A Trip to Remember - Part 2

...Contd from the previous post

May 27th - Afternoon Safari

Well, I am trying to remember the sequence of events from the afternoon of the 27th to the 30th but my brain just wont cooperate. I will have to start looking at the time stamps from the photos and try and patch together what happened.

We had another shot at the Tala zone on the afternoon and this time we decided to take a different route in the hope of seeing the Kankatti tigress and her cubs. The tigress named Kankatti by the locals go her name, after a fight with another tigress left her with almost no vision in her left eye. Her last litter of cubs had grown past 1 year before being killed by a rival male tiger who hoped to propagate his genes.

Nevertheless, Kankatti has apparently given birth to a litter of 3 cubs who were about 203 months old according to the local guide. We were hoping for lady luck to be by our side as she had made a kill (or probably a bait was kept for her given her disabilities?) a few days back and most of the groups who had taken this route on earlier safaris had their share of luck in spotting her with the cubs.

We decided to stop at the location she was last seen and not take other detours like the other groups did. It was just a game of wait and watch for us. The afternoon sun was pretty merciless and the only sights I had for the first hour were of spotted deer feeding in the open meadows behind us.

I had just about given up hope of seeing anything when my friend Vallish, spotted the tigress descending from the woods to the thick grassland to the left of our jeep but a fair distance away (probably 150-200 meters). The next several minutes, are etched in my memory as she settled down in the grass and made a series of calls to her cubs. Through the 100-400 mm lens I could see the three little cubs make their way out from the thick cover of elephant grass to their mother. As a nature lover these are literally the sights you'd do anything to see and experience!

The tigress gently rolled on her back and began feeding the cubs and although I would not have close up photographs of the event to show, the experience was well and truly a magical one for me. The magic lasted for about 5 mins post which, she led her cubs back into the cover of the elephant grass and that was to be the last sighting I would have of her and the cubs during the trip. I cannot wait to get back to see the cubs next year!

Perhaps the only regret I had was not carrying my video camera with me. Lesson learned though!

We did not see much for the rest of the evening but I the sight I had witnessed was enough for me!

Photos: Kankatti and her cubs

Lens: Canon EF 100-400 USM IS

May 28th - Morning Safari

We found ourselves at the Tala gate once again at the crack of dawn on the 28th. We decided to take the same route as we did the previous evening in the hopes of seeing Kankatti and her cubs, hoping for a closer look this time. We rushed to the spot we saw her the last time around and waited for 10-15 mins when the driver received a call informing him about a sighting of a large male tiger in another part of the park. We decided to try our luck and were soon rushing to the spot which was a good 10 kms away from our present location.

The prospect of seeing a male tiger was excitement enough for me and when we reached the spot a good 20 mins later, we found several jeeps on the main road with camera shutters clicking away at a patch of grassland to the left of us. We drew up closer to the group and were blessed with the sight of the Bumera male, possibly the largest male in the park, sitting on the grass, relaxing after what appeared to be a big meal!

Sightings of Bumera were hugely popular with a lot of folks, I was told and there were photographers and film makers who who came to Bandhavgarh only to photograph him and no one else! Vallish did not like him too much as he was a "lazy" tiger who preferred to patrol the fringes of the park close to the outlying villages, in the hope of landing a easy kill in the form of a cow or a buffalo. He wasn't a real tiger in Vallish's books! 

He was also responsible for chasing away the mighty B-2 male (Charger and Sita's cubs) from his territory when he was in his prime. B-2 I gathered was Vallish's favorite tiger and this only made Bamera the villain in Vallish's books!

There were several park officials barking orders at the jeeps to go back after 5 mins and I did not understand the reason behind this. Three hundred rupee notes were passed on to the official and this meant we could linger on for however long we wanted. The magic of money works even in the deepest of jungles I wondered.

I took several shots of the big guy but could only get his face as his body was camouflaged in the grass. He finally got up several minutes later and I was able to get some full shots of him. He was certainly a pretty "fat" cat! He walked up to a bamboo thicket and made himself comfortable for the next 10-15 mins before more jeeps came into the area and the noise was annoying enough for him to finally get up and move across to the other side of the road. He almost brushed our jeep in the process and I could feel the hair in my arms just shoot up at the sight of seeing fully gown male tiger walk past you with nothing protecting you! Just 4-5 feet of space..that's all!

We saw a couple of barking deer on the way back out.

Photos: Bumera Male

Lens: Canon EF 100-400 USM IS

....to be continued!

A Trip to Remember - Part 1

This is going to end up being a fairly long post on a wonderful trip I made to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh from the May 26-29. I will therefore attempt to publish this in two separate parts.

