Day Eleven

It was our last morning for tigers and everyone wanted to go out to see some. It was 5:30 a.m. again and time to get to the park gate. We drove to the most likely spots and came up empty handed every time. There were, as usual, other things to shoot like jackals and two barasinga stags fighting for a mate. We heard many alarm calls, which is promising, and we heard the tiger roar, which is alarming, still no sightings though.  After another search we came across Jerry and Chris who told us about the mating tigers they had just photographed for a half an hour. We drove fast to the area quickly and saw people waving and pointing off a bridge. We got there just in time to see a tiger disappear into the forest. They told us it was a male and female walking along the dry creek right toward them, past them and into the forest. We gave up and went to the breakfast site and then planned on going home early. There were a couple of wood peckers by the site so we didn’t unpack right away. Good thing, because a guy came driving by and told us there was a big male tiger swimming in the watering hole.

We zoomed out of there like a rocket and covered five kilometers in about 60 seconds and got there just in time to have three vehicles tell us the tiger just left. They all took off and left us to our misery. At least there were two peacocks displaying at each other.

Then just past the peacocks, we saw a completely new tiger walking down to the pool! This was a female that walked past the peacock, turned around and backed into the jade green water of the pool. She flicked her tail in the water, drank, looked at us splashed around a little and got out with water streaming from her like Niagara Falls. She was magnificent as she strolled up the bank and around the back end of the water hole and into the forest. Now that’s the way to end a tiger safari in India.

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