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Leopard on the Rock/Kabini
Firstly thank all for the Diwali wishes sent to me, I was traveling and with no proper connectivity. Please accept my belated wishes to you for a very happy and prosperous Diwali. I am sure you had a blast.
I and few friends were at Kabini, known to many as leopard country. However for past few weeks there have been some amazing sightings of Tigers too. It was yet another late & hot afternoon drive, as we drove past hosekere junction we spotted a white bellied woodpecker, the second largest woodpecker in Asia. After taking few shots I informed my friends that whenever I have seen a white bellied woodpecker I ended up seeing a cat and mostly it was a leopard. All of them looked charged up with a hope that this bird would bring in some luck today.
After a while I observed that everyone in our jeep took this so seriously and I could see that their hopes are now on me, it was a fact that in many occasions be it a coincidence that after having seen a white bellied woodpecker I ended up seeing a cat. After an hour and half hours’ drive we didn’t spot anything except for a tusker and few spotted deers. We decided to drive through the KV power line, the weeding hasn’t been done here as yet and the parthenium had grown quite tall, I was really feeling nervous as my friends had so much hope on me. We were heading back to hoskere junction and suddenly we heard a langur alarm call.
These black faced monkeys never go wrong in most cases, once they have spotted a predator they warn the deers about the threat of predator nearby. Since the parthenium was so tall we could barely see anything but the alarm calls went louder by the langur.
Our drive Raja, suggested we drive further to an open area to get a better view; we drove to hoskere junction where the 4 roads meet. We stopped and looked around, at a distance over 200 mts towards the kemengundi road we could a see a leopard walking on the safari track. I took few record shots, considering that this guy was a young male and he too seemed nervous and was running upon hearing our jeep. However if we switched off the engine he would walk, in the mean time we also saw him marking his territory by scratching the earth. He was still miles away and on the move, we did manage some shots of him marking the territory.
Initially we had keep a distance of over 200+ mts between the leopard and our jeep, later we chose to drive within 100 mts , he started running. By now all spotted deers were alert and the alarm calls became even louder. After a while this leopard moved towards our right, I was sure that he will move swiftly into the bushes, but this guy went up to a tree and we could see him roll over beneath the tree, could be another way to mark his territory. The spotted deers were very close to the leopard and I was fortunate to manage few shot with leopard and deers in one frame. Finally the leopard vanished into the bushes; however the deers continued to give alarm calls. We waited quietly for a while at this location; it was surprising to hear alarm calls further probably another 400 mts away.
We thought this guy sneaked through the bushes and reached further on kemengudi road. So we drove on this road, we noticed that a group of ~ 20 deers were giving alarm calls. We stopped and all of us were looking at the deers because this wasn’t a normal call it was super loud. The time was 5:40pm and light was fading fast, we looked at all directions to see if we could spot the leopard, but didn’t find one.
Suddenly our driver Raja whispered leopard leopard…, a huge male leopard was sitting right in front of us that went unnoticed by all of us including Raja, when we first arrived at this spot.
The leopard was probably 20-25 mts away from us; he was nicely sitting on a small rock that was adjacent to a tree. I am sure for at least 2-3 minutes the leopard was looking at us while we hadn’t even seen him. In no time all of us instantly started clicking, it sounded like an AK47 is being fired. After the first 5 shots I realized that I am unable to get the full leopard in frame as I was shooting with a 500mm lens and he was really close for me. I managed to rest my camera and lens on the bean bag and fired few vertical shots, it was then I managed this image.
In my view this was probably the kemengundi male, he is quite healthy, strong and a big boy. The deers never stopped giving calls, and we too fired as many shots as possible, finally the leopard had enough of the loud calls and he chose to move towards the bushes. Before moving he scrubbed his face to the tree trunk marking his territory.
What an amazing experience this was, sighting two male leopards in the same territory within 500 mts range and in span of 10 minutes we managed images of the both leopards. The highlight sure was the "Leopard On The Rock". I was now relieved, of course excited as well seeing the 2 leopards but more than that my luck of seeing white bellied woodpecker proved it right yet again, this time in a much bigger way.
Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon f4 500mm lens
EXIF - ISO 1600 Av 4 Tv 1/80 sec EC - 0.3, subject distance 20.7M, almost full frame, Time shot 5:40pm
