Tigress from Kolsa

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Visited Tadoba a couple of weeks back with Gajanan Bhai. This time around the trip was different as we moved away from sure shot sightings of tigresses like Maya and Sonam to more elusive tigers and their newly littered cubs. Kolsa is an area in Tadoba which is dense and chances of sightings are very low. However there is a decent density of tigers there too. For the first time in my many visits to Tadoba a tiger was seen only by our jeep and for hours to follow there wasnt another jeep to even ask if we sighted a tiger. There were no alarm calls, no jungle 'folks' warning us the presence of a tiger, yet we found this tigress engrossed in her own morning chores. She didnt expect humans as much as we didnt expect a sighting, yet we both were curious and for a good 20 mins we tried to visually discover each other. Lovely morning it was indeed.

Nikon D7k, f/5.3,SS 1/320,ISO 2000,195mm.