hada and me with seth

We had a great time at phinda, and two people made it special for us seth and graham. seth was always around with us and he made us do a lot of activities walking rhinos,lions, buffaloes, night drives, game capture and a lot more! here in this pic he is standing in a hole dug out by an aardvark!

28th morning we left for Johannesburg with graham it was a long journey but an interesting one as graham gave full information about the different areas and the culture etc. As we reached Johannesburg graham took us to his sister’s house where graham had arranged our stay, we were given a warm welcome by graham’s sister and his nieces and nephew, we quickly changed as we had to be out for dinner with Geoff and Chris who were waiting for us at a sea food restaurant

· 27th the day began late for us as after eating breakfast we went to pick Seth up and as he had some office work we were with him and graham at the office for quite some time, graham too got free and decided to come on game drive with us so together we went to an area where three lions a male and two females were seen earlier in the morning. On the way we did a lot of birding and graham who was driving also took us to the place where the trainees are made to stay in the jungle and where the rifle training is done. We reached the area and drove off road to look for the lions where we saw some tracks so graham got down and started following the tracks he was back in a while with no success. So Seth said we will all walk together and look for the tracks and then he said the golden words “guys whatever you do don’t run” (cats like tigers leopards and lions usually mock charge when they see us but if we try to run then they will usually go for us) as we walked we started getting tracks and Seth was leading us showing us the tracks and then suddenly Seth and hada stopped and pointed at a bush where I saw a male lion walk past away from us but just 20 yards from us we all kept still and slowly backed off but now the problem was that these lions were between us and vehicle!! So we quickly took a circle and got back to the vehicle, it was an amazing experience to see lions on foot!! Then those lions came out and sat in the open where we got a lot of pictures. We told graham and Seth that what a perfect ending it was to our trip but Seth said well there is more to come and sure there was! We went back to the lodge and quickly got ready to go on felicity’s assessment drive, the drive going at an easy pace until all the action started happening as we arrived at the grassland we saw some buffalo in the distance and some impala pronking, we were looking at the impalas running when Tina suddenly said lions oh they are chasing and they have got the niyala I was totally lost until I removed my binos and looked closer to us where a lioness was killing a female niyala antelope oh what a site it was, we both got a lot photos as these lionesses were feasting on the antelope. We were all so excited with seeing the action and we celebrated it with a couple of drinks after which we began the night drive and as we began the night drive we saw a leopard straight in front of us on the road and then it came and sat right close to our vehicle, and for 10 mins it was just there! It was like an icing on the cake for us and then we got back packed our stuff and celebrated with a party!

26th morning Seth had his cycle race so we joined Walter and his guest for a game drive and we had a good sighting of two lionesses trying to hunt so we go some very nice pictures. Afternoon we went to Phillip to know the plan so he gave me the keys of a land cruiser and told me to drive to Seth’s home we reached Seth’s home which is around 10kms from forest lodge where we were living, Seth was ready and waiting for us. He took us to a rocky area to look for rock hyrax and we did see two of them after this we picked up the telemetric device from Seth’s house and came to the north side of the forest looking for leopard. We got signals of a female leopard from deep in the bush and Seth kept driving deeper in the bush not bothering about the spiky trees. But we did not find the leopard and then we came out on the road again tried checking for her on the other side and then I saw it cross the road! It was a brief sighting but a wonderful one. Seth told us to drop him back at his home and on the way we were spotting with the light and we saw side striped jackal, scheon buck and genet.

25th morning Seth took us to an area to look for three male lions and after working hard for quite some time we did find them and got some good photos, but what we did after this I will remember for lifetime! We went out to help with game capture and here we saw how they catch antelopes using a helicopter to push them towards an area where there are nets and people waiting to grab them it was just awesome. We also got to do game capture we helped the people to catch some reed bucks and get them back to the cages. Here in Africa its normal to buy and sell game, so game capture and release is on all the time. We got back from the game capture and went straight to Seth’s house where we cooked some Indian food tandoori chicken and smoked chicken we enjoyed a good Indian meal.

