I was totally disappointed with the safari arrangements made
at Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and tourism department of Tamil Nadu needs to
develop it as they take you in canter and will drive a round of say 5 kms and
back! If you get anything it is your luck and duration depends on sightings. The employee's reply itself says that they are doing us a favour by taking us on wildlife safari. So
it was like wastage of time and money both though charges are not much. I was
so disappointed and my friends who accompanied me were visiting a wildlife
safari for the first time and they also were also not happy from the safari we had
and we then decided not to take anymore safari here at Mudumalai Tiger Reserve.
So we were returning back to our home stay De Rock, when I saw elephants walking on my right side and told Rohit to halt the car and there was commotion about something and police was also present. After sometime I saw police apprehending two people and putting them into the car, after which the traffic was cleared by the police, then I got the
chance to click both mother and baby elephant and then it struck me that she
was protecting her, hence she trumpeted to warn the people who were walking up
to them to click their images. The Mother Elephant was very angry and was trying to hide
her baby calf, but I did click an image where the baby calf just came in
between mother’s four legs. Take a look here:
Since the light was less, I could not get better image than
this and it was clicked with Nikon D3200 and Nikkor 70-300mm lens. She was so angry and the baby calf was afraid even to come out because of us who are educated and still do not understand that they are wild animals and they are not governed by rules, hence if they attack out of self defense no one can help you in this case. Hence make sure you do not break forest rules and try to enjoy the sighting from a safe distance.
I would like to narrate an incident which took place when I visited Bandipur for the first time in April 2012, I was with my family and into the first safari, where we spotted a herd of Elephants with a calf of 7 days and I could feel that Mother Elephant was uncomfortable with us watching them, now in my jeep there was a couple who had put on a strong perfume and had forgotten to switch of the flash. These were the two reason for the Mother Elephant to charge towards us, though they were mock charges, but what if she had given a real charge and our jeep driver was also frightened which could be seen from the way he started the jeep and in a hurry to drive it out of elephant's reach the jeep could not start, now I was all the more frightened, but those were mock charges hence we were safe! This little experiences teach us about do's and don'ts of Jungle Safari. Every briefing about the wildlife safari will be about the do's and don't's , one needs to pay full attention to it, and learn from other's mistakes. Do not tease wild animals and they will not harm you is the basic rule and one needs to keep that in mind every time you are in wild.
I'm really sorry, could not get many images, but I promise next trip will have amazing images to mesmerise you all! Next trip is to home in September, Goa where I can get Kingfishers,
Weaver birds & many more. See you till the next time. For more stay tuned !
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