Jim Corbett National Park
Right from the start, as soon as you drive away from the gatehouse, it becomes obvious that this is tiger county and that the viewing will be a challenge. The forest closes in around you almost instantly; dense canopies and even denser undergrowth that restricts light and closes the view down to little more than five or ten metres.
Park rules and regulations are tight. There are morning and afternoon game-drive sessions and the middle of the day is left free for the wildlife to have to themselves. The only exception is when arriving or departing. Here, we are allowed to drive directly through the park, but stops should be kept to a minimum and we are positively not permitted to go off-track.
We have transferred to an open-top Gypsy, India’s iconic equivalent of a Land Rover. It’s small, rattly, squeaky and bumpy, but you are closer to the ground than you would be in Africa and the openness of the top and sides is welcome. Much of the forest on the drive into the park has been planted, but mostly many decades ago. Only the lack of different species and the uniformity of the canopy gives this planting away.
The main track is well-cared for in its own way, partly surfaced with water courses bridged or forded with concrete fords. Larger river-beds – vast expanses of giant pebbles – are cleared of rocks to leave narrow tracks that are bumpy but passable with relative ease. I can only assume that they are cleared freshly every year after the monsoon rains have ended. It’s hard not to imagine a raging torrent a couple of metres deep where we are driving in the dry.
The road switch-backs up and down the spurs of the hills, dropping down to another ford before climbing up to round a hillside before dropping down again. Traffic is light, just a handful of visitors on their way back to relative civilisation. Our drive of about forty kilometres takes almost two hours, but soon the final long, tree-lined straight road shows light at the end of the tunnel of greens and browns and we break out into a broad expanse of elephant grass.
Less than half a kilometre ahead is the gate in the electrified fence that surrounds the Dhikala guest house and our home for the next three nights. JP takes care of our reception quickly and we are soon escorted to our three chalets. Each room is large and comfortable. There’s a great big bed, a well-appointed bathroom and a bit of a veranda if we get time to sit out.
Three nights at Dhikala gives us time for six four-hour game drives and my best chance at seeing a tiger. I have to admit to being hopeful, but still unsure of what to expect. There have been rain showers on and off, making it impossible for the staff to do any controlled burning of the grasslands. This is going to slightly restrict our chances, but JP is ever hopeful.
Our first evening drive is a relatively gentle introduction to some of the main tracks and routes. Our explorations are steady, punctuated by many stops for new and interesting birds, different deer and interesting views of the rugged landscape.
Down by the river, we stop to watch a Chital with her fawn as they contemplate the fast-flowing water. Oblivious of the difficulty for her offspring, the mother takes the decision to cross. What to the mother is deep-wading depth is swimming depth for the fawn. As mother leads, the infant is instinctively driven to follow with trust, almost instantly having to try and swim across the raging torrent.
For more than half the distance he swims strongly, trying valiantly to keep up with the wading adult. A hidden rock and a standing wave are his undoing, as he is swamped and, momentarily caught short of breath, he founders. Desperate, he turns away and allows himself to be carried downstream into slacker water where he recovers and struggles back to shore on the near bank right below us among the huge pebbles.
The mother, still seemingly oblivious to the perils she has placed him in, has by this time made it to the far bank and is now searching for her youngster on the wrong bank of the river. Wet and bedraggled, we watch as the fawn tries to get clear of the water. We can clearly hear his plaintive cries but, over the noise of the torrent, it is obvious that the mother cannot hear him calling and she continues to look around for him as we accept that we can do nothing to help and must leave them to their fates. Nature is raw and unforgiving and we must leave it to take its own course.
Finding little else down by the river, we wind our way through the grasslands towards the shores of the lake. With the rivers low, the lake is equally low, water levels several metres below where they will be maintained during the monsoon. The open ground, seasonally covered by water, is now verdant grassland and here we finally find creatures to lighten our moods.
As the sun begins to set and the air calms, we sit and watch as a large herd of elephants walk slowly up from the edge of the water, grazing on the grasses as they go. The physiological differences from their distant African cousins are obvious, but their behaviours and mannerisms are strikingly similar. Once you get past the different head shapes and the smaller ears, it appears that elephants are elephants.
That subtle way that the adults gather around the youngsters when they feel uncertain and the measured way that they slowly accept that we are no threat to them have deep echoes of my time on the African plains. So too in their twisting and pulling of the best grasses with their agile trunks. While subtly different, the whole encounter is comfortably familiar and relaxed.
Still, day one closes without a tiger and, while feeling a little disappointed, I’m actually okay with that.
After a good dinner we all manage a reasonable night’s sleep before getting up early for a 6:30 start for our first full day in the park. The morning dawns cool and misty, rain in the night slow to evaporate off despite the promise of bright sunlight and few remaining clouds.
The morning drive brings disappointment, with difficult viewing and little sign of any life until we catch a fleeting glimpse of a jungle cat. This certainly wasn’t on my list as the first cat species that I’d see in India, but it was truly little more than a dash across the track and then the briefest of views before it disappeared into the long grass. Still, one more feline species to add to an ever-growing list.