· 24th morning Seth was here to pick us up at 8 am, he took us out to another national park which is called the hluhluwe game reserve, it was a beautiful forest though not as good as phinda but a good change. After seeing the reserve and having lunch at kfc we came back to phinda and took a drive in the south side of phinda looking for cheetahs, here we went to an area where there was a hilly terrain and there was a steep road with lots of rocks and bolders on it and this when I noticed the amazing power of a land cruiser! In low range 4X4 second gear the vehicle climbed the entire hill without Seth touching the accelerator! Anyways after this we came back to lowlands and we had two different amazing cheetah sightings in one of the sightings a female cheetah was on a tree! And we both took hundreds of pictures. We came back had dinner and called it a night as we were too tired after a long day.

· 23rd July we went out for walking in the bush with Seth and some other rangers and as we started our second walk, one of the rangers looked through is binoculars and said oh well I can see a lion! Far down around 300 meters away on the wall of the dam we saw 3 female lions sitting these were the same lionesses which we had seen earlier so got on the vehicle and got close to them to get some pictures. While coming back we came across a big male elephant that was walking behind our vehicle and it was wonderful to see this huge creature. The afternoon was very windy and cold but Seth arrived at around 2.30 pm with his telemeter device and antenna he told us that we will go looking for leopards and so we did and at around 3pm we had seen our first leopard of the day a female sitting on a termite mound well hidden in the bush, Seth said that she is quite shy and might move away and after giving us a good view of around 2 mins she moved away. From here we went at the dam where the three lionesses were sitting on the wall in great light so we took lot of pictures of them as they were in a great light. After this Seth told us that we must move as there are very good chances of finding a male leopard in another area and as we arrived in that area and switched on the antenna we heard the beeping and Seth said to keep a look out as the leopard was very close and as he said this we saw the leopard appear from behind the bushes looking straight at our vehicle so I started taking some pictures and then this leopard crossed the road right in front of us at a lightning speed and moved into the forest on the other side we tried to follow it for a few more minutes and did get some glimpses but the we had already seen the best of it so we moved on to head for the lodge but on our way we encountered a herd of elephants walking on the road in front of us one which was a bull in mast so we waited for them to move off for a long time, as they went in a little inside the bush we quickly speeded past the area. The evening wasn’t over for us yet we were requested by the rangers to join them for meeting the trainee rangers on the boat night where we had a great time with the rangers.

· 22nd July was an early start as graham and Seth were at rock lodge to pick us up very early at 5 am we left for sodwana bay beach which is one of the top surfing destinations in the world. We reached there in two hours and the seen out there was magnificent there are very large forested sand dunes very close to the beach and the beach itself is the cleanest beach I have ever come across we had plans to go snorkelling but since it was very cold we decided against it but we had a lovely time seeing the view of the beautiful beach and walking by the side of it specially on the rocks where there were pools of water and we could see some creatures from the sea, then we went on a high point from where we saw another lifer mammal i.e. the hump back whales!!! There were at least 5 of them and we could see them very clearly with our binoculars. After having a good time at the beach we got back and went on the assessment drive for one of the ranger felicity where we saw a herd of elephants in the water! And a lot white rhinos as well.

· 21st july Seth was on time to pick us up and take us out to Richards bay the closest town from phinda so we had a lovely day out at the mall in Richards bay and did a lot of shopping. In the evening when we got back we went to mountain lodge where we gave presentation to the staff lodge regarding, India, lodges and tigers of our jungles.

