Photographing a Tigress at Panna National Park and Tiger reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India. Nov 24.

 

Visiting Panna Tiger reserve whilst on our bird photography tour to Bharatpur in Rajasthan was not on our agenda until we arrived and started talking tigers a few days in to our trip.

Hans and I had been in India both in 2003 (with Iain Stewart also) and 2005 and had had a failed tiger viewing attempt at Bandhavghar at a time when everyone else saw tigers bar us.

Talking it over with the owners of the Hotel Sunbird in Bharatpur where we were staying courtesy of Mr.Laxman Singh and Mr. Ranveer Sikarwar they suggested Panna for a couple of nights and managed to get us into the Panna Tiger Resort and got us booked on 3 jeep safaris.

It was a 7 hour taxi ride to Panna but this went smoothly thanks to our professional driver Raja Singh.

Our first safari was an afternoon one and after finding tiger footprints and hearing 2 tigers roaring we never got to see one.

Next morning was a 5am start and a 6:15 safari, still dark and a bit chilly especially in the back of an open top jeep.

Within half an hour of being in the reserve our guide Manoj Dibedi had wind of a tigress near us and along with our expert driver we were soon watching a stunning tigress as she walked around her territory. The light was a bit low for photography but was getting better all the time. She was sniffing trees and rocks along the way and then spraying urine on them to mark her territory.

 

 

Sunrise

We had amazing views of her and noticed she had quite a bit of prickly vegetation stuck to the side of her face, luckily a few minutes later she brushed it off and continued her walk.

Our guide and driver were excellent and knew exactly where we, as photographers wanted to be to get the best angles. Often avoiding the tiger completely and putting us in her anticipated route so we could watch her as she emerged from the long grass.

Scent marking a tree

Sniffing a tree

Scent marking a tree

Scent marking a tree

Scent marking a tree

 

 

After a while she walked into the forest and we thought that was the end of our treat but then a few minutes later she emerged at the top of a plateau area of long golden dry grass.

She then proceeded to walk down across this area and our driver had us in a super position to photograph her without causing her any disturbance or nuisance. She was however very dismissive of any vehicles and happily continued on her way with hardly a second glance at us.

 

 

My good friend Hans van de Griendt, our guide Manoj and myself.

All of my photos were taken from the back of the jeep using 2 Nikon cameras, one with a 70-300mm zoom lens and the other with a 500mm lens.

It was a very special event and I feel privileged to have been part of it, that said I put in an awful lot of effort to get to this point, many hours of often uncomfortable travel, mosquito bites, 35 degrees heat and mouthfuls of dust, early starts in the darkness .....but we got there in the end.

The memory of this morning with this tigress will undoubtedly stay with us for the rest of our lives.