On Collision course with a Tusker

[Shyamala Kumar]

On the return drive from the Dikhala forest resthouse to the forest entry gate, a huge tusker gave us a tense half hour by refusing to forgo his right of passage for a few minutes and allowing our vehicle to continue along the mountain side road.He continued intimidatingly towards our vehicle swaying his massive trunk , forcing our driver to beat a strategic retreat.There was an unmistakable mischievous glint in his eyes and his whole attitude indicated that he was in control. On one side was a slope and the other side it was a steep hill rise. We were literally trapped with only one way to go -back!I managed to sneak a few shots taking care not to make myself too visible as most unfortunately I was wearing something reddish in colour.Canon60D+100-400mm 1/320s ISO800 F/8 FL282mm Corbett late morning April2014

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

'THE WILD TUSKER CAME TOWARDS US, HEAD COCKED ON ONE SIDE'.
This is written under a similar photograph taken by E.P.Gee reproduced in his famous book 'The Wild Life of India' (1964) with a foreword by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Live and Natural image. Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Mrudul Godbole]

Quite an interesting experience of getting blocked by a big tusker. Liked the way one of its tusks is bend :-), can it be in fight? Nice display of the habitat. I liked the composition. Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

The left tusk may not be of much help to this tusker during a fight. Do you have another image showing its left side and that interesting tusk?

Once I told my gypsy driver not to drive fast, as one can suddenly stumble upon a tusker. An elephant due to its colouration can merge in the shadow and remain unnoticed from a distance if the road has a good canopy cover.

I don't have much of experience of elephant charging towards red cloth. In South, elephants had earned a reputation for uprooting white coloured milestones. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Debasis Bose]

Lovely shot and would say you were lucky that you were able to reverse as you seem to be on the main road. This particular bull is a huge one, I am attaching two side profile of the tusker shot on 11th April 2014.

Stumbling on a musth bull head on is itself nerve chilling. Can visualize your encounter with tusker on road. Last April 2013 we had one encounter with one and half tooth tusker at the bend and steep slope of Khabdi on the sambar road (this is a one way road). Reversing the jeep on the steep slope of Khabdi was not at all a good option as the engine would roar and that would have irritated the tusker. The only option was switch off and pray, as one side was a straight fall of about 10 m and other side was slope with about 65 degree inclination and dense growth. My son was 9 years and daughter 11 year both of them were nervous. Without speaking any word by action told them to slide under the seats of Gypsy. My 73 year old mother was seated next to driver, told her to close her eyes. We waited and the tusker about 10-12 m away was standing still, flapping his huge ears and moving his trunk. After about 15 minutes of anxiety, the good law of the jungle prevailed, the tusker gave us the way by slowly went up the inclined slope about 15m pushing through the growth and stood there. We just zoomed across, the jeep on the top of the slope started to reverse. We crossed the tusker and waited to see what he does next. The bull slowly came down on the road and started to walk towards Dhikala. It was a jaw biting experience.

[Debasis Bose]

Nikon D 7000, Nikor 300 F2.8, @F5.6, exposure 1/1250s, ISO 400

[Shyamala Kumar]

Sabyasachi,I was really in no condition to ascertain wether it was red or white which would antagonize the bull!.Survival instincts just took over and I just played safe .I did not want to be a` red rag to a bull`so to speak.I do know that the Bandipur buffer zone is full of white coloured milestones that have been uprooted or smashed by marauding elephants.
Debasis, I can quite identify with your predicament, as our situation seems to have been practically similar. I do know that being trapped on the Sambhar road could be a nerve racking experience.Speaking for myself I have never been so terrified in my life.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

My own experience is that the probability charging by the elephant increases manifold if you are wearing white clothing and standing in an open jeep and that by lion if you are wearing saffron or red (and are on foot). Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Shyamala Kumar]

Saktipadaji,it seems that by general consensus white is the colour which makes the elephant` see red`so to speak .Thanks for the feed back.