Below, we have a link to a gallery of some photos of a tiger seen in the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in India in 2016. A very lucky find this one. We only had half a day in the reserve while on holiday in India. Generally, tigers are hard to find and, given the dense habitat, much harder to get clear photographic opportunities. Even Indian friends, who had been to this reserve several times, had yet to secure a decent sighting.
We found this beautiful female through the skill, experience and perseverance of our driver/guide. Almost as soon as we set off on our drive, we could hear distant alarm calls of Sambar deer (one of the tigers’ favourite prey). Then our driver picked up recent tiger prints crossing a sandy road. We followed the tracks, spotting them several times only to lose them again as we crisscrossed the area. Finally, after nearly an hour of tracking, we came round a corner to see her cooling off in a small pond right next to the road.
Once we found her in the pool, we were able to spend 15-20 minutes parked up just twenty metres or so from her. When she decided to come out, we had to reverse quite sharply as she came towards our open safari vehicle. We watched her scent-spray a tree nearby before seeing her one more time coming back towards us. And then within a few minutes she had slid into the tall grass and was immediately gone from sight – the last shot of her in the gallery shows a remarkable example of her camouflage.
The final picture in the gallery is of a superb male Sumatran tiger – one of a pair at the Bioparc in Fuengirola, southern Spain. Here they have a program for breeding this highly endangered species, before returning them to their natural habitat in Sumatra.
