It is now that time of the year, when its misty and cloudy during the morning hours.
This morning I decided to fulfill my dream to photograph a tiger in the mist and as destiny would have it ,fortune was on my side.
I went to the Bishanpura patrolling camp ,where in the past I had seen fresh tiger pugmarks practically everyday in the morning . However this morning I did not see any pugmark so the park guide suggested us to stay there and wait for some alarm calls so that we could know the movement of the big cat.
We waited for more than fifteen minutes at the same place but the jungle was quiet.
Thus we decided to move on. To help increase the odds of spotting a tiger we went to various places where it’s most likely you’ll get a good sighting.
During one of our turns we chanced upon an animal walking in the middle of the road and coming straight towards us. I immediately stopped the vehicle and with the help of my binoculars I realized it was a majestic tiger walking in our direction. My heart skipped a beat and I whispered ‘’ Tiger! Tiger!’’
It was a beautiful tigress and she knew she was being spotted and began moving away from the road and went close to a tree, lifted her tail high and marked her territory by spraying and then slowly disappeared into the undergrowth.
We however, gauged the direction of her movement and drove a short distance and decided to wait for her to reappear.
And there she was, right in front of the vehicle. We enjoyed seeing her walking on ahead of us on the road and silently mesmerized we watched her slowly fade away into the mist .
Rajnish Pradhan
