Tiger at KaterniaGhat Wildlife Sanctuary

Not a day passes these days when me and my friends don’t talk about our visits to the Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary. Mesmerised by it’s Jungle our minds always longs for more of the forest. Though we had visited the forest on earlier occasions too the visit in May was one of our most happening visits. The three days at the forest allowed us to abundantly explore the various aspects of the Katerniaghat forest namely the riverside, the grasslands, and the dense forests and have a nice view of the forest flora and fauna. The cream of our Jungle pie was our sighting of the Tiger in the evening of our first day of the visit The sighting left us in awe for the creature. Though it was not our first sighting the same was our best sighting

It was a hot and humid evening and we were tired from our day long exploration of the forest . We had been traversing the Jungle roads in search of the wild creatures snapping up a photograph here and there. The Sun had started it’s journey towards setting for the day and we were on our way to end ours after staying at the Mahadeva Taal for an hour enjoying it’s tranquility and Peace.

It was then that lady luck smiled on us. Like always the sighting was made by Manasvi who happens to be our Lucky charm for our Tiger Sighting. He was driving our Jungle Trusted “Tavera” when he sighted the tiger dead ahead on our track . Both Manasvi and Amit (who was sitting on his side ) immediately exclaimed and alerted me and Shekher who were seated on the back seats. Shekher who was totally drained of energy at that time and insisting that we go back and have a nice cup of coffee suddenly was the most excited of us all.

The majestic tiger simply ignored our presence and continued to walk ahead of us at a very leisurely pace allowing us to take snaps and film him ( we however could manage very few good ones due to camera shake and bad light conditions in the dense vegetation.) He suddenly changed track and climbed over towards the “bandha” . We thought we had lost the sight of the tiger and pondered whether to continue our Journey to the Forest Rest House or wait more for another sighting ( life’s like that just when you fulfill one desire another arises and and it was our lucky day too). Discussing the sighting when just as we were coming over to the bandha from the Mahadeva Taal we sighted the tiger again crossing the bandha towards the River. Exited at the opportunity again we thanked god again and saw him crossing over and then go on to sit in the open and enjoy his kingdom ( and allowing us too ) . He spent at least half an hour in the open allowing us to gaze at himself and film him.

The tiger though was calm but caused a lot of commotion at our end as we were jostling to have a nice shot from our camera which were simply refusing to operate properly due to low light conditions of the evening sun and the forest.

Though we spent two more days there and could manage many more snaps of the Birds and the animals but it was our first day itself that proved the Luckiest.

I am sure we will be back soon to feel it again.