Praveen Siddannavar
10-06-2013, 08:38 AM
A tale of a thirsty sub adult tiger – It was an extremely hot afternoon at Kabini, we drove straight to Bisalwadi tank with a hope to see a tiger. Bisalwadi tank is a largest lake in Nagarahole forest and has enough water to sustain even during summers. We reached this place at about 4:20pm and stopped closer to the watch tower, the tigers mostly come from the other side of the lake that is over 500 mts from our view point. We patiently waited for a while and completely unnoticed that there was an elephant already in the lake, this is quite natural when one goes with an intention of seeing just a tiger. At about 4:35pm a sub adult tiger walks very casually from bushes to quench his thirst, coincidentally the tiger too was so thirsty and focused only to gulp water, he too never noticed the elephant in the lake that was cooling off.
Believe me we were seeing all this from a quite a distance and no tele-photo lenses can capture these moments at a closer range. My cousins and elder brother were happily watching this through a powerful binoculars and I through my 500mm tele-photo lens. The elephant wasn’t comfortable to have a tiger close by, in no time she charged at the tiger as seen in the image. The next series of shots were even more interesting as I managed to capture some record shots of tiger sprinting and taking long leaps while being chased by the elephant. The elephant didn’t give up and she chased this guy into the bushes and in flash returned. But now the elephant had enough of water so she chose to move away. This is another great natural history moment that I was lucky to document.
After about 10 mins the tiger was back again to the same spot and started drinking water and now he had enough time, he gulped few liters of water and gradually disappeared into the bushes. What a tough life these animals have in the forest, never easy even for the king of the jungle. Please excuse me for the low quality of image as mentioned this was shot from miles away. I will share few other moments of this high action packed drama until then enjoy this and stay tuned.
Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon f4 500mm
EXIF - ISO 800 Av 4 Tv 1/6400sec EC -0.3, large crop
p.s. I intentionally bumped up the ISO to get a super high shutter speed to freeze the action. My anticipation worked well:)
— at Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagarahole, Kabini.
Believe me we were seeing all this from a quite a distance and no tele-photo lenses can capture these moments at a closer range. My cousins and elder brother were happily watching this through a powerful binoculars and I through my 500mm tele-photo lens. The elephant wasn’t comfortable to have a tiger close by, in no time she charged at the tiger as seen in the image. The next series of shots were even more interesting as I managed to capture some record shots of tiger sprinting and taking long leaps while being chased by the elephant. The elephant didn’t give up and she chased this guy into the bushes and in flash returned. But now the elephant had enough of water so she chose to move away. This is another great natural history moment that I was lucky to document.
After about 10 mins the tiger was back again to the same spot and started drinking water and now he had enough time, he gulped few liters of water and gradually disappeared into the bushes. What a tough life these animals have in the forest, never easy even for the king of the jungle. Please excuse me for the low quality of image as mentioned this was shot from miles away. I will share few other moments of this high action packed drama until then enjoy this and stay tuned.
Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon f4 500mm
EXIF - ISO 800 Av 4 Tv 1/6400sec EC -0.3, large crop
p.s. I intentionally bumped up the ISO to get a super high shutter speed to freeze the action. My anticipation worked well:)
— at Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagarahole, Kabini.