Tiger capture at NWHS contest!

One of my Tiger capture at NWHS contest @ 3rd place!

Tiger Trail Trek - Bhandavgarh fort

The oldest fort in India, considered to be more than 2500 years. One-hour trek upto the fort is worth the effort. The charm of this trek lies in discovering these monuments in the jungle, unspoiled and unexplored. Some of the statues lie off the main path and so it is best to take a guide.

One of the Main gate of Bandavgarh Fort

We accomodated this trek on the last day of the stay and that too in the noon, we need to book the entry to the fort with forest dept a day prior along with the guide, it too costs same as the safari! and no trip to Bandhavgarh is complete without making an effort to climb up the fort.

Gang at the entrance of the fort

Shiv Lingam and sleeping Vishnu statues

Shiv Lingam

 Apart from the avatars, well worth seeing are three small temples of around the 12th century. These temples are deserted but the fort is still used as a place of worship. Kabir Das, the celebrated 16th century saint, once lived and preached here.

The natural ramparts of the fort give breathtaking view of the surrounding countryside. Vultures wheel around the precipice which also attracts blue rock thrushes and crag martins.
Our guide cum driver Ajay of the skay's camp carried our lunch while we are busy negotiating the trek upto the fort. Supplement charged.

Main temple Structure on top of the fort

Yes Bandhavgarh is a strange land, a new park with a very old history --- Bandhavgarh has been a center of human activity and settlement for over 2000 years, and there are references to it in the ancient books, the Narad-Panch Ratra and the Shiva Purana. Legend has it that Lord Rama, hero of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, stopped at Bandhavgarh on his way back to his homeland after defeating the demon King Ravana of Lanka.

Main Entrance of Fort

Two monkey architects, who had engineered a bridge between the isle of Lanka and the mainland, are said to have built Bandhavgarh's fort. Later Rama handed it over to his brother Lakshmana who became known as Bandhavdhish -The Lord of the Fort. Lakshmana is the particular God of the fort and is regularly worshipped in a temple there.

The Grand Winter Tiger trail - Bandavgarh

Thanks to Natgeo documentary on Bhandavgarh, the 'The Tiger Princess'. It created strong curiosity in me to make a trip to this tiger land, although it was not in the list of places for this year. However our Khan saab (aka sher khan :) and myself had some plans for year end, which finally inclined towards bhandavgarh. As usual Khan started logistics planning for great winter tiger trip, started booking of gypsy, blocking guide, train and flight tickets etc etc and all in 3 months advance. Well, as we called it, fortunately it was really a great tiger trip for myself, Khan, Ravi rao and Naveen!


Let me first give some details on the park - Bandhavgarh National Park is spread over the vindhya hills in Madhya Pradesh. It consists of a core area of 105 sq km and a buffer area of approximately 400 sq km of topography varies between steep ridges, undulating, forest and open meadows. The density of the Tiger population at Bandhavgarh is the highest known in India, It has around 64 tigers (according to the data, but to me it seemed to be diminishing ) Most of the land is hilly, rocky terrain which keeps the tigers relatively in a high concentration and increases a chance of meeting with this stripped cat!
 


The central Chakradara meadows of Bhandavgarh

  Getting there: Nearest Aiport is Nagpur and nearest Railway station is Katni near to Jabalpur or umariya station.
The route we took was - Train from Bangalore to Secundrabad, then to Jabalpur/Katni, and a taxi from Katni to Tala (bandavgarh).
Katni is a small village and train stops only for brief time so make sure to be alert from Jabalpur station itself. The tala village which is also the forest entry point with forest dept office is 105 km from the katni.


Stay: We were priviledged to stay at skay's camp, it was a feel of home away from home, what more can you ask when you travel and that too when stay is longer than a week. Yes thats exactly you feel under wings off Kay and Tiwariji. Kay and Tiwariji have great knowledge of the park's flora and fauna, and can provide you with loads of informations about the tiger population and habitat in general.


Kay always possessing an interest in wildlife & conservation. Kay is a self-taught wildlife artist. Her watercolour paintings and mixed media pictures are in many private collections. And Tiwariji an wildlife photographer and naturalist, his unique photographs depict some of the magnificent wildlife of India. He's author and coauthor of many books about wilderness and bandavgarh!
 The camp itself is a birds haven, the garden has been planted with all manner of wonderful plants to have an healthy habitat to attract wildlife and provide freshly grown fruit and veg. Meals were lovely and very flexible to fit in with trips into the park. The rooms at the camp are cool, clean and comfortable but with the depleting temperature of bandavgarh, I only wish they had electric warmers :(


  Evenings at camp was cozyin around camp fire with hot tea, soup along with dinner. Kay Ma’m use to join us during breakfast, lunch and dinner timings. The discussion and the information about the park, tigers were just awesome and remarkable...


For the next 6-7 days we spend most of our time in the forests, with our driver cum naturalist cum guide Ajay. The core area of forests has been divided based on zones or routes one has to take and thats decided by forest dept in order to divide the jeeps entering the park. Zone A was closed since jurjura tigress (who expired in an accident) liters were safe guarded in that area. So the reamining zones were B,C & D.

