The Tigers of Ranthambore
It was just two days, we were back from from photography experience with nature photographers @ ranganthittu organised by YPS. Imti asked me 'how about some wildlife shooting and foresting at the Ramthambore', temptation was too hard to resist, well, I said 'thats exactly in my mind, but am curious of going to Bandwagarh'. After much draggings and discussions we decided to venture to ranthambore as we dint have much leaves availiable and bandwagarh required lot of travelling as it doesn't have direct connectivity. Flight, train, stay and forest entry (safari's) everything was booked well in advance atleast open gypsy safari's has to be booked prior, infact a two months prior and fortunately rajasthan has every bit and piece availiable online for bookings. thanks to Imti for taking the pain of booking.
For those with wildlife and adventure on their minds, what better place to start off with than Ranthambore, deep in the heart of Rajasthan?
Ranthambore the very name conjures up images of Mowgli and Sher Khan as we pore over literature available on the area, en route the 160 kms journey by road from Jaipur, the state capital. The National Highway that leads to the sleepy district of Sawai Madhopur is good in parts, quite bumpy in others. We had reached Jaipur through hbad stopover flight from bangalore on the midnight of 23rd april 2010 then took train from Jaipur to sawai madopur village, not in real terms as the railway station was major hop stop for the railways enroute.
We reached the resort, Tiger safari resort in the heart of buffer area of the ranthambore forest by all possible means of transport availiable (flight to jaipur, car from airport to railway station, train from jaipur to sawai madopur, then auto to reach the resort from railway stations :). The resort was a small set to buildings of cottages and rooms. We asked for a pool side room and checked in to it, well in the later days the pool side room well paid off us, yes exactly :). With mountains in the backdrop looming large behind us and gusts of wind making whoosh ! whoosh ! sounds aplenty, so that getting up early morning was no hassle since one had hardly slept through the night! It was no comfort to know that the area was rich in hyena and hold your breath, panthers, who liked a snack of the local stray dog meat! .
For next 3 days it was routine to get up early morning 5am and get ready with dress code (light colored cotton shorts and t-shirt, hats and most importantly cameras) to venture in to forest early morning 6am. Imti used to leave early to get the formalties done with forest dept office for the entry to the forest, the signed copies by all for undertaking by all that entry to forest if our own risk :(, the hotel or resorts folks too does this job but with a premium of 200 bugs per entry.
We were finally within the precincts of the Ranthambore National Park the day 1. As far as the eye could see, one could spot the walls of the giant 1000-year-old fortress of Ranthambore that was held by the Chauhan rulers of the 10th century before it became the former hunting grounds of the Rajas of Jaipur.
We were alloted zone 2 on the day one. Ranthambore core forest are was divided in to 5 zones by the forest department and allocated zones was computerised and was obsolutely randam.
Day 1 first half (Zone two)
Ten minutes into the first safari, No sight of the tiger or I was too quick to expect?, Ranthambore is known for tigers. But cannot expect tiger to be traced in every venture in to the forest. We could easily spot other animals like deers, samba deers, langoor, peacock, wild boars etc. also shot some good deer snaps and also birds like king fisher, fly catcher. Three hours past in the forests our 4x4 gypsy climbing on stepp hills and rocks but no luck with the tiger spotting, but we admired the beauty of the impregnable open bush land the impressive dry decidious forest. Without much luck we came back to the resort at 11am, had breakfast and relaxed on the pool side awaiting for next entry to forest at 2pm.
Langoor monkeys predominently found in ranthambore forest...
Day 2 First half (Zone two)
Again zone two and I was not that confident enough to spot the tiger on this route as it was the previous day, and yes it was dissapointing as usual, nothing much on this zone. We just managed to shoot some good birds enroute.
Tiger cub (2 yrs old) @ Zone 5 near the water spot...he was there for 20 min with domineering looks and eye contact!!
Day 3 First half (Zone One)
After about 15 to 20 minutes, another jeep arrived and she deviated her path. There were a bunch of deer grazing in the meadows, and she started stalking them. Are we gonna see her make a kill??
More pictures can be found on Picasa -
For those with wildlife and adventure on their minds, what better place to start off with than Ranthambore, deep in the heart of Rajasthan?
Ranthambore the very name conjures up images of Mowgli and Sher Khan as we pore over literature available on the area, en route the 160 kms journey by road from Jaipur, the state capital. The National Highway that leads to the sleepy district of Sawai Madhopur is good in parts, quite bumpy in others. We had reached Jaipur through hbad stopover flight from bangalore on the midnight of 23rd april 2010 then took train from Jaipur to sawai madopur village, not in real terms as the railway station was major hop stop for the railways enroute.
We reached the resort, Tiger safari resort in the heart of buffer area of the ranthambore forest by all possible means of transport availiable (flight to jaipur, car from airport to railway station, train from jaipur to sawai madopur, then auto to reach the resort from railway stations :). The resort was a small set to buildings of cottages and rooms. We asked for a pool side room and checked in to it, well in the later days the pool side room well paid off us, yes exactly :). With mountains in the backdrop looming large behind us and gusts of wind making whoosh ! whoosh ! sounds aplenty, so that getting up early morning was no hassle since one had hardly slept through the night! It was no comfort to know that the area was rich in hyena and hold your breath, panthers, who liked a snack of the local stray dog meat! .
For next 3 days it was routine to get up early morning 5am and get ready with dress code (light colored cotton shorts and t-shirt, hats and most importantly cameras) to venture in to forest early morning 6am. Imti used to leave early to get the formalties done with forest dept office for the entry to the forest, the signed copies by all for undertaking by all that entry to forest if our own risk :(, the hotel or resorts folks too does this job but with a premium of 200 bugs per entry.
We were finally within the precincts of the Ranthambore National Park the day 1. As far as the eye could see, one could spot the walls of the giant 1000-year-old fortress of Ranthambore that was held by the Chauhan rulers of the 10th century before it became the former hunting grounds of the Rajas of Jaipur.
We were alloted zone 2 on the day one. Ranthambore core forest are was divided in to 5 zones by the forest department and allocated zones was computerised and was obsolutely randam.
Day 1 first half (Zone two)
Ten minutes into the first safari, No sight of the tiger or I was too quick to expect?, Ranthambore is known for tigers. But cannot expect tiger to be traced in every venture in to the forest. We could easily spot other animals like deers, samba deers, langoor, peacock, wild boars etc. also shot some good deer snaps and also birds like king fisher, fly catcher. Three hours past in the forests our 4x4 gypsy climbing on stepp hills and rocks but no luck with the tiger spotting, but we admired the beauty of the impregnable open bush land the impressive dry decidious forest. Without much luck we came back to the resort at 11am, had breakfast and relaxed on the pool side awaiting for next entry to forest at 2pm.
Second half (Zone one)
Information from the forest guide was the zone one was more structurally rocky and road not so flat and expected the ride to be bumpy, well who is bothered when you are venturing in to forest. Two hrs past no spot of any wildlife, it was just open bush land everywhere and high ranthambore mountains to the right, brown dry trees looked like fossilled for decades, but they just come back alive during the monsoon thats the typical formulation of the decidious forests. Well 5 past 30 minutes we were about to exit from the core area, we noticed few gypsies on way, we just with half mind thought will wait with them, but yes it was right decision. There was tiger movement in the bushes, I was so excited to aleast have the glipse of this mejestic animal, even though it was not clearly visible, I attempted to take few shots at it. Soon it walks upwards and then not sure what prompted, it just walked past us for next 10 minutes giving us enough shots but yes it was 6 past and light was dull :( but I was satisfied with his brilliant spotting and fine phoses.
Day 2 First half (Zone two)
Again zone two and I was not that confident enough to spot the tiger on this route as it was the previous day, and yes it was dissapointing as usual, nothing much on this zone. We just managed to shoot some good birds enroute.
Day 2 second half (Zone Five)
This was quite memorable zone for me atleast, we had very informative forest guide and a racer driver with us. The driver did awesome job and again the jeep was pretty new, the drive was fantastic and zone five is supposedly were beautify route and we could feel it.And also this route proved very lucky for us too, we had spotting of the male tiger relaxing in the pool of water, I did click some very good pictures as the tiger was pretty much there for 20 min.
Day 3 First half (Zone One)
One of the lucky route for us and thanks to tiger tracking techniques of Imti, it was quite evident of this previous experiences. He was able to track the male tiger back in this route which we had seen on the day one. It was awesome sighting, The best part was there was no other jeep around but soon they arrived. He kept walking straight towards us and we kept reversing the jeep. He scent marked her territory, yawned and continued to walk. It went so for more than 100 meters. It was an incredible feeling to photograph a huge tiger walking straight at you with eye-contact.
Sub-adult male @ Zone one...Yawning in front of us..its a rare shot we got..we were pretty close at the moment.
sub-adult male..Domineering eye-contact walking down the road..was bit angry on us..as we moved very close!
After about 15 to 20 minutes, another jeep arrived and she deviated her path. There were a bunch of deer grazing in the meadows, and she started stalking them. Are we gonna see her make a kill??
She stealthily moved towards deer as we watched her. Carefully placing her paws, not to make any noise, she inched closer. I had seen on documentaries tigers placing their paws softly on dried leaves, not to make any noise, and here I saw live in action. But then some of the deer spotted her and gave out alarm calls. Damn it! She was seen here. She sat down as slowly as she could, not to make any noise even if she was seen. Stayed there for few minutes, and disappeared into the bushes.
Day 3 Second half (Zone Three)
We were initially allocated Zone 1,but we were very keep on goin on zone 3 as we had never been there and it was supposedly very beautiful zone in entire ranthambore forest. So were requested forest officer and got special permission for zone 3, initially he was reluctant but agreed to out request. As said we had wonderful experience enroute, there was two lakes, core inside the forest, we did shot some awesome birds, samba deers and wild boar, but yeah no luck with tiger. Finally when we were on the exit route the T17 female tiger suposedly in zone five has come out of the forest and she was found relaxing in the buffer area, it was quite far, but we managed few shots and headed back to the our resort.
T-17 female tigress (Radio colored) found outside the buffer area...dominent in Zone Three.
We all enjoyed photographing and sighting tigers at Ranthambore, but I’m not sure if they did. We did report spotting of the tigers to the forests officials which might be of some use for conservation and sensus.
More pictures can be found on Picasa -
Cheers
Manjunath
Nice Travelogue maga... Small corrections...
ReplyDeleteDay 3 First half (Zone One)
It was a sub-adult male tiger (around 20 months)
Day 3 Second half (Zone Five)
It was zone three..The core part of the ranthombhore national park...