The trip will go down as one of my most memorable trips and definitely the best wildlife experience I have had in all these years. I missed a chance to visit Bandhavgarh back in 2009 due to work commitments and when the opportunity to make this trip presented itself back in March this year, I did not want to miss the chance.

Vallish Vasuki, a wildlife conservationist whom I met on Facebook was running the trip and I highly recommend anyone wanting to experience wildlife in the Indian forest to participate in the tours he offers.

We were to be a group of 5 originally but had last minute drop outs and this meant only me and Vallish were to make the journey. The cost of this adventure had just jumped three fold but the excitement of being able to sport and photograph tigers laid to rest any apprehensions on the cost front.

We had last minute headache's getting train tickets and this pushed back our trip by a day. We finally managed to get tickets for the 24th of May and I was wondering how the hell I was going to spend 38 hours on the train. Luckily, technology was there to lend a helping hand and I had loaded a couple of movies on my Nexus 7 and also took 3 books to read and I ended reading none of them but that's a different story. 

The train journey took us through the longest possible route in my opinion with stops at Chennai, Vijaywada, Warangal, Ramagundam, Nagpur, Itarsi and Jabalpur (and several other stations) before chugging into Katni Junction at 11:45 pm on the 25th of May. A full 38 hours after it left Bangalore City Junction. Food served by IRCTC was pleasant for a change and there were no upset stomach's, people running to bathrooms kind of episodes.

The alternative route to get to Bandhavgarh is to take a flight to Jabalpur but options are limited with only Spicejet flying out of Bangalore (via Bombay). Air India flies direct from Delhi. I had made arrangements to take the flight back to Bangalore.

We had a cab arranged by the resort at Katni and I found myself at the Tiger Inn at 2 am on the 26th after a 2 hour horror journey across non existent roads. We managed to spot the Indian Jackal on the way and also stopped by for some "chai" on the way at one of those dhabas that would have your better half shaking her head in disgust!

Contrary to the weather reports that forecast 45-47 degrees for the rest of the week, the weather was very pleasant.

Bandhavgarh apparently employs a system of advance bookings for safari's now that can be made on-line. Only 50 jeeps (mostly Maruti Gypsy) are allowed into the park for a safari. There are 3 major zones that people can opt forthe safari  namely Tala, Magadi and Tittoli (not sure if I got the spelling right). Tala is by far the most visited zone with Magadi being the next. Titoli is not used by many as it is the largest zone with the least probability of spotting the big cat.

We had booked safari's to Magadi on the morning of the 26th and the rest of the trips were all to the Tala zone.

Side notes: I had rented a 100-400 mm Canon zoom lens from Toehold. The rental was Rs 800 a day. As usual I carried my Canon EOS 450D with an assortment of SD cards (54 GB in total storage capacity) and a spare battery (a lesson I learned the hard way when I made a trip to Agumbe in Sept 2013 and ran out of battery on the first day)

May 26 Morning Safari:

We were on the jeep headed to Magadi at 4:30 am. The gates are opened at 5:30 am and the morning safari lasts a whole 4 hours (much longer than what the parks in South India like Kabini, Bandipur offer) with the afternoon one lasting 3 hours (1530-1830 hrs).

There were about 12 Gypsy's that morning but we were first in the line and I was quite alarmed to see the driver dashing through the jungle once the gates were opened. It seemed that every driver wanted to out do the other by trying to get to sighting spot first. Speed rules be damned. 

15 minutes into the drive we approached a bend and straight ahead of us was a sub adult female tigress sitting right in the middle of the tracks! An adrenaline rush swept by body and I pulled out the camera and began snapping away. A tinge of fear with all that excitement of seeing the apex predator of the Indian jungle just 10-15 feet way is one that I believe every wild life lover must experience at least once in their life time. I'll let the pictures do some talking for now

Subject: Sub-adult Female Tigress. She is one of three off springs (another female and an adult) of the Rajbhera Tigress. Age - approx a year and 4 months per the guide.

Spotted: 26 May at approx 5:45 am

Just as I was hoping to study this magnificent tigress for some more time, a Gypsy driver came beside our vehicle and literally stamped on his brakes making a noise that disturbed her and she quietly got up and walked away into the thicket's not to be seen again for the rest of my trip. She was of course spotted several times on other safari's but this was the last I saw of her. I wonder why people can be so stupid but such questions rarely give us the answers we need.

