Into the Wilderness - The 7th Safari at TATR

Day 5 5th May 2012 – 5.30 am


This was the last safari for us so obviously we were a bit sad. I was excited from the previous night. I captured the full moon without the tripod:

We started our journey at sharp 5.30 am. This time instead of Roshan, Ravi himself was driving. Our quest began with a sighting of a couple of roadside Sambar:

Some jungle fruit was abundant. Bantu actually quickly got down and picked up a few ripe ones – sweet as honey they were. Amazing!

An Indian Gaur with a familiar pose:

A wild boar could be seen from a close distance, crossing the road:

A family of spotted deer:

We didn’t really expect that we would see a tiger today, but we did. We saw one female strolling besides the road leisurely:

It was a female. She saw the cars are queued up at both sides so she decided to sit and look around, perhaps waiting for the cars to leave:

But no one was in a mood to leave her alone, so she decided to give a damn and started to cross the road and leave. The car ahead of us did not start as its ignition didn’t work. Since there was no place to overtake, we actually see her crossing the road unfortunately, which could have been a tremendous capture.

Below she was trying to cross the road:

And here, she has already crossed the road:

From a long distance one spotted deer was also watchfully staring at the Tigress, without making any movement:

His full family surrounded the male:

Another watch tower close by:

Dancing Peacocks, this time we saw them from the front:

Leaving the memory behind:

Landscape:

A group of spotted deer, they were really abundant in the jungle:

A skull:

We shall miss Tadoba:

Returning back we noticed a curious incident. A group of Indian Wild Dogs were resting nearby a waterhole. A sloth bear was peeping from the jungle and it was coming to waterhole. We were ready with the cameras, but the dogs suddenly attacked the bear and it ran away. We could not capture the shots of the bear. This happened for a couple of more time. The Wild Dogs made a statement to us that the waterhole was now ruled by them and they would not tolerate any intrusion from anyone. How true this is for every animal in the jungle – they are the rulers there and we are just intruders.

See his eyes:

Green Bee Eater:

Returning back, the big boss was inside the water with his head popping out:

So we finished off with a tiger sighting. We bade farewell to this amazing place and promised to come back again, but not only to see its inhabitants, but also to enjoy the sheer beauty of the jungle itself. 

Day 5 (5th May 2012) and Day 6 (6th may 2012)

We checked out from MTDC, had our lunch. Our car was waiting outside, arranged by Ravi. We headed off to Nagpur.

We boarded our train on time from Nagpur (Nagpur – Pune Express). It reached Pune at its scheduled time as well. So we were moving from one jungle to another, the concrete one.

Reaching home, it felt like that we have woken up from a dream. One really cannot imagine the experiences we had sitting at his couch at home. One has to be there and feel it by himself.

We certainly want to feel it again and again.