Tiger: Positioning of feet during Stalking

[Sabyasachi Patra]

When a tiger is stalking it takes exceptional precautions to avoid making noise. It has got padded feet and retractable claws that helps. To avoid making noise it places its hind feet exactly at the same spot vacated by its fore feet. I often marvel at the accuracy of this and forget to click.

In this image, you can see that the right hind leg is about to fall on the exact place where the right foreleg was.

This image of a wild tiger stalking its prey was created in Bandhavgarh National Park, India.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II, Canon EF 400mm F2.8 L IS USM plus EF 2xII i.e. 800mm at ISO 800, f5.6, 1/250 sec. Full frame. Spot metering with +1/3 EV.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[AB Apana]

Sabyasachi,

I think this is a superb shot, not only because of the illustration of the stalking technique, but also because of the tension in the image.

Apana

[Bhargava Srivari]

Excellent documentation.

tfs

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Superb action photograph.Agility,focussed approach, scientific positioning of legs and paws to minimise noise well documented.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Bala Saikumar]

Don't other big cats exhibit the some behaviour?

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Kindly read 'instinctive positioning' in place of 'scientific positioning' in my post dated 23.10.2011

Bala Bhai,

I do not have any knowledge about other big cats.However, when I was staying at Bagnan(Dist.Howrah) long back,on one early morning during rainy season,I observed two dogs , approaching a small patch of grass (which had grown during monsoon) one after another and retreating at a much faster pace, barking continuously. I was curious as that location was known to be full of snakes.All of a sudden a cat arrived.It started stalking silently, its pose looking (almost) the same and came back with a baby snake kill.SaktiWild