ATR - Day 31: Saw all four tiger cubs and also their mother in Panna

The morning safari was dull in terms of tiger sighting but the evening safari was just as eventful with all four cubs and the mother sighted though separately.

October 31, 2023

Tuesday, 11:00 PM

Naahar Bagh Rajbagh,

Panna District, 

Madhya Pradesh, 

India

The morning safari was pretty much fruitless because despite all efforts to track tiger, we didn’t find any. I did get a few good pictures of other things, but no luck with tiger sighting. I came back quickly and dedicated a few hours to editing today’s Vlog in part, and before I knew it was already time to leave for the evening safari. 

The evening safari was way better than the morning safari was dry in terms of sighting. We had just about entered the reserve and we came across the cubs we had been seeing and tracking for the last few days. But today, they were sitting flat on the ground a few meters from the road — all three of them. Their mother was not around and she was expected to eventually come around and take her cubs away. Also, the fourth one was not around either. But we got some awesome pictures and excellent footage before we detected the fourth one, who seemed to be calling out to them to join him in visiting their mother. But his three siblings did not seem interested. So apparently, he went back to his mother to complain of his siblings’ not heeding his lead. The mother, who wanted to sleep some more (which we got to know later, when we finally found where she was sleeping), told him off, and the cub returned towards his siblings. But all four of them retreated deep into the jungle, away from the prying lenses. His siblings had already decided to move away when he came across to join them. And then, he too went into the woods. 

We moved from there and soon enough we came across the mother, who was peacefully lying bang on the road, and continued to rest despite the gypsies standing on both sides and people clicking and recording her. She would lift her head up and look at the onlookers every now and then, and then go back to sleep. We got some good pictures of her, too. And then she finally got up, straightened up, yawned wide, got up and strolled away into the woods. It was not much time left to the safari. So we drove away. The day was pretty good even though the upload was slightly late.