Wildlife and Wildlife Photography - Mudumalai Tiger Reserve - August 2016

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 !

Wildlife and Wildlife Photography - Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, August 2016

Honestly my this trip to Masinagudi was to spot the Black Panther, but as we all know that precious things we do not get so easily, so this trip was incomplete as I did not get to spot Black Panther.

Masinagudi trip was planned a month earlier & there were many additions & then deletions, but lastly ‘Hum Paanch’ (Five of us) were left from 10. Five of us were Sandeep, Sumit, Lingraj, Rohit & Yours truely.  So we took one of our friend’s car & left on Friday the 12^th August 2016. It was my first trip with friends, & I wanted it to be the memorable one. The plan was to stay at Masinagudi for 2 nights & then move to Ooty, Coonoor & then back to Bangalore.

The route plan was to go through Bandipur National Park, I had my camera ready & this time it was NikonD3200 with Nikkor lens 70-300mm, now the reason for not going to the higher models, the weather played the major role in deciding the model. It is really a very user friendly & it helps you to learn a lot. This was supposed to be my first all night trip & the longest road trip so far.

So we started on 12^th night & we reached Bandipur at 4:15 hours & we had to wait because the gates would happen only at 6:00 hrs. So we had some clicks & then I took out my camera & was ready to take the first picture of the trip.

By 6:30, we were through the gate & we saw both side, huge herds of Spotted Deer, then came Bison & Elephants, & by 7:00 hrs we were into Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, TamilNadu. Beautiful l&scapes & lovely narrow roads, we could see the huge Nilgiri Range & by 9:20 hrs, we reached our destination De Rock, Masinagudi.

Our plan was to go for evening safari & after lunch we started towards the ticket counter which was 6-7 kms away from our homestay. On our way, we saw 7-8 cars spotting something & I told Rohit to go ahead & see & to our left we saw an Elephant, could not be picturized as it was way far & lots of bushes & parallel to it was the National Animal of India, The Royal Bengal Tiger, again way far & could only be seen half of it, before it went into the bushes. Probably, a 15 mins earlier it had crossed the road where the cars were halted, as it is rightly said ‘You need to be at the right spot at the right time’, holds true in this case as well, had we been a little earlier or a lot earlier, we would have got it or again missed it respectively.

So we reached the ticket counter & we saw a almost a huge crowd of 100 people, excluding us & to my disappointment, only two canters & the timings were from 2 pm to 6pm & I asked the counter person, “what would be the duration of Safari?”, he replied “ depending on the sighting”. & I knew this was not my type of safari & we got our chance around 18:15 hrs & we only saw deer as everyone in the canter was excited to see the deer & lastly saw an Elephant, which was old, lonely & almost on the verge of natural death. Then we saw the National bird of India, the Peacock & it was beautifully sitting as if a statue was placed there, that made my day. Apart from Spotted Deer, Elephant & Peacock, no other animal was spotted & we returned to the ending point.

We decided to take a trek next morning & moved towards our home stay, when we saw a huge traffic & a female Elephant having supper. Obviously, there was traffic & police had caught two people, who were drunk & had gone near the Elephant & her calf to take the images. Now the worst case would have been, the female Elephant would have trampled them & some cars here & there would have been flung in anger & ruthlessness of the huge animal, which would be a fitting reply for such stupid act of few educated illiterate people. Luckily, police was on time & caught them, saving a lot of trouble, otherwise the Elephants would have even flung our car, though we were not at any fault & I was able to take some images from moving car.The irony was that we saw more animals outside of the safari zone than in the safari and we decided not to go for anymore safari. 

Wildlife and Wildlife Photography - Elephants, Bandipur 2016

All eyes were trying to spot the National Animal of India - The Tiger, when one of them whispered a beautiful pair of Elephants! The eyes moved in the direction where this beautiful pair of Elephants were dancing looked like..............

Bandipur has always been one of my favourite wildlife destination, and yes I spotted my first Tiger here. It is a forest full of wildlife diversity and people love coming here, especially those who are wildlife and photography enthusiasts.

Bandipur Tiger Reserve is situated in Mysore, & Chamarajanagar districts of Karnataka. Kabini and Bandipur are separated by the Kabini river, which plays an important part of thriving the wildlife in the forests of Bandipur, Kabini and Wayanad. Bandipur has been a place where the tiger sighting has been regular and not to forget the Prince or the Alpha male tiger, which will definitely meet you the next time you go. Leopard and Bisons are also quite regularly sighted along with birds like Crested Hawk Eagle, Crested Serpent Eagle, Hoopoe, Shikra and many more. 

This is about the encounter I had with the most mesmerizing mammal - Elephants. Elephants are the largest mammals living on land and are divided into Asian Elephants & African Elephants. They can be found in Africa, & South East Asia. Asian Elephants can be divided into Sumatran, Indian, Srilankan, & Borneo. 

Elephants are herbivores and they normally prefer to stay near water and tend to move away or avoid to cross paths with the predators like Tiger, Lions, Leopards or Wild Dogs. This is because, the new born calves are more vulnerable than the adults. So even if any body nears their calves, they either charge or move away from that area. Elephants socialise in groups and in such a way that new groups can get mixed into the other group and thus they adjust themselves. Everyone helps each other and they are lead by Matriarch . The males separate once they reach puberty and then they go with other males. The group first makes calf safe and then they deal with danger, such is their culture and they do not stand any nuisance. It is said that they can run 1 km  while chasing someone.

I and Elephants have a history, for my first visit to Bandipur and the first animal we encountered was of a family of Elephants which had a baby just one week old. We were just admiring the cutie when some flash caused irritation to them and the Matriarch just made the calf and mother safe and charged, unfortunately our jeep did not start, luckily ti was just a mock charge! Phew! it was very close. That was my first wild encounter of Elephants and such an adventurous welcome to Bandipur I received back in 2012.

This time we saw a huge tusker just on the way to Bandipur's forest gates, unfortunately the images were not good, but as we moved in on the evening safari, So our eyes were itching to spot Tiger, when the naturalist whispered Elephants! Our eyes moved to the direction where he spotted a mother and calf dancing as it look like ............... Or She was trying to tell them that "we need to welcome them as they are admirers and not the killers, they are our defenders and not the destroyers. Welcome them baby, C'mon do not be shy!, " We need to save them, they are on verge of extinction, I would like to tell you all, please do your bit in saving these beautiful creatures.

Please see the image here :

Next we moved little further after trying to get the calf to welcome us, and we saw another lovely herd of Elephants again, now it was a huge group with adults and calves all together taking sand bath and trying to cool them from teh scorching heat. These mammals will not do anything, if you do not harass them and people take them in wrong sense and then they perform atrocities on them and thus these beautiful mammals are on verge of extinction.

Please check the image here:

The next day evening safari, we were trying to search the mother and calf pair, when we spotted calf's father as well with them and they were standing to welcome us like the last day, this time they were more cautious, but it was Kodak moment, relish the image here................

Bandipur has lot of resorts and forest guest house as well. The best option would be Jungle Lodges & Resorts , they have their own jeeps and canter to take around the wildlife enthusiast to the forest and the Forest departmetn has the facility of canter to take around the wildlife enthusiasts around the forest. The duration is the difference, the duration or timings are morning from 6:30 to 9:30 hrs and evenings 16:00 to 18:30 hrs and JLR's jeeps and canter take you around for the full 3 hrs in morning and 2.5 hrs in evening, while Forests department's canter will take you around only for 1 hour round and will bring you back. If you wish to take the Forest department's vehicle, book the ride in advance to avoid last minute hassles. The Forest department's website is tariff plan and safari plan by the Forest department.