Baby Langur

Indian Roller Phosing for us, its typically are far from humans

 On the very first day we had sighted male tiger kalua in bushes so couldn't photograph though, thanks to Ajay and guide who tracked back from the spray on the road. But after that next 2 days of safaris were so bare, we dint have any sightings rather than samba deer, spotted, jackal and some birds.


It was just another morning to forest, which we never realised will be most memorable and exciting untill we found B2 the grand male tiger of bandavgarh appeared in front of us from nowhere, the gracious foot steps in glaring morning golden sunlight and straight towards us face to face. Added to it we were the only jeep to track him, I could hear cameras going clik cliks, it was special moment like a private photo session with super model phosing for us :)



B2 the Grand Tiger of Bhandavgarh near GodaDam

  As he walked towads us, the guide advised the driver to reverse the jeep to avoid him change the trail, its ethical for the nature lovers in the park to obey the rules of forest and keep as natural, not to disturb any habitat, being it a big cat or birds!




B2 - A grand portrait!

 We went back and stood around 20 mtrs back and watched him walking towards us, he glanced us once in a while and walked his path, towards Godadam, we did captured all this trail with stills and Video (our official videographer Naveen :) . Added to this sighting, there was bonus of capturng him marking hi territory by spraying on a tree. The cliks din't stop untill he climbed the dam and hill and vanished in to the bushes...


Following day, to our surprise and luck, Mr Anil ambani was in the park with family on an yr end wilder trip I beleive. As anywhere in india it goes, forest dept excited about this not so new found VIP guest arranged Tiger show, which was officially stopped some yrs ago. Let me brief abt what is tiger show all about - The mahahut's on their elephat back go in search of tiger early in the morning by around 4am and tracks the whereabouts of the tiger and locks elephants to that trail, and the info is given to the camp which will guide the interested visitors in the jeeps to the spot, and then on to elephat back to the spot exactly where tiger is!
Well it sounds like a circus event but it might be worth to watch it for once but doesnt have the excitement when we track the tiger naturally.



B2 backlit

 The elephant drama continued for next two days untill Mr Ambaniji made his way back to finance capital of india which is also his home, in a noising helicoptor scaring all the wildlife of bhandavgarh park.





Samba Deer quenching thirst

 --Manjunath

 

Rumor has it..Nikon D400?

The most anticipated Nikon camera or camera itself? There's been quite a lull in the Nikon D400 rumors of late, definitely due to the release of the Nikon D300s. I'm not worried though, and expect the Nikon D400 to come out in late 2010 or early 2011. As for features, this is the list that came with the roadmap:

Nikon D400
• Replaces D300S.
• Announcement in 1st half of 2011.
• 16MP or higher* CMOS sensor (same new sensor as upcoming Sony A700 replacement)
• AF motor still there.
• 8 FPS (without the grip).
• Live View & special* high quality 1080 video (possibly RAW video???!!!).
• Articulated* 920K LCD.
• OVF & AF module same as D300S.

To me, this seems a little "unofficial" looking even for a roadmap, so I don't put a whole lot of credibility to it, but its the first thing I've heard in a while so I decided to post it anyways.

Do you wait for D400 or just upgrade to 300s? leave your comment here -

My time on planet earth seems more and more important...

Here we are already few days in to new year 2011, hard to beleive isn't it?

Year end wrapups gives makes me wonder as to was the year just passed by fells like just five minutes or the last 365 days passed on, my time on planet earth seems more and more important and I want to take advantage of it as much as I can!

It was a wonderful year filled with changes, good times and achievement of several personal and professional goals and wishes.

Early in the the year started with me getting healthy with plenty of marathons, I took a few moments aside and sketched what I felt I needed to do on many levels, but with many engagements with work and personal life the running took the back seat, so this year I shouln't let it happen.

Being passionate has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, from what I have seen, if you are passionate, you are one of the lucky few in this world and allows you to be cheerfull with whatever emotional personal feelings or how challenging the professional life goes. Travel had always facinated me, so with it accompanied a new passion of photography early in the year, with few trips to ranganthittu was all required to get it started.

Being with nature and admiring the true beauty of it is in itself a gift, well added to it was my third eye, the camera. Started liking the capture of wilderness and nature with my camera, soon or later I was with addiction to it.

Surely will cherish the first moments of my first sighting tiger in the wild yes the ranathambore forests, it was exciting, it was definative moment one will remember for life. The big cat walking in front of you and hes not tied to boundaries, hes free, in the wild, it was true dream come true, natgeo live in front of eyes or eyes had become an high definition screen all of sudden :)

Now I am wondering what was exciting, the beingness in the wild or capturing them as photos, where should I go from here? Well it might be the combination of both, the zeal to capture them makes me go travel to places of wilderness. I dint like to go more in to technicalities of photography, as just capturing them for myself made me happy, but as you explore and share the platform with like minded photographers, it made me dig more on the technicalities, so is where I am trying to discover more on my new found passion...

It was worthwhile trips to ranthambore, bandipur and bhandavgarh forests, it has increased the zeal of capturng wilderness with more precision, detailed and shart, hope to see improved versions of it this year :) But these trips have made me refreshed, knowing better of me and what I really what to do...

How was your year that just gone by?

Looking forward for an exciting new year 2011