ATR - Day 49: A tiring all-day safari with reasonably good sighting

Today was a better day in terms of sighting though it was also a very tiring day, especially because I am still recovering from viral fever and it was an all-day safari.

November 18, 2023

Saturday, 11:30 PM

Manthan - A Boutique 

Resort, Kohoka Road, 

Near Village Touria, 

District Seoni,

Madhya Pradesh

India

The day today was better than the last few days for two reasons. One, I could pull myself up to go on a safari and it was an all-day safari. Two, we did manage to have some tiger sightings and got a couple of good pictures, which is not bad work for a day. 

We went looking for a famous local tigress called Baras, who is currently rearing her cubs. We found her, missed cubs. So the pictures turned out to be average; nothing exciting. Tiger cubs provide pretty good pictures because they are goofy in their own tiger way, which is always interesting to watch, for they are basically kids learning to fend for themselves. 

We found two other tigers — B2 and Binnu. And that was a particularly good sighting and got me better pictures than I got of Baras.

However, sightings aside, the day was very tiring perhaps because I am still recovering from viral fever, and an all-day safari is anyway a pretty long stretch of extremely bumpy ride on a gypsy even at the slow speed these vehicles are driven in the jungle. They are driven at slow speeds because they are not permitted to exceed a very low speed limit and also because jungles don’t really have roads to speak of, which is how it should be, and that makes high-speed driving out of question, which is, again, how it should be. 

Jungles only have these narrow paths, which are designated for safari vehicles and are also preferred by most of tigers of any given area because they don’t like to walk through tall grass and weeds, and just hate being pricked by thorns in the bushes and bitten by wild mosquitoes. So these narrow paths are their preferred walking tracks, which is one of the reasons we get to see these majestic creatures as often, else they have no real need to step out of the woods. Of course, a few tigers are too shy, and would step back into the woods at the very sight of a gypsy but a large number of them are not bothered. They are tigers, after all.  

I got back from the safari, took bath and gave today’s Vlog a finishing touch. Today’s Vlog is low on wildlife because it features the day I did not go on the safari, being unwell. So much of the editing work on it was done by Harsh. I just had a quick look, made a few changes and made it live.