The Grand Winter Tiger trail - Bandavgarh
Thanks to Natgeo documentary on Bhandavgarh, the 'The Tiger Princess'. It created strong curiosity in me to make a trip to this tiger land, although it was not in the list of places for this year. However our Khan saab (aka sher khan :) and myself had some plans for year end, which finally inclined towards bhandavgarh. As usual Khan started logistics planning for great winter tiger trip, started booking of gypsy, blocking guide, train and flight tickets etc etc and all in 3 months advance. Well, as we called it, fortunately it was really a great tiger trip for myself, Khan, Ravi rao and Naveen!
Let me first give some details on the park - Bandhavgarh National Park is spread over the vindhya hills in Madhya Pradesh. It consists of a core area of 105 sq km and a buffer area of approximately 400 sq km of topography varies between steep ridges, undulating, forest and open meadows. The density of the Tiger population at Bandhavgarh is the highest known in India, It has around 64 tigers (according to the data, but to me it seemed to be diminishing ) Most of the land is hilly, rocky terrain which keeps the tigers relatively in a high concentration and increases a chance of meeting with this stripped cat!
Getting there: Nearest Aiport is Nagpur and nearest Railway station is Katni near to Jabalpur or umariya station.
The route we took was - Train from Bangalore to Secundrabad, then to Jabalpur/Katni, and a taxi from Katni to Tala (bandavgarh).
Katni is a small village and train stops only for brief time so make sure to be alert from Jabalpur station itself. The tala village which is also the forest entry point with forest dept office is 105 km from the katni.
Stay: We were priviledged to stay at skay's camp, it was a feel of home away from home, what more can you ask when you travel and that too when stay is longer than a week. Yes thats exactly you feel under wings off Kay and Tiwariji. Kay and Tiwariji have great knowledge of the park's flora and fauna, and can provide you with loads of informations about the tiger population and habitat in general.
Kay always possessing an interest in wildlife & conservation. Kay is a self-taught wildlife artist. Her watercolour paintings and mixed media pictures are in many private collections. And Tiwariji an wildlife photographer and naturalist, his unique photographs depict some of the magnificent wildlife of India. He's author and coauthor of many books about wilderness and bandavgarh!
The camp itself is a birds haven, the garden has been planted with all manner of wonderful plants to have an healthy habitat to attract wildlife and provide freshly grown fruit and veg. Meals were lovely and very flexible to fit in with trips into the park. The rooms at the camp are cool, clean and comfortable but with the depleting temperature of bandavgarh, I only wish they had electric warmers :(
Evenings at camp was cozyin around camp fire with hot tea, soup along with dinner. Kay Ma’m use to join us during breakfast, lunch and dinner timings. The discussion and the information about the park, tigers were just awesome and remarkable...
For the next 6-7 days we spend most of our time in the forests, with our driver cum naturalist cum guide Ajay. The core area of forests has been divided based on zones or routes one has to take and thats decided by forest dept in order to divide the jeeps entering the park. Zone A was closed since jurjura tigress (who expired in an accident) liters were safe guarded in that area. So the reamining zones were B,C & D.
On the very first day we had sighted male tiger kalua in bushes so couldn't photograph though, thanks to Ajay and guide who tracked back from the spray on the road. But after that next 2 days of safaris were so bare, we dint have any sightings rather than samba deer, spotted, jackal and some birds.
It was just another morning to forest, which we never realised will be most memorable and exciting untill we found B2 the grand male tiger of bandavgarh appeared in front of us from nowhere, the gracious foot steps in glaring morning golden sunlight and straight towards us face to face. Added to it we were the only jeep to track him, I could hear cameras going clik cliks, it was special moment like a private photo session with super model phosing for us :)
As he walked towads us, the guide advised the driver to reverse the jeep to avoid him change the trail, its ethical for the nature lovers in the park to obey the rules of forest and keep as natural, not to disturb any habitat, being it a big cat or birds!
We went back and stood around 20 mtrs back and watched him walking towards us, he glanced us once in a while and walked his path, towards Godadam, we did captured all this trail with stills and Video (our official videographer Naveen :) . Added to this sighting, there was bonus of capturng him marking hi territory by spraying on a tree. The cliks din't stop untill he climbed the dam and hill and vanished in to the bushes...
Following day, to our surprise and luck, Mr Anil ambani was in the park with family on an yr end wilder trip I beleive. As anywhere in india it goes, forest dept excited about this not so new found VIP guest arranged Tiger show, which was officially stopped some yrs ago. Let me brief abt what is tiger show all about - The mahahut's on their elephat back go in search of tiger early in the morning by around 4am and tracks the whereabouts of the tiger and locks elephants to that trail, and the info is given to the camp which will guide the interested visitors in the jeeps to the spot, and then on to elephat back to the spot exactly where tiger is!
Well it sounds like a circus event but it might be worth to watch it for once but doesnt have the excitement when we track the tiger naturally.
The elephant drama continued for next two days untill Mr Ambaniji made his way back to finance capital of india which is also his home, in a noising helicoptor scaring all the wildlife of bhandavgarh park.
--Manjunath
Let me first give some details on the park - Bandhavgarh National Park is spread over the vindhya hills in Madhya Pradesh. It consists of a core area of 105 sq km and a buffer area of approximately 400 sq km of topography varies between steep ridges, undulating, forest and open meadows. The density of the Tiger population at Bandhavgarh is the highest known in India, It has around 64 tigers (according to the data, but to me it seemed to be diminishing ) Most of the land is hilly, rocky terrain which keeps the tigers relatively in a high concentration and increases a chance of meeting with this stripped cat!
 |
| The central Chakradara meadows of Bhandavgarh |
The route we took was - Train from Bangalore to Secundrabad, then to Jabalpur/Katni, and a taxi from Katni to Tala (bandavgarh).
Katni is a small village and train stops only for brief time so make sure to be alert from Jabalpur station itself. The tala village which is also the forest entry point with forest dept office is 105 km from the katni.
Stay: We were priviledged to stay at skay's camp, it was a feel of home away from home, what more can you ask when you travel and that too when stay is longer than a week. Yes thats exactly you feel under wings off Kay and Tiwariji. Kay and Tiwariji have great knowledge of the park's flora and fauna, and can provide you with loads of informations about the tiger population and habitat in general.
Kay always possessing an interest in wildlife & conservation. Kay is a self-taught wildlife artist. Her watercolour paintings and mixed media pictures are in many private collections. And Tiwariji an wildlife photographer and naturalist, his unique photographs depict some of the magnificent wildlife of India. He's author and coauthor of many books about wilderness and bandavgarh!
The camp itself is a birds haven, the garden has been planted with all manner of wonderful plants to have an healthy habitat to attract wildlife and provide freshly grown fruit and veg. Meals were lovely and very flexible to fit in with trips into the park. The rooms at the camp are cool, clean and comfortable but with the depleting temperature of bandavgarh, I only wish they had electric warmers :(
Evenings at camp was cozyin around camp fire with hot tea, soup along with dinner. Kay Ma’m use to join us during breakfast, lunch and dinner timings. The discussion and the information about the park, tigers were just awesome and remarkable...
For the next 6-7 days we spend most of our time in the forests, with our driver cum naturalist cum guide Ajay. The core area of forests has been divided based on zones or routes one has to take and thats decided by forest dept in order to divide the jeeps entering the park. Zone A was closed since jurjura tigress (who expired in an accident) liters were safe guarded in that area. So the reamining zones were B,C & D.
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| Baby Langur |
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| Indian Roller Phosing for us, its typically are far from humans |
On the very first day we had sighted male tiger kalua in bushes so couldn't photograph though, thanks to Ajay and guide who tracked back from the spray on the road. But after that next 2 days of safaris were so bare, we dint have any sightings rather than samba deer, spotted, jackal and some birds.
It was just another morning to forest, which we never realised will be most memorable and exciting untill we found B2 the grand male tiger of bandavgarh appeared in front of us from nowhere, the gracious foot steps in glaring morning golden sunlight and straight towards us face to face. Added to it we were the only jeep to track him, I could hear cameras going clik cliks, it was special moment like a private photo session with super model phosing for us :)
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| B2 the Grand Tiger of Bhandavgarh near GodaDam |
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| B2 - A grand portrait! |
Following day, to our surprise and luck, Mr Anil ambani was in the park with family on an yr end wilder trip I beleive. As anywhere in india it goes, forest dept excited about this not so new found VIP guest arranged Tiger show, which was officially stopped some yrs ago. Let me brief abt what is tiger show all about - The mahahut's on their elephat back go in search of tiger early in the morning by around 4am and tracks the whereabouts of the tiger and locks elephants to that trail, and the info is given to the camp which will guide the interested visitors in the jeeps to the spot, and then on to elephat back to the spot exactly where tiger is!
Well it sounds like a circus event but it might be worth to watch it for once but doesnt have the excitement when we track the tiger naturally.
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| B2 backlit |
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| Samba Deer quenching thirst |
Mr. Krishnamurthy,
ReplyDeleteI was checking site stats on our website for National Wildlife Humane Society, when I saw your blog as a referring url. I must say I am very appreciative of the banner link to our wildlife conservation website.
I saw no place to post, to thank you personally, so I just posted here. I hope you don't mind. We are a small, hard working nonprofit wildlife organization and can use all of the help we can get.
Over the course of last year, we began expanding our organization to include wildlife conservation allies in various places around the world. This has allowed NWHS to be a truly global organization.
Our most recent ally is Wildlife Trust of India, for the benefit of wild tigers in India. So this a delightful surprise to see our link accompanied by your wonderful photographs of tigers. How appropriate! If any of your readers are concerned about the plight of wild tigers, I would like to cordially invite them to explore the Wildlife Trust of India ally page at our website, to learn more about their awesome efforts to preserve wild tigers.
http://www.humanewildlife.org/wtitigers.html
Again, I would like to thank you for providing a link to our wildlife organization, at your very nice Blogger!
Patrick D. Webb
President:
National Wildlife Humane Society
Thanks Patrick for the kind words from you!
ReplyDeleteIts my pleasure infact if I coult be of some help. let me know any help required on conservation activities!
Reach me at skmanju@gmail.com