The rest of the morning safari was spent on trying to look out for the other cubs of the Rajbhera tigress. Vallish had seen these tigers when they were cubs back in 2013 and he knew the name of almost every tiger and their cubs which I found quite fascinating.

I did take some photos of the Indian Roller, Madhya Pradesh's state bird.

May 26 Afternoon Safari:

We headed to the Tala zone in the afternoon but had no luck with spotting anything significant. Towards the end of the safari we witnessed a strange spectacle that is worthy of mention. Vallish spotted a Rhesus macaque troubling a pea hen near by and on looking closer we were told by the guide that the peahen was protecting an egg she had just laid. The monkey sensed an easy meal and began to annoy the peahen. She finally gave up and left and the monkey quickly grabbed the egg and ran away with his prize. I did not know that monkeys ate eggs i.e until now.

May 27th  Morning Safari

We found ourselves back at Tala gate at 5 am and I was a little desperate to spot a tiger after "disappointing" afternoon the previous day. We took the route to the territory of the Rajbhera tigress in the hope of spotting her and we saw pug marks all around but did not see anything. We heard several alarm calls from the langurs and sambhar but our wait ended in disappointment. We were about to head back when a Sambhar alarm call once again ran out through the forest and we stopped and were rewarded with the sighting of the Rajbhera female, making her way down from the forest, possibly to a water hole that was to the left side of the track. 

She made her way down and sat down just about 6 feet from the vehicle and no amount of words in my limited vocabulary will be justice to the excitement I felt at spotting a fully grown female tigress sitting probably at striking distance from our jeep. She was too close at that point for me to get a full shot with my 100-400 mm lens but I managed to get quite a few closeup shots of the tigress and once again her stay was short lived when another idiot of a driver wanting to provide his guest with a better viewing angle raised the accelerator thereby disturbing the tigress. She ambled across the road and went off into the thickets, marking her territory on the way. She cross the road behind the gypsy but to my disappointment, I saw that the photos I took had been overexposed as I failed to adjust the focal length when she was crossing.

Subject: Rajbhera Female (approx 10 yrs old)

Spotted: 27 May at approx 8:30 am

Other Subjects:

Sambhar, Spotted Deer sparring, Indian Roller bird

...to be continued

The grandeur of Yosemite!

I had the chance, thanks to the infinite blessings of the almighty (blessings that never cease to stop) to visit Yosemite National Park in California and the place just blew me away. I will just let the pictures below speak for themselves!

28 hours - 670 kms and a Broken Wheel Rim

Impressed with the number of posts I seem to be churning out this March? That my friend is partly because I'm pretty jobless and partly because of my renewed enthusiasm for doing something constructive during the weekends.

The weekend was spent road tripping across Talakad (well almost went there but the horrendous road condition prompted me to cut short the trip), Mysore, Bandipur, Mudmalai, Ooty and Lovedale within a span of 28 hours! I got back from Chennai on 6th morning and was all set to hit the road at 2pm with a childhood friend. My car must have been cursing me (if cars can even do that) for I was about to take it on another arduous journey. Its been 8months since I got the thing and its already clocked up 13000 kms.

Halfway towards Mysore, I decided on taking a diversion near Maddur to Talakad, the scene of an ancient temple complex that was buried in the sands on the Cauvery riverbanks before archeologists managed to dig it out. Talakad is about 53 kms from Maddur and it was about 4:30 and we imagined that we could cover the distance and watch the sunset at Talakad. Wah, I was becoming a romantic. Well plans were plans and we were halted about 25 kms before Talakad due to the pathetic condition of the roads. The front and rear suspensions of the car were literally begging for mercy. We stopped by a lake and decided to explore the bird life around the lake and the surrounding fields. I am not an expert on birds but I can guarantee that an ornithologist would have had a blast at this place. There were storks, eagles, pond herons, kingfishers, hornbills and plenty more. The sunset was beautiful and we managed to take a couple of good photos.

Photograph 1: Buffalo Lazing Around in the Water
Location: Lake near Talakad

Photograph 2: Watch the Birdie!
Location: Lake near Talakad

Photograph 3: Whatay Sunset!
Location: Lake near Talakad

Photograph 4: Reflections
Location: Lake near Talakad

We headed back towards Maddur after sunset only to find ourselves in New York! Hard to believe? Well that's what the milestone said:

We reached Mysore at about 8 and checked-in to the Ginger Hotel (www.gingerhotels.com). I'd highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to stop over at Mysore. The rooms are neat and comfortable and the price tag isn't too high (1700 for 2 persons per night all taxes inclusive). A chilled beer and dinner later, we hit the sack. We left for Bandipur at 4:30 am and the roads were pretty good till Gundlupet (Watch out for those unmarked speed breakers. They are chassis killers I tell you!). The stretch of road from Gundlupet to the entrance of Bandipur is horrendous to say the least (for about 12kms or so). You'd think you've been space lifted to the moon!. Wonder why Karnataka roads are so damn bad! Yeddy's gotta have a look at this road to beleive it. We reached the Bandipur Forest Department office at 6 am and had to wait for an hour or so before we could get on the safari bus. The forest guards warned us that there was very little wildlife to be spotted and that we ought to take the Rs90 safari by bus and not use the Jeep (Rs 400 per head).

