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...