SO finally the cliché of the visit. Earlier four accounts- Bhangarh, Kankwari, Neelkanth and the Birds were quite fascinating and actually different from usual routines of visit to the national park. But then what about the wild inside you? Bhangarh might not haunt you but not sighting a tiger in the tiger reserve is certainly going to haunt you to a certain degree for a considerable duration of time. Purely on that terms Sariska has been third time lucky for me. My first trip to Sariska was almost thirty years ago when tiger safari was not a fancy idea, and second one 17 years ago when tiger was always second in my thought. (What was the first?) But then as I have always said that though its always fascinating to watch a tiger in the wild, but not watching it doesn't creates a sort
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I am not a birder specifically, but being interested in wildlife I love bird watching as much as I love sighting tigers. Both give you equal chance to play with your camera. All the tiger reserves and national parks per say (other than specific bird sanctuaries) too have rivers, lakes, ponds and other water holes which are shelter for waterfowls and migratory birds. Jungle themselves are best places to see the birds. Having been to few bird sanctuaries, this was first time I specifically kept time to see birds in a tiger reserve and I was certainly not disappointed. Hence, comes this fourth post from Sariska visit. Sariska is a big national park and has many perennial sources of water which in turn become good harbouring ground form birds. Hence, when you are close to a water body, ...
Read MoreBetween visits to Bhangarh and Kankwari forts, I had other three notable experiences. All are worth independent posts, that would certainly be in coming days. But, to me it seemed rather more appropriate to write about Kankwari fort immediately after Bhangarh. It helps more in drawing comparisons and parallels. Although the visit to Bhangarh fort had its worth because of all the stories attached to it and I was impressed by the fortress city as a whole, but I was largely disappointed by upkeep and ruins of the Bhangarh fort. In that context, visit to Kankwari fort right next day was a huge surprise... a pleasant one. I had read about Kankwari Fort sometime back but never had chance to visit it in my earlier trips to Sariska Tiger Reserve. Even the information available about
Read MoreHonestly, I had high hopes when I went to Kadalundi. It was one of the places which I had planned to visit during a very small leisure window on my visit to Kozhikode (erstwhile Calicut). It was late November and I could not have missed watching and photographing a few migratory birds. But, it was a disappointing outing. Spread over a cluster of islands, this sanctuary is said to be the abode for more than a hundred species of native birds and 60 species of migratory birds. The area where Kadalundi river flows into the Arabian sea is surrounded by hillocks. These hillocks besides creating a scenic environment also give a splendid view of the sanctuary, river mouth and the sea. Even the main railway line to Trivandrum passes through the sanctuary. Kadalundi also has a mangro...
Read MoreIts not a good news for al nature lovers. We are constantly pushing more and more species towards extinction- animals as well as plants. The Eastern Gorilla – the largest living primate – has been listed as Critically Endangered due to illegal hunting, according to the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species released on Sunday at the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place in Hawaiʻi. Eastern Gorilla is considered to be one of our closest cousins. Actually four out of six great ape species are now Critically Endangered – only one step away from going extinct – with the remaining two also under considerable threat of extinction. IUCN Red List update makes us realize just how quickly the global extinction crisis is escalating. Conservation action does work and we ha...
Read MoreThis is last post from my visit to Panna Tiger Reserve and National Park last month. And this one is not about tigers. I had always enjoyed wild, whether there is sighting of a big cat or not. Wild is always beautiful. Wanna Tiger Reserve and National Park has a beautiful topography and it owes much to the beautiful Ken river flowing through the reserve. It works as a lifeline for the forest and the wildlife here as you can see in the image below. A pair of Nilgai, no jungle in India is complete without them! A male sambhar crossing the road. This is one of the favourite foods of big cats. Something I captured for the first time- a spotted deer making a mating call to his partner. Novices will often misjudge a deer's mating call as an alarm call for the tiger sighting....
Read MoreTiger is a solitary animal, it likes to be alone in its territory along with his female partners. Often tigers get injured, many times fatally in territorial fights. Even two brothers will search for different territories once they are adult enough to hunt and feed for themselves and hence eventually their mother will leave them. As I mentioned in my last post (Read: Returning to the tiger in Panna) I was fortunate to watch two cubs on play. Mother was around but we couldn't see her as she was down in a nullah at a cooler place. Cubs don't look like cubs as they were almost more than a year old, but were still with their mother. We and the few other tourist vehicles located this family on a grassland right on the banks of the Ken river. Ken river flows through Panna Tiger reserve. So he
Read MorePanna tiger reserve has a special place personally for me. I have three personal firsts associated with this national park. It was here that I had my very first tiger sighting in the wild. This was also the place where I had my first and only tiger sighting while sitting on an elephant. Lastly, this is the only tiger reserve where I visited twice and had tiger sightings on both the occasions. And this time around, it was fortunate sighting of two cubs (photo above and below). Unluckily though, their mother remained elusive, although she was around. The gap of almost eleven years between these two visits to Panna had been a period of turmoil for this Tiger reserve. The story of Panna Tiger Reserve has not an ordinary one. A story of all hopes lost to an extraordinary resurrection. By
Read MoreHowever close you watch a tiger in a zoo, you won’t get that excitement. But you won’t be able to contain your anxiety on the thrill of watching a tiger in wild, in its own territory- however distant it might be. Am I wrong? You won’t say so, when you see satisfied faces coming out of tiger reserves after end of every safari, especially in India- home to most of the tigers in world in wild. Its different every time- the thrill, as I have felt in my all sightings of tiger in wild. This one was no different. So, can you spot the tiger in this photo below, taken on my very recent visit to Panna tiger reserve? Have a closer look- Tough, isn’t it? Spotting wild cats in the wild, especially the elusive ones, need a sharp pair of eyes and a powerful camera to shoot. But even a 400mm tel...
Read MoreThis might be a very rare happening in the history of wildlife conservation. A gene mutation has become something exotic and an aberration is been celebrated. Perhaps, beauty of a white tiger has lot to do with that. So fascinating that we have gone very far in actually preserving and breeding that mutation. That has brought us to a point where we have world’s only white tiger safari at Mukundpur in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh. The safari was thrown open for public this Sunday. I was there at that occasion. Why Mukundpur? White tigers have association with this region. Although Mukundpur is in Satna district, it borders adjoining Rewa district. Erstwhile royal family of Rewa has been the corner stone of conservation of white tigers. Actually, fact is that there has been no ...
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