I have been a regular visitor to forests for quite some time and each and every trip till date has revealed something new in terms of sightings. I see so many photographers in resorts each one vying to capture images of big cats Leopards and Tigers only and in the process miss out moments that are truly wonderful and possibly never repeated. I normally go with group of young professionals who also have interest in photography as a hobby and i keep telling them that it is better to go into the safari drive without any expectations then there is no chance of any disappointments in terms of sighting. The recent trip just concluded and in all the four safaris we had great sightings of the big cat predators and also got to witness two incidents that are pretty rare but does happen within the forest quite often but without any spectators around.
The first incident was that while on evening safari at Nagarhole forest we had alarm calls ringing all around us and we suddenly saw a huge male leopard sitting beside the path and then scent marking its territory. After sometime i was disturbed by the scent of a larger predator nearby ....Tiger and hence climbed a tree and laid down nearly 20 feet high away from the reach of tiger. We then went in search of the tiger and what we saw was few gaurs standing in semi circle and looking down...and when we looked closely it was the bold male known as Mastigudi male . Then the gaurs made a collective charge and the tiger got up and vanished into the bush.
The second incident happened the next day when the same male tiger stalked an elephant and subsequently the nervous elephant chased the tiger. This incident has been videographed in bits and pieces and i have compiled then into a single clip. The description of the incident in detail is available on Youtube.
