Tiger sightings without some of the goings on at some of the better known reserves.
A 9 night stay at the Tiger Trails Lodge would see us making a total of 18 drives through the core zone of Tadoba aswell as some visits to the Buffer Zones of Dewada and Agarzari Zone.
As we would find out the sightings in the Buffer zone are very infrequent but certainly of a higher quality with less people and vehicles in the area compared the Core Zone of Tadoba.
Anyway on with the images,sorry there are a lot but this is very much the trimmed down version!
1/Langur Monkeys....great fun to watch and photograph especially when the Cats are proving tough to locate!
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5/We managed to photograph several Crested Serpent Eagles in different locations
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7/White Throated Kingfisher
8/Indian Gaur or Bison
9/Young Spotted Deer wandering through the long grasses
10/Ruddy Mongoose
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12/An all to quick and it was over moment with a female Sloth Bear with her cub clinging to her back
13/A great encounter with a pair of Dhole/Wild Dogs,the pack was reportedly 10 strong before the Tigers thinned out their numbers!
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15/Something I was really hoping to see and photograph was a Leopard,we got lucky when managed to somehow get some shots this Cat before it disappeared completely into the Bamboo forest
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17/And finally the animal that the trip was all about! Tigers with over 29 sightings during our 18 drives we done pretty well and some closer than you would dare to imagine! Up first was Tigress W,the first Tiger we saw on the trip
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20/A visit to the Core Zone where would see the main players,Large Males Matkasur and Chota Matka aswell as a female regarded as the Queen of Tadoba Maya and her 2 1 1/2 year old cubs
21/Matkasur gives us a wary look
22/Choto Matka in his standard pose,cooling in a waterhole not doing much of anything
23/Maya and her cubs make an entrance literally 20ft behind our Gypsy jeep
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27/Pouncing on mum
28/Maya strides out to check on her 2 cubs who at this point were stalking some Boar,Deer and Gaur!
29/A return to the Buffer Zone saw us catch W in a great location aswell as this female Chhote Madhuri,a Tigress with a reputation for chasing jeeps!
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32/W hanging out in the grasses around a waterhole in the Buffer Zone
33/Before gettin in for a cool down and a drink
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35/1 last shot as a Tiger emerges from the long grass
Hope you enjoyed my images over the 3 parts and well done if you went through all 3 posts !
Ross
