Tiger & Gaurs/Bandipur

I can’t forget this day Saturday the 2nd Oct’10; we drove quite early in the morning into the Bandipur forest, as we drove Yere Katte, from a distance we saw a large herd of gaurs, right on the track. Generally the gaurs disappear into the bushes as they see humans/jeep approaching but on this occasion even after seeing us driving towards them the gaurs were unmoved. We sensed something is wrong, I told Basavanna to slow down the jeep and after few yards we stopped. The gaurs seemed very nervous; most of them were looking in one direction that is on our left, few gaurs we were grumbling & we could hear the sounds.
We patiently waited for 20-30 mins, the gaurs didn’t move, after a while a gaur that had a calf all of sudden started charging towards the bush and was clearing our way so we continued to drive. As the gaur charged towards the bush with its sub adult calf, a huge tiger from the bushes pounced on the calf. It was a narrow escape for the calf. What we could see is just the face and the paw that attacked the calf, the action happened in a fraction of second. None of us expected this & were ready to photograph, but it was by far the most exciting and amazing moments that I have ever had. Later the tiger moved I guess through the bushes as we herd langur alarm calls on the other side. The tiger did not choose to walk in open, he had sensed that there was a large herd of gaurs (40 +) on the road. Unfortunately we could not get any images of tiger, but I can share few more of images of the herd wherein you can notice the nervous behavior.


Camera Model Canon EOS 40D, 100-400mm
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/80
Av( Aperture Value ) 5.6
ISO 800
Focal length 100mm
Full Frame
Handheld

That is really very interesting to see a tiger charge a calf. I had witnessed similar incident in Bandipur, when the herd was nervous and all looking in one direction. One bull, even charged in the direction of the bushes, but the tiger didn't come out. We waited long but nothing happened after that. You were really lucky to see it charge. The image shows their behaviour nicely. A higher shutter speed would have been good to freeze the action of the Gaur in the front. Thanks for sharing.

Amazing story.I have seen such incidences on "TV"!

Its good that you set out early morning on a holiday and witnessed something like this.

Good photo as well.

Regards

Good that you got to see atleast a fleeting glimpse. Tiger often hunts gaurs and hence the gaurs become worried and resort to snorting and can be dangerous if a person is on foot.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Sure seems like a tense moment. I agree with the comments made on the image. THanks for sharing.