Praveen Siddannavar
16-03-2013, 09:28 AM
Face to Face -> Leopard and a Peacock - We had just finished the two and half hour game drive at Kabini, with no sightings of any cats my elder brother Ramesh Siddannavar, cousin Ravi Siddannavar and friends Prashant Jois and Joel Gouder in our jeep seemed dejected. We took our exit from the Mastigudi gate and were driving on the main road, the light was fading fast and time was almost 6:25pm. I could see a few of them packing their cameras, but one has to remeber that no one can guarantee a cat sighting in the wild. However I always believe and rightly said so" Animals make their appearance when you least expect them".
As we were driving to JLR camp, suddenly Ravi, a very young and upcoming naturalist of JLR Kabini whispered leopard leopard... Our driver Muddu braked and pulled off the jeep aside. A young female leopard was probably resting on the road side and upon seeing our vehicle she started walking towards the dry bushes. In no time we clicked several images, however the light was extremely low. To our luck she didn't disappear but decided to sit in the bush, she seemed quite relaxed. On our right we noticed that a peacock was on her routine stroll on the road side feeding on insects, he didn't notice the leopard as this cat was nicely camouflaged and was in the bush.
My heart started beating fast, I was anticipating some action here. The peacock started moving in closer to the cat and there was one time when the peacock was less than 10ft away from the leopard. What an easy meal this could be for this cat I said in my mind, just a leap away...
Finally the peacock came in even closer, face to face with the leopard. What a moment this was to see it live and capture in pixels, not a great quality image though. The predator and prey looking eye to eye, it didn't end here there was more drama in store for us. Stay tuned until then and enjoy this rare and great natural history moment.
Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon f4 500mm lens
EXIF - ISO 1600 Av 4 Tv 1/125 sec EC -0.3, small crop
Date - 3rd March 2012 @ 6:31pm
Location - On main road (State highway) within the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagarahole, Kabini.
As we were driving to JLR camp, suddenly Ravi, a very young and upcoming naturalist of JLR Kabini whispered leopard leopard... Our driver Muddu braked and pulled off the jeep aside. A young female leopard was probably resting on the road side and upon seeing our vehicle she started walking towards the dry bushes. In no time we clicked several images, however the light was extremely low. To our luck she didn't disappear but decided to sit in the bush, she seemed quite relaxed. On our right we noticed that a peacock was on her routine stroll on the road side feeding on insects, he didn't notice the leopard as this cat was nicely camouflaged and was in the bush.
My heart started beating fast, I was anticipating some action here. The peacock started moving in closer to the cat and there was one time when the peacock was less than 10ft away from the leopard. What an easy meal this could be for this cat I said in my mind, just a leap away...
Finally the peacock came in even closer, face to face with the leopard. What a moment this was to see it live and capture in pixels, not a great quality image though. The predator and prey looking eye to eye, it didn't end here there was more drama in store for us. Stay tuned until then and enjoy this rare and great natural history moment.
Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon f4 500mm lens
EXIF - ISO 1600 Av 4 Tv 1/125 sec EC -0.3, small crop
Date - 3rd March 2012 @ 6:31pm
Location - On main road (State highway) within the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagarahole, Kabini.