Tadoba: Tiger, tiger burning bright, in the middle of the ....... morning

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It was a gruelling 9 hour drive from Satpura to the next game park Tadoba, with just three 5 minute comfort breaks and a brief stop for the driver to have a cup of tea. You have to be tough to travel with the Thomases! The journey was made longer by the fact that there were virtually no signs to show the way to the lodge, so our poor driver was constantly phoning them to ask for instructions, and checking with people en route.

Svasara Lodge is owned by a big fat man who always scowls at everyone, but it is managed by a very nice Indian couple who speak posh English and are always very jovial. 530am alarm call, 600am coffee and biscuits, 610am departure to the nearby park gate. Bureaucratic procedures followed, extortion of 500 rupees for having a nice camera (no receipt, of course but they do it to everyone including the Indian visitors) and off we go. Tadoba lacks the interesting terrain of Satpura but does have lots of tigers, though only 10% of the park is open, but that is the Forest Department in India.......we do see a tiger though in fairly short order, sitting on a little island where it has taken a recently killed spotted deer. She emerges from the grass, then retires to rest and eat. We thought this was a good sighting but that was before what we were to see tomorrow......

Plenty of deer, gaur, sambhar, birds, crocs......you get about 2.5 hours off between morning and afternoon drives, meaning by dinnertime you are pretty shattered. Early nights all round.



22 Feb

The day dawned grey, overcast and raining (what is going on, this is India in February?!). We set off into the park and it starts to rain again, thunder and lightning. “Please we go back to the gate yes” says the driver, back we go, and sit glumly in a bamboo hut with cloying mud on our feet and mosquitoes buzzing around. Ten minutes later we are off again, rain has stopped as we drive off through the warm mist. Can't see very far and the animals have stayed in bed. A lousy morning beckons.

We photograph a few deer, some birds and a mother owl who hoots out of a tree at us while her two babies peer anxiously out from behind her and the father looks sternly down from another branch. We set off back towards the gate when on a wide metalled forest road our progress is halted as there are three Gypsies in front with people photographing some wild dogs in the brush to the side of the road ahead of us. We are pleased to see our very first wild dog.

Then for some reason our tracker chooses that moment to turn around and look back down the road and all hell breaks loose. “Tiger! 50 yards back on road!” he yells. We careen backwards at about 40 mph, one hand on the rollbar and one shooting pictures. We stop about 20 feet from the tiger that is just sitting there looking into the bushes. This is P2 who we had glimpsed yesterday. Suddenly she looks back down the road and sees a wild dog advancing towards us, then two more appear. They trot down the road oblivious to the danger. The tIger rises, tenses, moves forwards, still no reaction. She crouches, then flattens herself and starts to crawl forward. All this about 30 feet from us. When the three dogs are about 30 feet from her she springs, the dogs yelp and scatter, weaving, trying throw her off, but she swerves left and right with such awesome power and grace. After about five seconds the little dog veers right but is doomed. The tiger goes after it into the brush to the side of the road. We realise that the driver has been shooting backwards all this time in pursuit. We stop and two long blood-curdling screams from the dog rend the forest air. We are all shaking, including the driver and guide. The tiger emerges from the brush with the corpse in its mouth and settles down behind a clump of bamboo, its head and shoulders visible, and surveys its kill. There is utter awed silence in the forest apart from the continuous click of shutters from the four Gypsies. The tiger drops its prey, stands and walks slowly parallel to our vehicles no more than 8 feet away. It knows there are more dogs ahead and it has more business to attend to........



So now we are the celebrities in the Lodge for the day. After lunch we had a pleasant drive, saw the tiger again in the area of its kill, wandering off into the brush again. The excitement of the morning had obviously overcome Sara by now who succumbed to a touch of heat stroke but fortunately was fine by the next morning.

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Comments

[sarah pillay]

Wow what an adventure. I was on the edge of my seat reading yr report especially the tiger chasing the dogs. My heart was beating fast reading yr description I can understand how you would have felt

[Sarah Mears]

Tiger chase
Wow you were so lucky to see that chase. I\'m very impressed with the photo too. Awesome!