I had taken a cab from Dehradun to Ramnagar to join a few friends for a one week safari at Jim Corbett national park. The first night we had stayed at the “Corbett Green View Garden and Stay” guesthouse. The trip from Dehradun took around 5 hours and on arrival met up with Maneet Pal Singh, Samyak Kaninde and Manmohan Bindra, all three with a deep interest in wildlife photography. Anyhow on arrival at the guesthouse, I met up with them in the dining area after I had checked into my room. I paid the cab driver and after that he took off.
We were served pakoras and we had a discussion about which areas we would be visiting in the next few days. The plan was that the next morning, we would head over to Dhikala and stay there for the next three nights in the forest rest house after which we would stay two nights at the forest rest house at Jhirna. We did a total of 10 jeep safaris, 6 in Dhikala zone and remaining in Jhirna. We saw and photographed a number of wildlife. This was also my first trip to Jim Corbett National Park. Timing for morning safari was from 6:30am till 10:30am and afternoon safari timings were from 2pm till 6pm.
Here are my photos of the tiger which I had spotted during the jeep safaris. Tiger sightings are frequent and one has to be unlucky not to spot one after 6 safaris.
Female tiger walking grasslands in Dhikala.
There were jeeps on both sides so the tiger is given some space to get to the other side.
This was taken at Sambar road. The tiger was at a distance away on the other side of the river.
As the tiger comes out from the undergrowth away from the people who hope to get a glimpse of it, it glows brightly due to the sun shining off it’s striped coat.
During a jeep safari, we observed the tiger carefully stepping on the small stones to get to the other side of the Ramganga river.
Here I used my wide angle lens to capture the scene. The light was quite harsh as this was taken a few hours before sunset. The tiger can be seen trying to cross the river.
Tiger looking up as it crosses the river.
Wide shot of tiger trying to hunt cheetal deer but was later told it was unsuccessful in its attempt.
Female tiger of the grasslands marking her territory by spraying urine.
This I feel is an interesting photo which show the photographers intently clicking away with their high end camera and lenses while the tiger calmly sits down trying to grasp the situation looking back at them.
This was in Jhirna and we were atleast 8 feet away. Here I did not hesitate to take photos even though the tiger was staring directly at us. This was however a sub-adult male of 2.5 years.
This was not a very clear shot due to the harsh lighting conditions resulting in a hazy photograph but this shot has 5 tigers in frame. The male tiger, female tiger and 3 cubs. This was seen in Jhirna.
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