India Tiger Photo Safaris
Trip Two Report Summary
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India Tiger Photo Safri, Trip One
Trip Two
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India Tiger Photo Safari Trip 2 Report Summary
Our second photo safari was even more successful than the first, with our group amassing 54 Tiger sightings, 6 Leopards, 7 Sloth Bears, 30 or so Dhole or Indian Wild Dogs, and a few Jungle Cats. The weather was warmer and in contrast to the first trip, where on a game track pre-sunrise it was dowright cold, the air was warm enough to be cooling pleasant. By afternoon it was hot, and the parks switched departure and closing times, beginning at 4PM in the afternoon and ending at 6:30.
As the temperatures increase tigers are supposed to visit water more frequently, and indeed our group had two or three encounters where tigers came to drink or soak. However, that behavioral difference was slight, and would not be sufficient for me to say to anyone ‘Do the second trip for more tigers.’ As it gets hotter tigers stop moving earlier in the morning and start the afternoon activity later in the evening, so actual tiger opportunity hours are reduced. Our luck, with tigers, had less to do with the date than our simply having wonderful luck. And we did.
Still, I didn’t get my ‘dream shot,’ a tiger at eye-level lying or sitting on a rock. But Tom, Caroline, Cheryl, and Kathy certainly did, as luck had it that the tiger my elephant mahout was working moved, leaving the better, dream-shot tiger the only one available for the next two elephants. Their shots were wonderful. (Photo, Left: Tom Wester)
I didn’t get another ‘dream shot,’ of a tiger coming to a water hole in late afternoon light, but Eric and Lana sure came close, at a different water hole, when a tiger soaked up to her shoulders in a stream. The next evening, Mary came very, very close as well, as she and Tom were at that same stream when the tigress returned, scent-marked a bamboo stand, and came to rest lying on the stream bank in the golden light.
I never got a relaxed tiger lying in low grass next to the track, but Pat and Carolyn did, as all three full-grown tiger cubs came out into the road and one lay down, facing them, in perfect view in perfect light. John and Pat had several wonderful opportunities as one or two tigers stepped into an opening and walked ‘right down the barrel’ of their lenses for vertical portraits. (Photo, Left: Pat Collins)
I’m not complaining, for I had at least 24 tiger sightings myself out of the group’s 54 (Cheryl had the record with 32, and others were close) and I too had some wonderful opportunities, including the big male tiger that left his shady resting spot beneath a tree and walked towards the track. We raced ahead, hoping that the tiger wouldn’t hold up in the low trees and he didn’t, but instead walked straight to Eric and I as we shot vertical, full-frame shots as the tiger closed, eventually walking within 2 yards of our vehicle.
Our other most-sought after subject, the endangered Dhole or Indian Wild Dog, cooperated as well. We had Dhole in three of the four parks we visited, and different photographers on different days in the various parks did great stuff. John had a pair in our second park that performed right next to the road, Pat had several good opportunities, including a family near a kill at our fourth park, and Mary had a great experience with a pair at our third park. She was lucky, for her Dell computer crashed (our computers do constantly since we purchased them) as she was downloading that card. As luck would have it, her very best images, of two Dhole in play, standing on their hind legs, was corrupted on her hard drive – 15 pictures corrupted on a card of 670 images, and they were of those shots! Fortunately, Mary downloads to an external HD at the same time, and only one image – and not the best – was corrupted when the computer crashed.
Our other big highlight was the Sloth Bear, an improbably shaggy, lumbering bear that is found in all four parks but where we’d have the best chance at the fourth, on our extension. On Trip One one vehicle had good luck with one bear, and up until our second extension, the last three days of our 6-7 weeks in India, I had yet to see one. Our first morning in the park I did, getting a nice shot as the bear stood up on its hind legs and later, when we saw it again, getting some full-frame shots as it ran across an open meadow.
Mary had great luck as well, when she and Sherry encountered a mother Sloth Bear with a cub riding its back in mid-morning. Their bear wasn’t shy and both photographers got some nice shots as the cub peered over its mother’s back. Sloth Bears are unusual in this, having their one or two cubs riding piggy-back at times until they are quite large.
Our Trip Two Trip Report details the entire trip in a day-to-day journal, but images tell so many thousand words stories far better. We’ve posted a few portfolios from the trip, of Pat’s and John’s and Tom’s tigers and other wildlife, as well as images from Joe and Mary Ann.
I’m writing this Trip Report Summary as we’re riding in an SUV dodging traffic as we weave our way to the airport for our flight back to Delhi, and I am writing this with sadness as it is killing both of us to have to leave. India’s tiger shoot was tough, and challenging, and far different than our safaris to East Africa, but for all that the shooting was great and the images worth the occasional frustration.
We can’t wait to return, and will be doing so again next year, 2012, for trips that extend through March and into April. Both Mary and I are really excited about returning, for not only are we hoping to finally get some of the dream shots that we missed, but the Tigresses we saw with nearly full-grown cubs should now (in spring of 2012) we raising new litters of small cubs!
Both of our trips in 2011 were scouting trips and we weren’t sure whether we’d like India, find tigers too difficult to find or photograph, or feel the experience as a whole was not worth repeating. Instead, the trips went off like clock-work, the shooting was varied and wonderful, and the people, staff, and lodging was great.
In prepping for the trip I believed that we were offering the best possible Tiger photography safari possible, and now, with two trips as validation, I’m certain of it. 25 tiger sightings on the first trip, 54 on the second, dozens of birds, ALL of the mammals we could expect to see, and photos of all.
If you are interested in next year’s trips, contact our office ASAP or place a deposit immediately. Tigers are the most endangered of the big cats, and probably less than 1,600 exist in all of India. Poaching, mainly for tiger medicines for China or ceremonial robes for Tibet, is wiping out the tiger and many authorities believe by 2030 the tiger will be extinct in the wild. Tourism, and the money it generates, demonstrating the economic value of tiger preservation (forget the intrinsic beauty of the tiger and moral obligation the world should have for preserving the species), may be the tiger’s only hope. I’ve seen all of the Big Cats in the wild, and honestly, nothing compares. It is the king of cats, the most beautiful, charismatic, powerful cat, and the challenge of getting a great image only intensifies one’s appreciation.
Join us and help save the tiger.
For more images, see our trip reports, Trip One or Trip Two.