Sanjay's Pad: Dudhwa Diary- Day Two

We woke up early and came out of the log hut to soak in the early morning glory, there was dew all around the atmosphere was wearing a greenish white hue with the mist spread around like a giant white blanket, admiring the sight we started our preparations for the morning trip seeking expert advice from Baddal on which area to head to.He suggested going back to the same spot where yesterday we had spotted the Elephant herd and we could not resist the charm of meeting up with our new found friends again.

On reaching the place disappointment was in store for us as the herd had retreated from the place. Baddal consoled us and asked the driver to drive further and we reached a machan not very far from the place we had met the herd. on climbing the machan we strained our eyes to scan the surroundings , looking for signs of life in the vast jungle in front of us .

Baddal fished out a binocular from his bag and started his specialised scanning we could spot a group of Cheetals leisurely grazing and resting in the grassland, suddenly Baddal's trained eyes spotted something and he became very excited and gestured at us to come near him and have a Dekko , we unable to understand the reason for his enthusiasm took his binoculars and looked at the direction he was pointing to, adjusting the binos what was initially a yellow speck became clearer and we could see a tiger sitting at the edge of the grassland it was at a distance of approximately 400 meters from our perch on the machan.

It was an intriguing scenario ,Either the cheetals were very brave as it is hard to imagine that they were not aware of the presence of the king of jungle or the tiger had lost his canines Just joking on this barb.

The likely explanation is that the tiger was resting after a hearty breakfast and was not likely to make a kill , may be cheetals had this animal common sense.
But we the Homosapiens fed on a regular diet of violence and gore were dying to see some action so in anticipation we trained our eyes on the every possible slightest hint of movement. I with my camera trying to zoom in to the star subject , cursing the camera on its limited zooming capacity.Due to excitement every time the subject came into focus , due to shake of the hand the picture was getting ruined at last I held my breath and with intense concentration , clicked on the shutter and was able to get grace saving pictures.
We feasted on the sight for over 20 minutes then it was time for the show to get over , the tiger got up and had a good view of us and bid us goodbye disappearing in the nearby grasslands.

But for the guide the show was not over. He got down the from the machan and started surveying the nearby trees , suddenly he spotted a orange breasted Pigeon and demanded that I get a good picture of the bird. I took the challenge and tried to click the same but it was a difficult task as I had never photographed birds in their natural surroundings, every time the bird came into focus and I was ready to click , the bird would waste my efforts flying to some other tree or branch.After several frustrating efforts finally I was able to get a good picture of the bird , it turned out to be a really good shot.

After the morning trip we returned to the Dudhwa complex and shared our story with the fellow jungle farers and officials showed them the pictures to verify our claims of sighting the king of jungle, then we were asked to register our sighting in the visitors book which we logged with our comments.After this we visited the complex cafeteria and sat down over a hearty breakfast of stuffed parathas which is our staple diet of the trip.
Then we came back to our loghut in Sathiana and opted for a long siesta asking Baddal to report at 4.30 pm for the evening trip.

In the evening we decided to visit Sathiana range to look for Bengal florican a rare nearly extinct bird found in the grassland of dudhwa. for Information it is a low flying bird which builds nests in the grass, while negotiating the jungle road cutting across the vast grasslands we strained our eyes to catch a glimpse of the florican but success was no where in sight but in the process we got to see a pair of serpent eagles which were duly caught on camera.
After wandering about for long without finding success in locating the elusive florican we gave up the search and decided to head for the machan to enjoy the sight of setting sun over the grasslands and also try our luck in sighting other denizens of the forest but on reaching the machan lady luck again was not on our side and wahat we got to see was only the magnificent sight of setting sun, which was the only saving grace of our evening trip.