November 15, 2015.
3 p.m. Moharli Gate opened and from the Maruti Gypsy ahead a soft invocation: Ganpathi bappa moriya...me also called up Titvala Ganesh, a favourite...unsaid was a favour ... a Tiger sighting...me confess to a scorn of Tigerwallas .... but every forest trip and a Tadoba entry makes me something of a Tigerwalla.... is it the media mentions...is it the Tiger...Yes, it is the Tiger.. something akin to getting a college degree or the first job or an abiding dream .....a Tiger holds me and many, many else....Every time me enters a forest tells the guide a lie: jungle dekhna hai, Tiger ke liye no bhagos; ..a call or a whispered mention...and blood pressure ups....and when the sighting is on...the BP is 80/120; me is still; no meditation can do it; me has no explanation...know little of Tiger science...cant stand up to any scrutiny ...but every Tadoba visit and there have been a few, a Tiger alone matters...going by wikipedia, Taru a village chief, was killed by a tiger; there is a temple under a tree for God Taru near the Tadoba Lake, a space of lifey waters... Tadoba forests as an historical entity started in 1955; they were there before; they will be forever. Spotted deer, sambar, nil gai ... saw a deer alone on a mud track winding to the skies; a sambar lipping at a water hole in a meadow...a sambar gives the impression of a buddha wondering over forest ways ..But then wildlifers will taunt and they may not be wrong; animals do not know humans and humans do not know animals, is a contention, me does not prefer. Over four visits, saw green bee-eaters...there seems to be an explosion in their numbers...some mud-bathing...a few flying overhead, skimming a bald skull...they were here, there, all over. And a resting gaur on the forest borders...rising up nimbly and moving away...Mornings at Navegaon meadows (with tribals relocated outside Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve under fair resettlement terms.) On the electric wires, a black shouldered kite nibbling a breakfast at around 8 in the morning; it hit the high skies, fluttered at a spot before diving down for the kill; a white-eyed buzzard looked around....but green beaters booked the show...on the way Ganesh eyed a pigmy woodpecker, tapping a dead, tree upside down, for eats. There is the mandatory Tadoba Lake wait; with all that water, there may just be a few dry minutes, if ever, in blinding summers; open billed storks, black ibis, a giant heron ...a crocodile, eyes above water....each into each's business... and a male sambar , horned head above water .....the Maruti Gypsy halted...we watched ..... wondering the next glimpse .....For me it is Tadoba or Tarubaba.
Chital
Sambhar
Green Bee Eater
Green Bee Eater
Black shouldered Kite
Open billed stork
Black Ibis
Sambhar
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