· 20th July Seth was here early to pick us up and take us out for tracking rhinos on foot so when we went out we saw tracks on the road from the jeep while driving we followed the fresh tracks and found three rhinos very close from where we were but just a little hidden by the bushes so Seth got down and asked us to follow him without making any noise at all so we followed him and reached as close as 25 feet from the rhinos as the wind was in our favour, there were three white rhinos two adults and a young one we had a good look at them before they sensed us and moved off. We went ahead in the jeep and looked for some more tracks and soon we found fresh tracks of rhinos going into the bushes, Seth got down and asked us to follow the tracks he told us that he will help us where ever we went wrong so myself and hada set out to follow rhino tracks soon we got to a bush where we saw a medium sized python move quickly into the bush, Garrith was also with us and he tried to catch this snake and suddenly we saw garrith jump and when we went ahead to see what surprised him we saw a huge African rock python in the same bush sitting all curled up and still cold, this was actually the female python which is generally bigger than the male it was atleast 4 or 5 meters long and very thick we got some pictures of her and then we moved on again to look for the rhinos. The bush was getting thicker and there were many thorny trees in our way but we were still getting fresh tracks of rhinos with Seth’s help but then for a few meters we did not get any tracks till I found one in the thickets as I told everyone about this track and as I looked up I saw the rhinos just in front of us about 50 yards away which garrith had spotted just seconds before I saw. It was very exciting to be able to find the rhinos by tracking them here we saw 4 white rhinos, we tried to get closer to them but they moved away as they heard us coming their way though we did manage some photos. After this exciting walking experience we got back to the lodge and Seth then took us out for some rifle shooting where we fired 375 magnum and as we came back he told us to pack our bags as we were moving to guest rooms in one of phinda’s finest lodge the rock lodge which is situated in the south of the jungle, at rock lodge we were welcomed and checked into the guest rooms which were magnificent and great views from the room, the courtyard overlooked the forest and in the courtyard there was a beautiful plunge pool! After settling down we went out on a game drive with Giles the head ranger of the lodge and Craig who is a trainee ranger our expectation was to see cheetahs and we did see cheetahs that too a mother with three cubs on a zebra foal kill, it was just wonderful to see the cats with the teary eyes write in front of us and we took a lot of photos. On the way back i used the spotlight and this time we saw a spotted hyena! As we got back to the lodge we met graham he was there to join us for dinner, so we chatted with graham till late night and spoke to him on various topics.

· 19th July morning began with some cold weather and on the drive initially we did not see much but then we stumbled across a big black rhino which was an amazing sight we both took a lot pictures. When we came back we were told that Seth will be at lodge to take us out, soon he was there and he told us to get ready quickly as we were going out to track some radio collared leopards and see lot more of the forest we were out soon looking for a female leopard of which we did not get any signals on the radio device so we went ahead to look for some lions and soon we came across three female lions sitting on a mound in the middle of a grassland so we went off road and parked right next to them and took loads of pictures it was a wonderful sight specially because they were all up and active, it was great fun being out with Seth and Seth also gave us a lot of information about various things including the ongoing leopard project at phinda, after the lions we again went down to look for another radio collared leopard a female with two small cubs who is apparently very shy, on our way to this area we had some great sightings of giraffes and cape buffaloes. When we reached the area and Seth turned on the device the antenna started catching signals of the leopard so we went deep in the bush to look for it we kept getting closer and closer to it and it was amazingly exciting, we got as close as 20 feet to this leopard and we could even hear it moving but could not see it as it was thick bush and there was no approach to this area. Soon it was dark and we had the spotlight on Seth offered me to use the spotlight and I was happy to do so, as we started with the drive we saw a porcupine which was just crossing the road, then I spotted three different janets which looked like miniature leopards it was exciting to spot them, after this great night drive Seth dropped us back to the lodge and gave some pints of chilled beer.

· 17th July Frank had already told us that he will come to pick us up at 8.00am so we were ready right on time, frank took us to the airport where we realised that it is only two of us who are onboard in this 12 seater plane! The flight which was a two hour flight was a great experience in itself I felt as if we had booked a private charter for ourselves, as we landed on the airstrip we were welcomed by Celeste who is Seth’s wife and Byron who is one of the trainers, later Kevin the director of phinda reserve took us to the forest lodge. Here we met many rangers Phillip, pip, Richard. Soon we changed and got ready to go on game drive with Richard. The drive started with a great sighting of a big herd of elephants, we afterwards saw a lot of other animals niyala, impala, red duiker and a variety of birds. Soon as it got darker the tracker took out a spot light and we got our first experience of a night drive, it was a very short night drive and we saw a lot of the common mammals we also got to see the beautiful waterbuck. After we got back to the lodge we had dinner at the staff canteen where there was some nice grilled chicken.

