Continuing on the triangle of Maharashtra, we moved to Tadoba National Park. I had visited Tadoba before but had no sightings. This time I was hopeful as I had seen many photographs of Maya, Gabbar, Matkasur (tigers of Tadoba) on Facebook.
We travelled from Pench to Tadoba by car. It took us 5hrs to reach Tadoba. Our hotel’s name was Tiger’s Haven. Earlier too, during our first trip, we had stayed here. It was evening so I thought of birdwatching. It’s quite boring sitting idle in the jungle. The hotel was in the buffer and they had made an artificial pond. So I grabbed my camera and went in search of birds, insects, reptiles. I thought this would be exciting. But there was neither chirping nor sightings of birds. I just walked around and observed how things had changed. I had an early dinner and went to bed.
The next day, with excitement I woke up at 5am. It was the 26th of March 2016. We all got ready by 5:45am. Our gypsy was waiting outside. We were all prepared for the action. We reached the Navegaon gate by 6am. After completing the formalities we were the first ones to enter the jungle. Our guide told us that there were frequent sightings of Maya and her cubs at Pandharpauni. We sped towards Pandharpauni and when we taking a turn we saw pugmarks of tigers. We were really excited and moved further on. And to our delight! There she was : the queen of Tadoba : Maya with her cubs near the pond. Maya was fast asleep but her three cubs were active and playing around. We waited there for almost half-an-hour, watching them play and clicked pictures.
Maya then woke up and moved away. Her cubs followed her and went towards the pond. All of a sudden they just disappeared. We parked our car at a place from where we could see the pond. There were shrubs at the sides. There was some movement in the shrubs and there I could see tiny birds called Quail. They were in a bevy, very colourful and had many patterns on them. At the same time we spotted Maya teaching her cubs to climb a tree. The cubs kept trying, but were unsuccessful. They kept slipping down. It was quite amusing to see all this action. Meanwhile the other jeeps had also arrived. But Maya and her cubs were least bothered with all this attention. She then posed for the cameras with pride as if it was an everyday thing.
We moved towards Tadoba Lake and on the way we saw many jeeps gathered at one spot. We asked the jeep beside us, and they asked us to look deep inside the bushes. There were whispers that there was a tiger inside the bushes, but no one could actually see it. But to my luck I spotted Gabbar – a huge fella snoring away to glory inside the thicket. He was not at all bothered with the excitement outside. We clicked pics and went to the Lake.
At the lake we saw a group of Sambar Deer drinking water. They then passed by us. There were a few Red Naped Ibis too. We just kept driving and suddenly our driver stopped the jeep. We looked out to see what happened and there was an Indian Hoopoe. Right in front of our jeep on the road. It was very beautiful and stylish with an orange Mohawk, and a striped body.
We then drove to the check post and took a 15 mins break. After the break, as we were driving, we saw a mottled wood Owl in a tree’s hollow. It was very difficult to spot as it was completely camouflaged. But I managed to shoot and was very happy to see an owl for the first time. We reached a water body and we saw a group of Wild Boars. Nothing interesting…. So we decided to drive back to Pandharpouni. We saw a massive Indian Gaur feeding himself. he looked quite old and was all alone. Our guide told us that possibly he was thrown out from the herd because of his age. At the lake there were no sightings and it was almost time to head back.
Just before the gate we saw the fairy or queen of Indian subcontinental birds – the Indian Roller. A very colourful and pretty bird. One look at it and I’m sure you would like to keep the Roller as a pet.
We had a great experience in the core of Tadoba. We also visited the buffer in the evening. Although the buffer safari went dry I had some good raptor sightings like Crested Serpent Eagle and Oriental Honey Buzzards and commoners like white throated kingfishers.
With this safari our triangle trip came to and end. It was an amazing trip and we had a great time.
Continuing on the triangle of Maharashtra, we moved to Tadoba National Park. I had visited Tadoba before but had no sightings. This time I was hopeful as I had seen many photographs of Maya, Gabbar, Matkasur (tigers of Tadoba) on Facebook.
We travelled from Pench to Tadoba by car. It took us 5hrs to reach Tadoba. Our hotel’s name was Tiger’s Haven. Earlier too, during our first trip, we had stayed here. It was evening so I thought of birdwatching. It’s quite boring sitting idle in the jungle. The hotel was in the buffer and they had made an artificial pond. So I grabbed my camera and went in search of birds, insects, reptiles. I thought this would be exciting. But there was neither chirping nor sightings of birds. I just walked around and observed how things had changed. I had an early dinner and went to bed.
