We stayed in Tala, the village outside the main gate of Bandhavgarh
National Park for 5½ more days. There were many highlights, just a few of which
we will share here.
On Wednesday, our alarms went off early and were followed by
a knock at the door at 5:15 and the delivery of a pot of tea and several cookies
(biscuits) to tide us over. We hurriedly dressed, bundling up for the chilly
ride in the gypsy down to Zone 2 and then took a few minutes to savor the tea
and snacks, before heading out the door. We met Butch at the parking area in
the dark and loaded our gear for a return to Zone 2, where we did not see any
tigers, but saw lots of birds, including fields of peacocks, deer, monkeys and
the dawn breaking over a lovely landscape. As became our pattern for the next
few days, we headed up to the center point of the area a little later in the
morning where there were carts set up and local villagers selling everything
from chai to cooked food and packaged cookies and candies. It was a chance for
everyone to take a break and use the facilities and for the guides and drivers
to confer on what had been seen where. After about fifteen minutes people climbed
back into their vehicles and headed out again to continue to look for wildlife,
with everyone due out of the park by 10:30 or so.
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| Vendors Awaiting Tourists at Center Point |
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| Vendors Stands and Hungry Onlookers |
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Tea Time Break at Center Point
The park stays closed on Wednesday afternoons, so we used
that opportunity to catch up on some reading and writing and also walked the
short distance from Tiger’s Den into the village with Susi. We visited the room
Susi and Butch keep in Tala for when they are not staying with guests at the
lodge. We also went to a couple of craft shops, one run by Susi’s friend,
Neelam, who travels the country looking for regional crafts and has a shop full
of treasures. Neelam kindly shared many of her wares, opening up and showing us
shawl after shawl and any scarves, jewelry or artwork in which we expressed
interest. A brass necklace and some lovely hand painted cards caught Barb’s eye.
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The cards were painted by artists from the Gond tribe who live in the Madhya
Pradesh region. Their art calls to mind some elements of aboriginal artwork from
Australia. The Gond are storytellers, and have a long history of telling their
stories through vibrant paintings, consisting of colorful dots and lines to
depict nature, their gods, rituals and celebrations. Apparently, they carry
this art into their homes by painting their walls and floors in this bright and
distinctive manner. While Barb was fascinated by the art and jewelry, Lydia was
searching for gifts to take to friends and family. One could have spent hours
browsing through all of Neelam’s gems, but we also didn’t want to have her take
everything out, only to have to pack it up again. We each made a couple of
purchases and headed back to the lodge, where a nap seemed in order.
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| Map of Tala Zone |
On Thursday morning we went to Zone 1, the Tala Zone. Each
time we arrived at the entry gates, we would get into a line of vehicles – or start the line, as we were often the first ones there. For each safari, Butch
would have to check us in with one of the park officials, showing paperwork with
our reservations and our passports, lest someone else took a seat we had
purchased. In the mornings in particular, we were bundled up and had been given
blankets by the lodge, so we’d recline on the benches and close our eyes for a
bit, or watch the beginnings of the breaking dawn. Butch, with our guide in
tow, would rejoin us as the opening time approached. We’d all take our places
and then, when the gate was lifted, we’d enter the park. Based on assignments
from the park, the previous day’s sightings and their own knowledge and
intuition, Butch and the guide would determine our route to start off the
safari.
We didn’t see any tigers that morning, and were aware that
fewer than normal had been spotted in the Tala Zone since the park reopened in
the new year. The older dominant male tiger was in a power struggle and was
being pushed out by a younger challenger. Apparently the whole tiger community
was unsettled and was much more reclusive than in the past.
Nonetheless, at one point, while we were stopped and
listening, we heard the alarm call of a deer not far off. Could there be a
tiger nearby? Butch instantly noticed a difference in the call, which we
couldn’t discern and he said very quietly, “leopard”. That was unexpected! Of all the animals
we knew we might see in the park, a leopard was barely on our radar. Butch
turned the gypsy around and headed back to a small spur of the road. The gypsy
climbed the hill slowly and then, much to our amazement, the guide said
“there”. And there it was, lying in thick brush, staring out at us with its
startling beautiful green eyes. Although we had each seen them in Africa,
neither of us had ever seen them so close. How he discovered the spotted cat
with its perfect camouflage is beyond imagination. You know experience has a
great deal to do with it, but the guides must have incredibly keen eyesight to
find the animals in so much underbrush. We watched if for a few moments, before
it rose and moved off. When it was gone, Butch turned the jeep around and
headed back down to the road we had been on when we had first heard the alarm
call. Once again he stopped at a quick word from the guide. There was the cat
again. It had climbed a tree and sat in the crook of a branch looking around
and then looking right at us. We were able to watch it for longer this time,
and were even able to get some photographs of it before it eventually hopped
down and disappeared for good. Not only was that the highlight of the day, it
was one of the highlights of the trip.
Friday brought us a couple of new bird species, including
the distinctive brown fish owl, which we saw in a tree over a very pretty,
secluded spring fed pool. We also saw our first king, or red-headed vulture. We
added a new mammal to our list with our first sighting of the diminutive
barking deer in the forest. We had no tigers on Friday morning, but with each
visit we became more and more enchanted by the beauty and serenity of the Tala
zone.
At the end of each drive, as we left the park, we needed to
stop and check out, much as we had been checked in at the start of the drive.
Butch pulled the gypsy up next to a small building and left us in the vehicle
while he went off to check out. A
minute or two later Lydia said "look at this guy coming - a guy's coming”.
