Mamla Gate -17.04.26 - Gauri in the morning & evening:
Our first safari was through Mamla Gate. The forest in the zone was greener than all other zones. Today was the last day of our trip. Our expectations were higher now. We prayed to get some more sightings of the majestic tigers, leopard & sloth bear. It’s a different story that we could see only a tiger once again.
We went to a waterbody as our guide expected tiger to visit the waterbody to quench his / her thirst and cool off for sometime. There were few more jeeps already there waiting in expectation. However, we all did not see anything even after waiting there for quite sometime. Since we did not hear any alert calls, our guide decided to move on and search elsewhere.
Our guide got a message from other guides that Tigress Gauri has arrived at the waterbody. Immediately our driver swung in to action and he increased the speed. It was quite a jerky drive then onwards. We asked him to go slow, but it did not have any effect on him. They all are tuned like that. They feel that it is their bounden duty to ensure that they give tourists max time to see and capture the tiger / rare animal.
The jerks , pains, twisting & swaying in both directions of our Ferrari ki Sawari in those 5 - 7 minutes drive after we got the information about Gauri’s arrival, we all forgot all pains & jerks on seeing the majestic Gauri’s basking on the banks of the waterbody with the sun shining right above her.
We reached the spot and got a vintage spot where no other jeep was parked. Almost 6 - 7 jeeps were surrounding the waterbody. Everybody thought they were at the best spot, and we were not an exception. Gauri spent about half an hour there and decided to move out. She got up and walked out of the pond and went in the forest.
Our second safari too was through Mamla Gate. The forest looked lovely in the golden light hours. We headed straight for the waterbody. Gauri greeted us. She was on the right side of the pond this time. She sat down, put her body weight on the front legs, bent her neck & mouth down and sipped water. After about 5 minutes she got up and Turned around, bent her back down first and then bent her front legs, lowered her front body & sipped water once again. She got up again after quenching her thirst moved around looking for a comfortable spot bent her back down first and then bent her front legs, lowered her front body & sat down. This time around the body weight was on all for legs and her full body rested on the ground. Mostly the tigers sit down in the ponds or on the banks following these two distinct protocols for drinking water & resting. Finally decided to have a nap.
We waited for sometime but she was least bothered so we too decided not to disturb her and we left the scene.
We had seen imperial green pigeon during our morning safari. We saw Rufous tree pie, an oriental honey buzzard, a bronzed winged jacana, a purple swamp hen & an Indian roller on our way back.
Thus we had an event full day with Gauri the tigress. We thanked god for making our 3 day trip a great success. 5 out 6 safaris we saw Tigers / Tigresses and Cubs. Though the Leopards & the sloth bears eluded us, we were all satisfied as the main agenda of my team mates Mr. Nandkumar Ghule,, Mr Abhijeet Bapat and of course our driver Ajit was to sight a Tiger, and I must say they all including me had had plenty of them.
Sighting of the only tiger “ Mama “ from no where, was the Icing on the cake for us all.
Please do not forget to click on the two links , one after the other to view photos of Gauri in Safari 5 & 6:
Link for Safari 5 - https://photos.app.goo.gl/E6Z13eeb5y5tn9wr9
Link for Safari 6 - https://photos.app.goo.gl/r47tf1wvTAvQn7Py6
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