the tigers

It didn't bode well - cloudy skies, occasional showers ... not good, apparently, for tiger-spotting.  But we drove out into Pench Tiger Reserve, keeping our fingers crossed.  & happily there was plenty of other wildlife to see - spotted deer everywhere, various other deer species including sambar deer and swamp deer, jackals, gaur, wild boar, and a few birds.  Then we saw a couple of other jeeps parked, their occupants looking high up into the trees - a leopard!  Or at least a couple of leopard legs dangling from a branch, a tail occasionally coming into view ... in some ways not a great sighting, but apparently it is quite rare to see a leopard in a tree so we were supposed to be particularly grateful for this sighting!

The next day we had another sighting of a leopard in a tree, with the face coming into view a couple of times, and plenty more nice views of other animals, but still no tiger.  On day three we heard the alarm calls of the langur monkeys, and waitied for ages for a tiger to appear, but it seems that these calls were in response to the leopard that a couple of us saw quickly crossing the track some distance away.

So we moved on to Kanha Tiger Reserve - and the weather started to improve.  More days of early (05:30) starts, more great views of all kinds of other creatures including the amazing blackbuck, but still no tigers.

Then the sun came out.  Our guide got a call, and we turned around to drive along a different track, eventually joining quite a number of other vehicles full of expectant tourists.  &, suddenly, there it (he) was, walking towards us along a narrow track between the trees, out onto the dirt track where we were parked, crossing between the vehicles with no interest at all in our presence, and off the other side back into the trees.  Wow!!  & then the next day another similar sighting, only this time a female tiger (the one in this picture).  Wow, wow!!  We were all very happy (turns out I wasn't the only one with 'tiger in the wild' on my life bucket list!).

There was still one final day of the tour left - where we got a very nice surprise as this creature kindly crossed the track beside us! 



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