Leopard/Kabini (Scar-faced male)

[Praveen Siddannavar]

How important it is to maintain silence in forests and keep focused on every move? Here is another such instance, as we drove and covered most of the routes of Kabini backwaters but no sign of any pug-marks nor any warning calls. But I and my friends didn't lose hope, we kept looking around, a small clue can lead to a great sighting is what I believe in. As a thumb rule the movement of predators starts at dusk, the time was almost 5:45pm, the light was fading fast and we knew that we didn't have enough time to drive in the forest. We quietly drove towards the president road junction and stopped for a couple of minutes, it was silence all over and I could sense the feel of the jungle. After a while suddenly from a distance we heard chital alarm call & our driver muddu guessed that the call is from mastigudi chain gate. We drove towards mastigudi chain gate and the calls went even more loud. As we approached the gate and came on to the main road. We saw a group of chitals on our left giving loud alarm calls and all were looking towards the bush. It was quite evident that a cat was around. We parked our jeep on the main road, the national highway that leads to kerala. Since this road closes at 6:30pm the buses and trucks were in hurry and for no reason they were honking, while we were patiently waiting and hearing the alarm calls. All this drama was happening on the busy main road, it had been 5-10 mins of wait here and suddenly we spotted a leopard popping out of the bushes on our left, it was a male. This guy seemed quite bold, he came out in the open and was sniffing around and growling too. There was one moment when he went behind a tree, probably marked his territory by urinating and I was expecting him to come out and look towards us. That is what exactly happened and it was amazing to make some images under extreme low light. And he was none other than the popular Scar- faced male.

Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon f4 500mm lens
EXIF - ISO 3200 Av 4 Tv 1/40 sec EC - 0.3, Cropped
Nov'12 - at Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagarahole, Kabini.