The safari true to the guards words, wasn't spectacular. Large stretches of the jungle seemed to have fallen prey to the forest fires and all we saw were a couple of kingfishers, wild boar, chital (plenty of them), a male and female sambhar and a peacock. So much for all the excitement!

Photograph 1: Black Faced Monkey
Location:Bandipur

Photograph 2: Early Morning (Fanghorn forest anyone?)
Location:Bandipur

Next up was a drive through Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (the roads are ofcourse so muhc better once you cross over to Tamil Nadu (Tamilian pride? No sireee, just stating the facts)), to Ooty via the Sigur Ghat. I had traveled by this ghat road just once (when I was in 9th standard) and its an absolute thrill to drive. Forest on both sides, a good road with 36 hair pin bends. Breathing the fresh air of the Nilgiris was thrilling as always and as nostalgic too. We reached Ooty at about 10 and went around town buying those lovely home made chocolates, having fresh bun and butter at National Bakery (I'm glad that I am beginning to enjoy these small yet immensely pleasurable delights that brings be back to my childhood in the Nilgiris) etc. We decided to go to Lovedale and have a look at the school but all we could see was the Lovedale station. We were denied permission to enter the school because the frigging asshole of the Deputy Headmaster thought we would disturb the boys and girls who were preparing for their examinations. What a son of a bitch! I met Mr. Mani, my old Tamil teacher from school after almost 14 years and he hasn't changed one bit! (There a touch of gray hair here and there, the belly is gone but other than than the man hasn't aged a bit!). Disappointed, we left Lovedale cursing the DHM. We stopped by a one of my favorite places in Lovedale, Granduff Road and took some photos of the Ketty Valley. Floriculture seems to have taken off big time in the Nilgiris.

Photograph 1: At Lovedale Station
Location: Lovedale

Photograph 2: At Granduff Road overlooking the Ketti Valley
Location: Lovedale

We headed back towards Mysore at about 11:15 and on the way gave a life to a forest guard (who's number I stored) who apparently works at Vazhaithoppu (Banana Grove). This place was made famous by Kenneth Anderson who shot a man eating tiger here 30 or 40 years ago. I should probably plan on a trip here some day. On the way back we did spot a herd of 5 female elephants trying to salvage some food.

Photograph 1: Elephants
Location: Near Mavanhalla


We reached Mysore at about 1:15 and broke journey for an hour to have our lunch. I asked Shibu to take over the wheels till we reached Bangalore. The journey was uneventful till after Maddur when our man fell asleep on the wheel of the car for a second and luckily we only lost the wheel cap to the divider. There was silence for the rest of the way. We stopped over for a quick cuppa chai and reached Bangalore at about 7. The odo read 650 kms. Whatay weekend!

Lapakshi - Feb 2008

I'll probably remember this trip for 2 reasons. Firstly I did not have a clue as to where Lepakshi was and ended up going half the way to Kolar before realizing that I was in a totally different direction and ended up biking an extra 2 hours before getting there. Secondly, when I found out that there were no places to have food. I had to make do with a packet of Good Day. The architecture at Lepakshi is outstanding and remains one of the few places where once can marvel at architecture from the Viajayanagra empire. Lepakshi is a small village located in the Anantapur District, in Andhra Pradesh, India. It is 15 km east of Hindupur and about 120 km north of Bangalore.

Here we go with the snaps

Photograph 1: Temple Corridor
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens


Photograph 2: Nandhi (Lord Shivas Vehicle)
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens


Photograph 3: Carving on a pillar (Closeup)
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens


Photograph 4: Pillar in the main temple hall (Closeup)
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens



Photograph 5: Main Temple Complex
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens


Photograph 6: Lord Shiva (depicted as a Lingam)
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens


Photograph 7: Lord Ganesha
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens


Photograph 8: Mandapa Ruins
Location: Lepakshi
Date: Feb 2008
Equipment: Canon EOS 300, ISO 200, Canon EF 28-85mm Lens