Bhandipur June 2012

Baby enjoying mothers milk

Bhandipur - Excellent trip, better than Kabini.  Stayed in Junlge Lodges again.  JLR is actually outside the forest entry gate.  Good accommodation and food with service as usual.  

Only Jeep Safari in Bhandipur.  Usual evening and morning rides.  We stayed for 2 days here as well.  So we got 4 trips into the forest.  One in the morning and the other one in the evening for 2 days.

Elephant heard

Evening safari is quiet cool and good.  The weather was not hot at 3.30pm.  Inside the forest it was totally dry. 

Of course as  tradition the first thing you get to see is the Spotted Deers.  The above picture was one of the rare sighting.  The next we spotted a heard of Elephants with 2 small babies.  They came for the water hole which was completely dry and they kept moving.

TIGER, ha!ha!hah! we spotted a tiger in the next day morning safari.  Near a small water hole coming to drink.  As it was coming we did spot and without much noise our safari jeep moved a bit in the front and close to the water hole.  The thirsty tiger started drinking water, once the thirst was quenched, tiger went inside the water hole to get a nice cool dip for the whole body.  Sat in the water for atleast 1/2 hour, trying to make no noise the whole jeep was quiet and thrilled watching tiger so close.

What a pose

Relaxing and Cooling

Once cooled got up and started a low growling.  Our Safari driver said its calling the babies to come to the water, but they never came.  We in fact waited to see if they will also come out to drink with their mother.  But no luck, time was running out so we left and came back to lodge.

Growling tiger 

Tiger reaching the water hole

The next day morning at 7.00, we saw the same tiger again.  It was just reaching the water hole as you see in this picture.

The morning jeep carried a different group, all holding big zoom lenses trying to  capture the great moment in their cameras.  We both were thrilled again to see the tiger and this time we stayed there for a longer time.

Drinking water, see the reflection in the water

What a muscular body!  Fully grown female.  This was commented by driver who was also clicking pictures in his cell phone.

Same procedure the tiger followed, drinking water first and getting down in the water to get cool.  This time she was not sitting in the water for a long time, since there was something moving on the other side of the bush, which we did not realise.

Trying to see what is moving the other side of the bush

Came out sat for a little while on the banks of the water hole trying to see what is on the other side of the bush.  Few seconds it got up and moved again growling, this was little panicky.  Driver said may be because the babies are alone and something is moving.   Once the tiger moved out of our sight we saw the elephants, tamed ones walking slowly with their bell on the neck, so this was the cause for the tiger to be restless.

The trip came to an end, we felt a bit sad to leave the place since may be the tiger will come again to the same spot in the next drive.  Anyways time for us to leave.  Shared the pictures with the other guests in the JLR and left for Bangalore.  

Kabini Forest May2012

Our Kabini trip was another beautiful experiene. We travelled in May.  Good season to spot animals starts from April.  We stayed in Jungle Lodges & Resorts.  www.kabiniriverlodge.com, please use this link for your accommodation booking and also for the route map in case if you are travelling by road.  Its not too far from Bangalore and will approximately take 5 hours. You can either go Jeep safari or Boat ride.  Normally boat rides are suggested for evenings and Jeep safari for mornings.  Staying for 2 nights is really worth for spotting animals.  The guides in the lodge are really good.

We reached by noon, so that we dont miss any of the activities that are included in the package.  As we reached we were taken to a nice cosy room.  Relaxed for few minutes, by then the lunch was served in the dining hall (all buffet system).  We were ready with our binoculars, cameras and also suntan lotion at 3.00pm.

Got into the boat, since its summer the water in the river was not too high.  Once u start cruising in the boat first thing you will spot is lot of birds in the dried tree stumps amidst the river.

Different Birds on the tree in the river.

Tusker by the river side 

Jeep safari morning at 6.00 and evening 3.30.  We had 4 trips in Jeep, we enjoyed all the trips. 

We happened to spot lot of elephants including baby elephant in all our jeep safaries and also our boat rides.  Monkeys, Serpant eagle, Bison, etc.,  were some of the other animals and birds spotted.  

Infact one of the baby elephant we spotted was limping, the back leg was injured and we felt so bad for that baby.  The mother elephant was trying to cover the baby and closely moving together as seen below.

Wild Dogs the famous killer, they come in a pack of 10 to 12 at a time.  We spotted a pack by the river banks, where they just finished their kill and running towards the river.  Normally spotting wild dogs is very rare, we were lucky.

Leopard, we spotted one in the tree branch by the side of the road.  The leopard was literally hanging in the branch as you see in the below pictures.  This we spotted in our first safari trip itself.  The next day also we saw the same leopard but in a different tree branch.

Infact the second day after coming back from our morning safari, we had our breakfast and took off with our Pajero to the same road to see the leopard once again, which was still there.  With binoculars the sighting we had was great.

The same tusker that we saw from the boat ride was also spotted the next day morning in the Jeep safari.

Tusker by the river banks.

Birds, especially Changeover Hawk Eagle(?) was sighted very close to our jeep.

The other baby elephants, bisons, monkeys as we spotted. The limping baby elephant which was very close to our jeep.

The Bison trying to grasp a tree branch for some food.

Another baby elephant but not looking healthy.

Sitting like three musketeers in the tree looking seriously at something.

On the whole this trip we enjoyed since we saw all except the tiger.  The food, the service and the rides organised by the Jungle Lodge was really good and nothing to complain.  Its worth a trip to Junglelodges, Kabini.

The next trip as we travel will be updated in the blog.