Unforgettable Experience

[Debasis Bose]

After the morning breakfast, we were sipping hot tea and enjoying the morning sun on the verandah of FRH, when the soothing rustling of the leaves and murmuring of the flowing water of stream, all of a sudden transformed into myriad alarm call of Sambar and Chital deer, the surrounding started resonating as the FRH was located beside the stream surrounded by foothills. From the call we could make out that tiger may have come out of its hiding into the open, all of a sudden.
In hurry, we all jumped onto the gypsy, driver and guide were faster than us and in a second we were on the stream. We could see fresh pug marks on the jungle road moving away from us. One could easily make out it was fresh pug mark, I saw from one of the pug mark on the side of the road, a grass blade was slowly popping back to its original shape. But we could not sight the tiger, ignition of the gypsy was switched off and all of us were waiting for the jungle folks to disclose the location of the tiger. When heard the Langur monkey calling to our right, 20 m from the road. Then the jungle foul dispersed with agitated call. We lost the tiger as it was moving away from us into the deep jungle.
All of a sudden the excitement changed into boredom, when at a distant we heard call of chital in front and to left of us, we all looked at each other and the driver moved towards the call. We stopped at a vantage position to locate the position of the call, when we heard some sound like subterranean giant yawning after deep slumber, there it was again, closer this time, near the base of the slope to our left front and clearer too, the unmistakable roar of a tiger. and then, there she was, her head popping out from the bush (image below) and then when she came out in open (attached above image). To our surprise and excitement, we could hear the other tiger which we lost in deep bushes 200 m behind closer to FRH also started roaring too. We were the only gypsy deep in the forest….it was a nerve chilling experience with the whole forest reverberating with two tigers growling and roaring alternately …. total mesmerizing, a moment which is difficult to express in words. The magical moment lasted for about 10 to 15 minutes, with momentary silence.... my camera did not miss any opportunity and captured almost 250 frames. Here are the two frame of the tiger which we saw.

Nikon D4s, Nikon 300 FL ED, Shot @ 300 F10, ISO 14368, 1/320s

[Debasis Bose]

I had to struggle to reduce the size of the images to below 650 kb, some details may have been lost in the process.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Rare experience to witness a male and female tigers calling each other. Quite a clear sighting of the female. In the second image it would have been difficult to focus with such thick vegetation in the foreground. In such cases, using manual focusing usually helps. Thanks for sharing.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Mesmerizing. Your deep attachment for Corbett will give you something new each time. Nature never betrays love for it. Thanks for sharing. SaktiWild

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Very nice explanation of the events Debasis da,.....its feels nice to read your stories of Corbett after a long time (for me, have been out of action lately). I can only imagine how it must have felt to hear the roar of the tigers in Corbett...in 2 instances in early 2002/3 I got the privilege of seeing and hearing a male and female in Corbett, the memory which just got rekindled by your narration. Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Which FRH you were in during this tiger sighting? It is always an exciting experience to hear two tigers calling. Had it not been for the tigress, you would have missed the sighting completely. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi