Kanha National Park
We visited the Kanha National Park in April as we had gone to attend a wedding near Nagpur. Had done the safari permit booking way back in February only. 3 safaris were for Kanha zone whilst one was for Mukki zone. We stayed at a resort near the kisli gate.
17 April - We started from Nagpur around and 8am, and reached our resort around 2 pm. The drive was nice with greenery all around and through the ghat sections and forest. We checked in and had lunch. Soon it was time for us to enter the forest. We were told that evening we have very less time as Kanha zone is deep in the forest and we had to pass through Kisli zone to reach it. Upon entering the forest, we saw a lot of gypsys standing at a distance. Upon enquiring we were told that its kisli zone and there's a natural water point and usually there is a good sighting at that location but we cannot go there. We moved on and found this beautiful bird which is in abundance in this forest but is not found in Rajasthan.
Racket Tailed Drongo.
Took some shots and moved quickly as the guide said otherwise we might not get to see The Tiger. This is Typical of all Tiger reserve guides, they are only interested in showing a tiger, rest everything is of no value to them. Primarily because people want to see these big cats only and only then the guides get a hefty tip. We moved on and reached a small lake and stopped there. Upon enquiring it was told that there is one tigress with three cubs here and usually stays near this lake only. We got calls and saw some Crows hovering, pointing towards a probable kill but the tigers didnt come out. We came back had dinner and started playing board games. When we finished, it was 2am, so we quickly went to bed.
18 April- When I woke up, it was already 5:45 and we were late for our safari. Woke up everyone and quickly got ready and entered the park. We were lucky that the guards allowed us to go in as they were about to cancel our booking. We started our journey to kanha zone, checked a lot of area and finally reached the same point we were waiting at in the evening. We were told that one car had seen two cubs, rest everyone was waiting there. So I started looking around for subjects and got these dragonflies -
and this ibis -
After waiting for some time, I asked the guide to check other areas as it was getting a little hot and Tiger being lazy might not leave its place. We moved ahead to find a spot with a lot of chirping around. Upon searching, we found this Shikra perched in beautiful light. The birds were making noise because of its presence.
Further in the jungle we found this indian jackal patrolling in search of food.
This Painted Francolin came in beautiful light and started making a lot of noise.
Barahsingha or the swamp deer, is a deer found in this part of the country. They are beautiful and get their name from the tines in their antlers(horns). The mature stags usually have 10-14 tines, and hence the name Barah-singha.
This elephant was tamed and was used by forest guards to track tigers and patrol the park.
The safari ended with no tiger sighting again. Came back, had breakfast, slept. Afternoon we had Mukki zone which was far away and upon enquiring we were told that we can go from kisli gate itself passing the kanha zone in between. We did that, but looks like our luck was on a vacation somewhere. we got a flat tyre just as we reached mukki zone water point, only to realise that the spare was also flat! We could see gypsies standing and heard 1 call, asked the driver if we could move a bit (appx 10m) ahead and change the tyre later, but he said no
. The tiger probably moved ahead and so did the gypsies, leaving us stranded. We asked him to borrow a tyre from other gypsies, but all these gypsies were from mukki side and would not lend him a tyre. So we had either wait for one gypsy which was from our gate. But the guide and driver decided to go back to forest checkpost of this zone which was appx 1 km behind us. We were moving on the flat tyre, almost halfway to forest post, the driver stopped the car saying can't run on rim. So driver and the guide deliberated and decided to go on foot to the post to get some help and asked us to stay in the gypsy only, but then the guide stayed back with us. After about 15 minutes the kisli gate gypsy arrived, gave its spare to us and left as it had to reach back on time. The driver came back with two guards and then changed the tyre and we started heading back. Without a sighting, Again.
This day looked like the worst day as far as our luck was concerned. We had dinner and decided to go to bed and start early the next day as that would be our last safari in Kanha.
19 April - As planned we entered the park early in the morning and heard some calls coming from the kisli lake side. the guide asked the driver to hurry up and take us to the closest point and wait. After around 5 minutes we saw the tigress in the bushes at a distance, it was moving from our zone to to kisli zone lake.
After the tigress went, we moved on to explore the other areas and find more tigers. We chanced upon this herd of Gaur, The indian Bison. They are the heavyweights of this forest after the elephants.
As we moved ahead we saw pug-marks of another tiger and started following it. The tiger had actually walked for more than a kilometer on this track. We waited near a waterhole in search of the tiger but he wasn't there. Instead we found these-
Changeable Hawk Eagle
Racket Tailed Drongo
Woodpecker - My guess is Rufous woodpecker, correct me if I am wrong.
That ended our trip to Kanha National park and we started our journey back to Jaipur.