own: "The mere proximity of a tiger causes a disturbance in your bloodstream, and when the tiger; while walking towards you, looks straight at you, the disturbance becomes a storm!!"


Next we come to the Katezari area, where we find 3 cubs. One male and two female.


All are sleeping peacefully.


Dratttt.. A good photo spoiled by a branch!!


What do you do when you can't sleep? Obviously wake up the person sleeping next to you


And then position yourself such, that neither he nor you are able to sleep.


The sleeping one is a male, while the one awake is the female.


All 3 are wide awake now, listening to Sambar alarm calls.


Once again, the one on the left is dozing off while the other two look at each other wondering what to do.


Too much of tigers is a bad thing. So here are the photos of some other residents, which are equally important for the ecosystem.

Sloth bear descending on the road. This was my first sighting of a sloth bear in the wild.


It wanted to go to the tank no 2 for a drink, but since there were already 4 tigers in it; the bear decided otherwise.


While returning back from the ride, we chanced upon wild dogs somewhere near Jamni village.


Compared to other animals, wild dogs will wait patiently till everyone has finished clicking pictures!



My attempt at panning. Obviously deer run faster than you think or the shutter speed was slower than I thought!


Male, showing of the antlers. Though deer are common, every jungle trip must include photos of these animals.

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A nice scene, the light was just perfect, contrast, colour everything !


That's a grey headed fish eagle.


Changeable hawk eagle, the photo is way to underexposed, so ... it's a silhouette !!


Blue headed rock thrush.


Oriental Honey Buzzard.


Crested serpent eagle.


Orange headed thrush.


Paradise flycatcher, male, juvenile.


Paradise flycatcher again.


Bay backed shrike.


Paradise flycatcher, male, fully grown


Indian roller.


Tickell's blue flycatcher.


Indian pitta.


Flameback woodpeckers. (greater or lesser or which one?)


Indian silverbill, I think. Please id this bird.


Paddy field pipit


Cattle egret most probably.



White browed fantail.

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Grey junglefowl, female.


Rufous treepie. In any Indian jungle, you get bored of seeing this bird!


Pond heron, looking for something to eat.


That's a painted sand grouse female. They have excellent camouflage


Peacock in action. My 200mm lens doesn't do justice to this scene.


Peacocks again.


Orange headed thrush.


White breasted waterhen, foraging.


Mongoose, looks at us before proceeding to drink water.



A congregation of honey bees gathered to drink water. An amazing scene, I have never seen honey bees gathered like this.


Mugger crocodiles, in and near the Tadoba lake



Sambar crossing.


Road, a general scene.


Heavens played hide and seek on one day. I thought it would rain, but it didn't.


The highway connecting some small villages to Chandrapur passes through the forest. Sadly S.T buses ply twice a day at high speed on this road. There are plans of closing down this road, once the villages are relocated outside the forest in a year or two.


A pillar marking the direction to Chandrapur. These were erected by ancient tribal kings living in the area, before the highway was constructed in the sixties or seventies.


Another general scene.


Bahava blossoms.

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A common scene in the jungle, once a tiger is spotted!


Wagdoh area. Our gypsy was punctured here.


This is the state flower of Maharashtra - Taman. Scientific name is Lagerstromia reginae


A last few random shots taken at the resort.








This is our resort. The room where we stayed is on the extreme right.



Thanks for viewing this photo series. I hope you enjoyed it!!

[W.A.G.7]

E p i l o g u e

Through this photo series, I have tried to depict the entire jungle. There is a lot more left to explore and see in this jungle. However, time constraints did not permit anything more. My equipment is: Nikon D5000, with a 55-200mm zoom lens. Feel free to comment/critique on all the photos.

All photos are also uploaded on my FB profile here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...3&l=ab8de07dda

Even though everything good is depicted here, the sad but true reality is that poaching is still a major and a grave concern affecting all Indian jungles. Not only of tigers, but also of other wild animals. Just the week before we went to Tadoba, 2 tigers were poached in the buffer zone.

Please, please, please make an effort to stop poaching of tigers and wild animals in your own way. Do whatever you can, for the cause, need not necessarily be monetary help.

For starters, these links would be useful to you:
:: WWF ::

Save Our Tigers | Home

Please also read the stories on this link (Sanctuary Asia): Welcome and the really touching; Rhino poaching story mentioned on the timeline of my FB profile

[.anshuman]

You are one lucky person WAG!! Awesome coverage, loved the pictures. I have not seen so many Tiger pics from a single visit.

I feel with faster shutter speed you could have avoided motion blur in some pics. The white balance is a bit too warm for my taste. Did you process the RAW or are these in camera JPEG?

[W.A.G.7]

Originally Posted by .anshuman

You are one lucky person WAG!! Awesome coverage, loved the pictures. I have not seen so many Tiger pics from a single visit.

I feel with faster shutter speed you could have avoided motion blur in some pics. The white balance is a bit too warm for my taste. Did you process the RAW or are these in camera JPEG?

Yes, the shutter speed could have been higher and the motion blur could have been avoided. I had actually pushed up the ISO to 800 or 1000 and shot almost all the pics in Av mode, with aperture F8/F9/F10.

The white balance is a different story, it was accidentally set to cloudy don't remember when. And these pics are in camera jpeg's. I have the RAW files with me, so hopefully that can be corrected.

[dockap]

Thanks for sharing these photos. Lovely pics with wonderful captions. The best wildlife travelogue for me so far on team bhp.

[fazalaliadil]

W.A.G.7,

A very eventful Tadoba for you and others that day.
You got a good array of residents, birds, mammals.
Well the 'summer rain of tigers' in Tadoba is very well captured by you.

Though it is a very sad commentary that three of them have been killed last month in the very same reserve or they too could have ended up on your camera.

Good photography.
Regards,