Barb assumed she meant one of the guides, or Butch or someone from the park and
it didn’t register that she was really supposed to turn around and look until
something hit the back of the gypsy. The large object bounded onto the back of
the jeep and then jumped from the conveniently placed vehicle onto the roof of
the building. It was a rather large langur monkey and his shocking antics
nearly scared us to death.
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| A Langur Monkey Making Itself At Home On The Gypsy |
On Friday afternoon we returned to Zone 2, because there
were, uncharacteristically, reports of better tiger sightings there. Upon entry
to the park we learned that we had just missed seeing the new dominant male
chasing away the old dominant male. We did, however get a very good sighting of
a young male traveling through the undergrowth close to the side of the road.
He stayed parallel to us for some time and then gradually moved further off. Eventually,
all we could see of him was just the movement of tiger legs in the dense bamboo
thicket. Later in the afternoon, after much looking and waiting, we turned
around and drove back to the area of a previous sighting to see a large female
cross the road right in front of us. The numbers of our tiger sightings were, happily,
exceeding our expectations.
Saturday morning was another glorious morning back in Zone
1. We saw the brown fish owl again and made the acquaintance of the very tiny
common kingfisher, a lovely bird with turquoise back and rusty orange under
parts. We saw many of the animals that had now become standards for us: rhesus
macaques, langur monkeys, often interspersed with spotted deer, sambar deer,
and a nice variety of bird species.
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| Spotted Deer and Langur Monkeys |
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| Langur Monkeys |
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| Indian Roller |
As we drove, Butch found tiger pugmarks on
the road, and eventually we heard alarm calls. We found a tigress making her
way through the thicket. She crossed the road in front of us and then headed up
the hill towards the fort and her cubs that were, we were told, waiting there
for her. We had some really fabulous views of her and were able to get our first
tiger photos. Lydia was even able to capture her walking silently through the grass
on video.
As great as Saturday morning was the afternoon at Tala was
even more fabulous. We got amazing views of two greater racket-tailed drongos,
in open woodlands. They are iridescent black birds with two exquisitely long
outer tail feathers that are devoid of webbing for most of their length except
towards the end. The ends are shaped like… well, like the face of a racket.
We made our way back to the area where we had heard the
alarm calls and seen the tigress earlier in the day. Again, and to our utter amazement,
our guide spotted her stalking something in the brush on the left side of the
road. She was very intent on whatever it was and we tracked her for a bit. It
was so incredibly unreal to watch her. Eventually she lost interest in whatever
it was she was following and came out onto the road. For the next 45 minutes we
experienced one of the most thrilling encounters of our many years of watching
wildlife. She walked down the road toward us for over half a mile; however, we
were never half a mile away from her. Butch, using his understanding of, and
empathy for tigers would only let her get so close to us, before he would put
the car in reverse and back up down the road.
Then, when she finally walked off into the brush, another
group had found a male, whom we watched through the brush for some time. After
a bit, we backed up to allow him to cross, which he did - straight from one
side of the road into the thicket on the other side
On Sunday morning in the Tala zone, we encountered our
first Gaur, or Indian bison. It was a small herd browsing on foliage within the
forest. They are the largest living wild cattle species in the world. They are
dark brown in color except for four white socks. They have curving horns,
which are quite impressive.
In the afternoon we waited patiently by a lovely waterhole
within the forest in hopes of seeing a tigress making the rounds of her
territory. She was expected to head up the hill near the waterhole to her cubs and
a sambar deer kill she had left with them. While we waited, we were visited by
a forest ranger who was monitoring the female and her cubs. Apparently the
tigers follow much the same route on their daily survey and marking of their
territory and he too expected her to come this way. He arrived atop a very
large elephant, which very noisily moved through the brush toward the
waterhole. If you wish to sneak up on someone or something in the forest, you
are advised not to travel by elephant. They do not walk quietly! However, we
were told that they also don’t disturb the tigers. It was fun to see the elephant
so close up. It was not long after the ranger left us on his large steed that
the female quickly made her way by the waterhole. She was clearly on a mission
to return to her cubs, calling out to them as she climbed the hill. Were we there a couple of weeks later,
we might have seen her with her cubs in tow, but it was a little early in the
season for that. Perhaps on our next trip!
Our final drive was on Monday morning. No tigers that day,
but we saw many animals and a couple of new bird species. As always, we soaked
in the beauty and peacefulness of this gem of a national park. It had provided
us with some wonderful scenery and wildlife and we both feel like we want to go
back and visit it again.
Then, just before leaving, Butch drove us up to a steep
hill, to visit a very special human made site, Sheshshaiya. We parked the gypsy
and walked up a series of stone steps to a most magical place, which is thought
to have been built in the 10th century AD. At the top of the steps
we found a large stone statue of the Lord Vishnu, reclining atop a serpent. Vishnu is one of a trinity of three Hindu
gods. The three are Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the
destroyer. Lord Vishnu is 35 feet long and carved from a single
sandstone rock. Adjacent to it is a cylindrical representation of Lord Shiva.
They are perched alongside a lovely stone pool, which is the spring fed origin
of a stream, which, along with others it joins within the park, supplies water
to the park throughout the year, as well as to the village of Tala and beyond. That
was the perfect way to end our visits to Bandhavgarh. We really loved that spot and I would have gladly
perched there for hours just to quietly soak in the serenity, while keeping an
eye out to see what birds and other wildlife happened by. We tore ourselves
away with difficulty and made our way out of the park, back to the lodge, where we
made our final preparations for departing in the afternoon.
