Tiger!

The Junglees went to BR Hills the weekend of September 2-3. Sowmya has written about it over at her blog.

My best experience from the whole trip was a tiger sighting. We had just entered the restricted forest area at 6 in the morning; everyone was too sleepy, but the alert ones who were sitting right in the front saw the tiger cross the road in front of them, walk over to the left and rest on the slope, watching us go by. They immediately alerted all of us and I could catch a glimpse of the cat's head. Our pleas, which then turned to wild shouts, asking the driver to stop, were futile. He just wouldn't stop! I caught up with him later asking for an explanation. He said "well, he crossed and went. Why stop?" Well, no point in arguing with him over that; the time was gone, and so was the tiger.

I've heard and read a lot about BR Hills via Kalyan's blog. Mandanna, the in-charge at BR Hills, told me Kalyan had spotted one tiger with two cubs just a few days before. [Also check this piece for more pics.]

Sanath and Amogh, the two naturalists were also around that weekend; Sanath captured elephant charge photos, they're beautiful!

Apart from these, our group as a whole got to see a sloth bear, a lot of deer, bisons, wild boars and serpentine eagles.

I'll upload some pics to the albums soon. For now, I'm thinking when next to make a trip to BR Hills again and shake hands with a tiger.

Update: Photos at Flickr; Photos at Webshots

Barking Deer

Spotted Deer