Africa day by day with photos

16th July we arrived at Johannesburg after a long journey from India via Nairobi got to see the famous mountain Kilimanjaro. We reached Johannesburg at around 11.30 am after getting our luggage and coming out we called up graham who informed us that the driver Frank is on the way and soon enough frank was there to pick us up, frank is a very humble man and he provided us with a lot of info about Johannesburg while driving us to our lodge called city lodge which is very close to bateuleur house our head office , after freshening up frank took us to the office where we met Geoff and anya who gave us a full tour of the office introducing us to each person of every department at the office. After the tour Geoff took us out to the mall for some shopping in his Mini cooper, at the mall after doing some window shopping we went to the food court where we ate some burgers and Geoff also got us some sushi which was in fact quite tasty, after this Geoff dropped us back to our hotel where after a good bath I decided to catch up with some sleep. I was woken up with my phone ringing and when I picked it up I realised that it was 7pm and Gary was calling from outside the hotel as he was there to take us out for dinner, me and hada quickly dressed up and went out to see Gary and Anya who were waiting outside.Gary took us out to a restaurant famous for traditional African food where we had a lovely meal and some great conversation with Gary and Anya.

Python and roller

Python and Indian Roller

My first ever sighting of a Indian rock python in the wild, while driving down one of the roads in the bandhavgarh jungle I noticed a striking blue colour on the roadside I thought it was an Indian roller which was sitting with its wings open but then I realised that this roller was struggling, as I stopped I saw this amazing sight a rock python was strangling this roller to death, infact by the time I stopped and took out my camera the roller was already dead. The python kept the roller in that position for a long time and then after sometime it left the dead roller and moved away in the bushes. I still wonder how the python would have managed to catch this roller and why did it move away, probably it caught the roller by surprise and probably it moved away because there were many people at the sighting and it got disturbed

Indian Pitta

This beautiful summer migrant is one of the most colorful found in central india.

playful cubs land the vulture in trouble

Two of the sub adult cubs on their way to the waterhole found a juvenile vulture and decided have a play time with it, they both tapped it around with their paws, the intelligent vulture got in the water and started swimming around like a duck. Here in this picture we can see the cub having a good look at the vulture unable to decide whether to get in water or not!

walking in line

three's company

captured this when the cubs went behind the mother.

ramp walk on the dam

always wanted to capture tigers walking on the wall of the famous rajbehra dam of bandhavgarh and here i not only saw them give exquisite ramp walk but also drink water from the wall itself!

courtship

Saw another courting pair of tigers was amazing to see the display of affection and anger between the duo, this male is the new male in the park and is gaining a lot of territory from the older dominant male B2.

eye level shot

eye level shot of a tiger looking straight at my lens!

Another scratch marking

Its difficult to find a tiger scratch marking a tree i was lucky to capture this once again!!

Beauty and the Beast

Saw B2 the beast of bandhavgarh jungle in courtship with the vanvai female, was an amazing sight as i managed to capture this moment.

B2 carrying deer head

Saw our dominant male tiger famously known as B2 carrying head of a spotted deer, we saw the tiger carry this head for more than 200 meters in an open grassland and then it went into a small bush dropped it there and carried on walking along the road for a long distance, probably he hid it for eating later as he had already finished of rest of the deer we could make that out with all the blood on his face and paws. But seeing a big male tiger walk with a head of a chital was an amazing sight.

WHO SAYS TIGERS DON'T EAT GRASS!

well we all know for a fact that cats do eat grass at times like the pet dogs would do but its rare to see them doing so .Here I saw this female tiger eating grass for atleast ten minutes this is only for the second time that i have seen a tiger eat grass.

summer season sightings

End of march marks the beginning of summer season this also means increase in tiger sightings because of the lack of water in the jungle, so here are some pictures i got in the past week.

UNIQUE TIGER BEHAVIOR

When we go to the jungle we see scratch markings on trees which are done by tigers and a very frequently asked question is that how the tigers manage to scratch the tree at such a height which is sometimes as high as 15 feet!! Well these two pictures I took have all the questions answered, we saw this big male tiger jump high grab the tree very high and then scratch mark it, in both the pictures we can see that the tiger is actually hanging on to the tree and is high above the ground.