2025 Travel Diary
March 2025
I went on a bird photography tour to the western ghats. Travelled with Sampath and Gaurav Mathur. We stayed at a small homestay located on the road from Jog to Bhatkal in the western Ghats, a proper forest location with thick forests all around. A basic house with shared bathrooms and cots.
We spent most of our times in hides, looking for forest birds and hornbills. I got several lifers, including Dark-fronted Babblers, Black-naped Monarchs, Green warblers, etc. Photographic opportunities were very good - especially for the hornbills.
On our way back we visited Mattur for a quick 45 mins and grabbed lunch at home.
February 2025
I went with a friends’ group tour to Bandipur - Karthik, Swagat, Sampath, Smriti, and my old colleague Yogesh Nachnani.
First afternoon was very hot and dry - there was some activity, with other jeeps sighting a leopard and tiger, but we missed both.
The morning safari on Sunday was eventful: We initially spent some time with a shy Tusker, who was getting annoyed by a myna which was trying to rest on his head. We also tracked a lot of pugmarks, and finally reached a location where one jeep had sighted a tiger. Soon enough we saw a huge male tiger - a tiger named Border male, or “5 number tiger”. He was super shy, and had a wound near his tail. Kept himself to the bushes and walked a long way adjacent to our jeeps. Not a photo opportunity, though
January 2025
I started the year with a solo trip to Ranganathittu, Bandipur and Kabini. I was between jobs, and had some free time on my hands - chose weekdays to travel to minimize the crowd.
The half-day trip to Ranganathittu was very fruitful- being a weekday, there were very few tourists. We followed a family of Otters for the majority of our boat ride, getting some decent frames. A memorable frame of a pied kingfisher with a fish kill was also notable.
At Bandipur we had a good sighting of female elephants and a few birds. While we missed a tiger sighting by a few minutes, a lone bull Gaur walked head-on on the track, reminding us of the size and power of the largest bovine in the world. One of the memorable moments was meeting an aged couple from Britain, who have been coming to India for over 25 years, and were deeply familiar with the forests and wildlife of India.
At Kabini folks in my jeep mistook me for a guide! After that initial fun, the afternoon safari’s highlight was a nice sighting of the tigress TT Female, at a waterhole. After this sighting we enjoyed the sunset over Kabini backwaters. While returning on the main road I was still on the phone with my wife, when a tiger was sighted next to the road!! It was the female cub of TT Female, which was shy and ran across the road in a real rush.
The second safari (morning) had a surprise - on a long narrow road we saw a canter flashing its lights, and thinking it just wanted some space we stopped the jeep. In reality the canter was signalling for a tiger! When we went ahead the tiger had just crossed the road, but we could still see its backside - it was the dominant male, Cutlip. Apart from this we had a good sighting of a herd of elephants.
