A Special Date with Maya
Tadoba has always been very close to my Heart. My 1st ever safari visit was from Tadoba on Oct 12. Since then this was my 7th visit. The previous 6 safaris were in the winter or summer seasons.
Always wanted to visit Tadoba during the monsoon season and wanted to visit the Jungle, and experience different situations than winter and summer. In monsoon only 20/25 km TATR main road gets open for Safari, which brings down the chances of spotting the Tigers to a very low percentage. And because of the dense forest, it is again difficult to track the movement of tigers or other animals.
Aug 7, 2016
2nd Safari started on a good note, grp of Indian Bison was on the TATR road. After enough clicks, we moved ahead and reached Pandharpauni water hole 1. Some Pairs of lesser whistling ducks, Red Lapwing, and Eurasian Stone Curley were spotted on the grasslands of Pandharpauni. As we had time, clicked many photos and experimented with different completions keeping the green background in the picture. Then we patrolled Navegaon road but no movement. We took the decision to wait near T Point junction. After some time weather surprised us with sunshine. Then we started the return journey towards Moharli gate as exit time approached. So our 2nd safari also ended with not much excitement.
Before starting the 3rd Safari, we got the good news that 2 new areas got open for Safari ie. Jamunboodi and JamunZora. This boosted us that we got some more area to explore and also results in good chances of spotting the Tigers. Once the afternoon session started all gypsy wanted to explore the new areas so are we. When we were and the junction of Jamunboodi and JamunZora we heard 2 spotted deer calls. Our guide suggested to take left towards Tadoba lake to check the area. The rest of the gypsies took a right turn and went towards JamunZora.
Once we reached the Panchdhara area some 3-4 gypsies were coming towards us and signaling go-back. We were confused and by the time we realized, Majestic Maya entered from the water stream of Panchdhara and started approaching us. Within no time our driver took the reverse and now our gypsy was ahead of Maya.
Wow !!! what Sightseeing that was !!! Maya is just 15-20 ft away from us and no one in between us.
She was doing her normal routine of territory marking near Tadoba lake. Our guide and driver were experienced enough to understand which are spots on the climb are good to take habitat clicks while Maya walking on the Tadoba lake road.
We got plenty of habitat shots, head-on shots, close-up shots, and territory marking shots. Maya was understanding all our thoughts and posed just how we wanted. She is definitely a show stopper of Tadoba A real Tadoba Queen !!!