Spotting tiger while on your foot!
Three days of trekking inside the forests of Bandipur in the Moolehole range, as part of the tiger estimate was a great experience. During the first two days of our stay and trekking inside the forest, we saw a large number of scats, pug marks etc. We would hold our breath and wait behind the bushes whenever we heard an alarm call by the langurs and the barking deers. But nothing can match the excitement of sighting a tiger when you are on foot!
On our last day of the count on 27th Jan 2010, the day began as usual. The early morning honking by the trucks and cars waiting for the forest gates to be opened, woke both me and Geeta Prasanna up by around 5.30 am. After our morning chores, bed tea and biscuits we set out for the herbivore estimate on the Hebbala trail. It was a two km trail and around 9 km away from the IB where we were put up. This estimate was being repeated for the second time. We began at around 6.45 am and finished our task by around 8.00 am. We saw bison, elephants and spotted deers during the count. Our guardian with a gun that day was Bommanna. We absolutely had no idea if that gun really worked. But he was an endearing person who kept us, two ladies, totally entertained with all his stories from the wild and his life while we were jotting down our records!
As it was our last day as part of the estimating team, and also as Geeta hadn’t seen a tiger in the wild till then, we got a brainwave of an idea. Bommanna had pointed towards a water body during the count and had claimed of seeing a tiger on many occasions around that place. As the count was anyways over, we pestered him to take us back to that waterhole to try our lady luck without giving him a choice of saying NO to the idea :) So off we went to that spot. Geeta prayed and decided to offer Rs.500 to her favourite deity if the tiger emerges, so it was a wait worth all its money :D. We sat around 30 ft away from the waterhole on fallen branches with around one meter of a gap between us on the uneven ground. Both Geeta and Bommanna were on higher ground. I was seated behind a tree. We waited in silence except for the sounds of the forest as per Bommanna’s strict instruction in mind of NO TALKING.
And indeed it was a long wait for our hero/heroine to emerge. Except for the consistent calls of the White-bellied drongos and Mynas nothing much was happening. I was feeling hungry and so was Geeta. We decided to open our tuck box and munched biscuits and chocolates. Suddenly there was a strong smell of urine in the air and me and Geeta looked at each other....but there was no sign of anything else... We heard a langur call in the distance...Little later I had a fleeting glimpse of a raptor and was feeling bad that I could not bring my Kodak Z980 as its battery was totally discharged (There was no electricity in the IB). My basic Point n shoot Casio camera was with me. Just to kill time I took it out from the backpack and was looking through its viewfinder. I observed some kind of movement on the other side of the bund. The dry habitat and the constant stare into the grassland had strained our eyes. I whispered "Spotted Deer" to others forgetting the NO TALK promise.
Geeta looked through her binocular and whispered aloud- "Hey, its tiger".I was numb. My God!And yes, it was a tiger as I saw it coming out of the bush into the open. It bent down and jumped into the waterhole. Oops!!!! and I lost him there as he was into the waterhole and since I on lower ground, I could not see him even though he was in a straight line from where I was seated. At that moment we both realized that Bommanna was looking somewhere else, towards the right. I tried to wave at him to see the tiger. Geeta whispered to him " Huli Huli “ He too got excited but, on the right side of the bund, his total attention was towards the other animal straying in. Surely it was an action-packed moment all around us. But my focus was towards the tiger and I could see the tiger getting up and looking sideways. While both Geeta and Bommanna, because of their seating position on higher ground could see the other animal stepping towards the bund area. Bommanna whispered "Henn Huli( female tiger). Surely his old tired eyes made him imagine it to be a female tiger “Click the photo" I could hear Geeta telling me; while looking through her binocular. "No its a leopard" was the next sentence I could hear. Wow! That's a double bonus!! I slowly stood up to get a better view of the tiger and saw that he was on alert! His tail was upright and he was looking at the direction of the leopard.
That leopard was a smart one. While realizing that the tiger was already there he/she ran away from the spot robbing me the chance of clicking a photo. Also because from where I was, it would not have been possible for me to click without moving around due to the huge tree in front of me. Felt bad but then the other thought that flashed my mind was that we three were sandwiched between two big cats and not sure if Bommanna’s gun can really fire or not :D. The tiger, meanwhile to make sure that no one was around in his territory, slowly started moving towards the direction where he saw the leopard straying in.
Tiger on the prowl !
Checking on ...
He was alert with his upright tail!
He paced around for a while...
Making sure the territory belonged to him
He kept pacing ...
When he was sure that no one was around him ( He hadn’t seen us till then), he slowly walked towards the bund again to drink water.
Suddenly he turned around and started coming towards our end of the bund. Oh god! My heart started beating heavily! When I look back and think, at that moment I was scared to death. Edge of the bund was just about 20 meters away from where we were standing at that time! I slowly bent down and took my backpack which was lying on the ground in case we were to run (?) Crazy thought for sure with not sure if Bommanna’s gun was true of any use :D. With mind going crazy I lost many precious moments of taking some good shots of the tiger taking strides towards us. Geeta tried to reassure me that nothing will happen which obviously did not register in my mind then. She was excited as her wishes got fulfilled and I was like, why why why we were there in the first place?
Meanwhile, the tiger was slowly stepping towards our end of the bund, coming till the edge of the bund. And then his head turned towards us and he saw me holding a camera through the tree branch!!.. He stood there and stared at me. It was an eye to eye contact. I was frozen. I didn't move!. I was actually shit scared at that moment. Not sure why as if to break that moment, the tiger looked back towards the grassland once and again turned his head to look at me. At this moment my finger pressed the shutter as I was statued there holding the camera aiming at him! Suddenly his tail went upright but he jumped away from us into the grassland ...just like magic ...he disappeared. To let us live to tell the tale to the world and keep cherishing the happy, scary and magical moments forever.
And with big Binaca smile on our faces, on our return to the base, we three were the stars of the day !!
