Blog Details

24Sep2022

Tigress in Rain

June the 13th 2015, a date that will remain etched in my memory for many years to come if not my entire life! It was the first day of that Ranthambore Tiger Photography Tour. The morning safari had been pretty much uneventful as far as tiger sighting or tiger spotting was concerned and all hopes were pinned on the afternoon safari to start the tiger sightings for the tour.

Even before the safari had started, dark clouds were gathering in the sky and were signifying some heavy rains in the next few hours, the hours of the tiger safari. The first 40 minutes of the safari was as uneventful as the morning round but then suddenly a tiger was spotted, he was walking at a steady pace with a chital fawn kill in his mouth. Before we could even lift our cameras he vanished into thick vegetation leaving us disheartened, no doubt tiger sighting had happened but we were yet to photograph one! At this very point we noticed the fresh pugmarks of a female tiger and started following it, few yards ahead the tigress had walked onto the grass by the side of the jeep track and there were no further pugmarks to follow. Some distance ahead the jeep track split into two, one going straight the other going right, we took the righ

And then a few metres ahead in a waterhole she was sitting, the tigress. Just as we arrived, a ruddy mongoose appeared on the opposite bank of the waterhole and seeing the tigress vanished immediately. The appearance of the mongoose alerted the tigress and she got up and slowly walked out of the waterhole onto the opposite bank of the waterhole. We had not noticed that it had already started raining a few drops and the tigress walked along the bank, then she sat down for a drink looking staight to us, it was now raining pretty heavily as is evident from the raindrops in the water, she drank we clicked and this went on for half a minute or a full minute. She slowly got up and walked, walked onto the rocks and then dissapeared behind it, she left leaving all of us in the safari vehicle content, with a few amazing images of the her drinking in rain.

0 Comments

Leave a comment