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Tiger Sightings in Kabini: A Thrilling Summer Safari Experience

2nd April 2025, 20:48 by Kanad Kalasur

There is nothing like seeing a tiger in Kabini! Or three tigers and a leopard, as it turned out.

BHPian Stryker recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

My last Kabini photolog was in May 2024, you can read/see it here. While I did manage to spot a lone tiger during a boat safari of all things, it was far away and was more record shots than anything else. After this I visited my favourite park twice without seeing any big cat at all, once in September and once in December. I had even written a lament earlier asking "Where have all the tigers gone?". Of course, in between, I visited Corbett and Tadoba with some amazing sightings, as a result of which my appetite for tigers was somewhat whetted. But still, there is nothing like seeing a tiger in Kabini! Or three tigers and a leopard, as it turned out. Kabini making a statement "Here I am! How dare you ignore me?" Apologies, dear park.

Being the beginning of summer and a long time without much rain, the park is quite dry. This is generally a good season for sightings as the tigers almost always tend to visit water bodies in the mornings and evenings, but photographically speaking it isn't a very good time. As you can see from the images below, the colour palette is almost exclusively shades of brown! Hardly any green, which makes for very undramatic photos. But hey these are tigers, you don't see them everyday (unless you are a safari driver), so I'll happily click any that I see.

As usual, I was there between Friday and Sunday for a total of four safaris. Started from Bengaluru around 0745, stopped at Srisailam Restaurant near the Kengeri Metro Station for a sinfully yummy Ghee Masala Dosa breakfast and reached JLR at around 1130. The Mysore Expressway is great to drive as usual, although there is no speed rush with the limit set at a lousy 100 Kmph. They should at least consider raising this to 120 Kmph. The road from Mysore to JLR is good, no bad patches except the occasional pot hole. The BMW 330 Li is an absolute dream to drive. The first thing I look at in the reception is the meticulously maintained sightings board. It is showing "Tiger, Leopard" in every safari for the last one week! I'm so excited that I forget to click a photo of that! I check in, have the usual good lunch and am ready for the first outing by 2:45 pm.

The first safari
Sighting boards are all very well and good, but the trepidation of whether I will see anything is always there at the beginning of each visit and each safari. We head straight to one of the numerous water tanks, where a tiger was seen in the morning. A couple of other vans are already here, with tourists excitedly pointing in one direction. But we can't see anything! The driver of another van points out a spot and says "Watch!" and within a minute, we see some movement.

A lone paw waving in the air! Whoever spotted this deserves an award. I would have missed it completely.

Yet another van comes from the opposite direction and stops a distance away. Tourists in that van are pointing in the opposite direction! Whoa, another tiger?? We move ahead a hundred meters or so to see what the hungama is all about and here is the second one hidden behind some undergrowth.

Since this one is more visible than the other, we decide to stay here and see if it gets up to go to the water, which is between both tigers. This tiger wants to go down to the cool tank, but is a little wary of doing so.

A long wait of nearly 30 minutes ensues, both I and the driver are very clear that we are not moving from this spot. Some of the other tourists in our van want to see if the first tiger is showing any signs of movement, but we will get to know of that by simply looking at people on other vans! Our spot is very good and I don't want to move from here. Patience is very critical in these situations, they don't move to our clock. The casual tourist does not realise this, expects action every minute and is very disappointed when nothing much happens for long stretches of time. After about half an hour, the tiger finally decides to get up and move. See what I mean by the perfect spot? Head on, right between the trees!

He keeps walking towards us and I keep clicking.

He is now in a much more open area, giving me the opportunity to capture some good images. Ah, if only the forest were green, this would have made for a superb portrait.

He is now quite close and doesn't seem to be ready to get to the water yet. He is also limping, seems to be injured in his right front leg. Probably a fight with another tiger over some girl, what else?

He sits down and relaxes in that famous tiger pose. You only see tigers sitting like this, leopards never (or at least very rarely) sit on the ground.

I zoom in close to get a portrait of this magnificent animal.

Meanhwhile, we hear some excitement from the people keeping a watch on the first tiger. I turn 180 degrees and see just the back of the tiger over the mud bank. So he is moving too!

Several vans have already left the area after their sighting of the second tiger that has come out in the open, so there are only about three vans still in place. We move ahead to our previous position to see the first tiger. Unfortunately he is sitting turned away from us.

The drivers say that the first and second tigers are son and father respectively, a very rare phenomenon of tigers being together. They are almost exclusively solitary animals. This collaboration has started recently and they have been seen together several times. The son is also almost fully grown, over three years old, so it is not really a sub-adult.

We return back to our position near the father, waiting for him to get to the water. After several minutes, he gets up and starts to move. Again, this would have been a brilliant photo if the forest were green! The setting sun lights up the animal perfectly, emphasizing the orange colour.

He finally reaches the water and sits down with a sigh of relief! In between he has come so close to our van that I'm not able to take any photos from my camera. I take a video from my phone, which in itself is an excellent camera. I'll post the videos later.

He gulps several gallons of this murky water. I can never understand how their digestive systems can process water that is so muddy and laden with algae. But then, they don't know about RO filters!

A close up image of an imposing specimen.

After another 15-20 minutes of cooling off in the water, he gets up and moves away in the direction of his son. You can almost hear the water dripping off him right?

He goes up the bank and the sunlight is amazing on the trees, but down where he is, there isn't much light. I'm waiting for him to get up to the rim, but for some reason, he delays going there, simply standing and looking off in that direction. We are not sure what catches his attention, there is nothing there except a couple of vans.

By the time he get where I want him, the sun has dropped behind the tree line and the exquisite light is gone. That light is present only for about a minute or so. Anyway, he quickly walks over the rim and is gone in flash.