Late word of tigers down by the river was punctuated by the sound of part of our suspension failing. Bush repairs being mostly ineffective and my stomach churning with sudden cramps, we aborted a run to see them and turned for home early.
By the evening drive, the tigers had inevitably moved on, leaving us, along with everybody else, seeking a new target. Back in the grasslands there were alarm calls heard and a dozen Gypsies gathered on a stretch of track to listen and wait.
It’s a fundamental law of waiting for wildlife that, given the slightest sound or hint of movement, everyone reacts and panics a little. To this inevitable rule, we have three or four false starts and frantic jostling vehicle movements to go with them.
When the actual moment comes, it all happens in a blur of movement and camera shutters firing. A dozen vehicles turn and fan out into the grass on either side of the road and we all leap to our feet. JP repeatedly tells us to focus on the road and then, totally uncaring of our presence, the young tigress steps out of the long grass, perhaps a little less than 80m away from us. She doesn’t hesitate for a moment, simply walks across the track. My camera, zoomed out to its fullest, snaps into what I hope is focus and I hold the shutter-button down for several seconds.
I know that I was the first to drop back down into my seat, afraid to even look at my camera screen to see what I had. My throat caught and my eyes pricked as I could barely manage to sit and let the emotions of the moment pass.
I’m not sure that I realized just how much I had built myself up for this moment. While other first-time sightings had been very special in their own ways, many had been totally unexpected and unlooked-for. This was one for which we were trying very hard indeed.
Sub-consciously, often thought-of but never seriously, this has been something buried in my mind for the best part of twenty years. Having seen the big cats of Africa, I have this deep-seated desire to see those from the rest of the world and that means jaguar, puma, snow leopard and, right at the head of the list, the tiger.
Fifty-one frames. I have 51 frames that show all or some part of a tiger. They won’t win any awards or even receive faint praise for their quality or content. Focus could be better and the tigress could have turned to look at me for a moment, but she didn’t. There are branches and grass in the way on many of them as well. They’re average at best.
What they are is more subjective. They are my pictures of a tiger, taken with my camera with my eye at the eyepiece. They’re a truly wild animal in a wilderness without bound. I watched each of those 51 flickers of the shutter with my breath held as the world stopped for me and her to interact in the most fleeting of encounters.
I made a mental note at the time that, if one was being overly practical, it could be said that each of those 51 frames cost me well over £100. This might even be true, but I’d have gladly paid triple.
There was a moment, when Dad passed away at the beginning of this year, that I contemplated cancelling this trip and staying home. It took me many years to realize that he never tried to replace my father, knowing somehow that my grief over his sudden loss at such an early age would never contemplate a replacement. Instead, he simply became dad and did the job to the best of his ability for the last fifty years.
He always encouraged us in everything we did and my travelling to Africa and now India was no exception. My brother and sister both agreed – well, more like insisted – that he would want me to stick to the plan and make the trip, no matter what. Going home to a house without him in it will now be all the harder because I have these 51 frames and I cannot share them with him. In my mind this will forever be dad’s tiger. Thank you for everything.
As Fred was quick to point out, when we made it back to camp for the evening, some mediocre pictures of a tiger are better than no pictures at all. This isn’t the first time that he has said something similar – I’m reminded of my first time seeing African painted dogs in Kenya – and he was proven to be right that time, so perhaps he is right again. All you can do is file it away as a successful trip and then hope for better in the coming days.
Our second full day turns into an endless series of fruitless chases around the park, speeding from one set of alarm calls to another and finally to a very excited Indian passenger in another vehicle who has seen a pair of tigers – at least – head down from Sambar Road towards the river. They are out there somewhere, but tantalizingly elusive.
There are still plenty of birds to see, however, and we keep ourselves occupied for the day picking up whatever we can while we search for sign or sound of the elusive striped cats. What had been apparent right from my first look at Corbett was turning out to be true. Seeing anything, but particularly tigers, here, is very hard indeed. We were learning that hard way that you have to take every opportunity as it is presented and make the most of it.
So, on to our final morning in Dhikala and a chance for one more game drive. We start off in the grasslands where there are once again alarm calls to be heard. Hearing calls is one thing, however, and very different from actually seeing anything of worth.
After spending well over an hour waiting and driving around, we decide to cut our losses and head back towards the river. At first, when JP calls us to a stop, I can’t see what he is actually looking at. Some distance away, perhaps 300m, on an island in the multiple channels of the river, are two tigers at rest. One is lying down in plain sight and the other is a few metres away, sitting up and watching the river intently.
They are too far away and the heat-haze is ridiculous, but now I can look at these orange-brown spots in the distance a little more objectively. Even on a crop-sensor camera, 450mm is simply not enough reach to do them any real justice at this distance and the haze really only makes things worse. Still, any shot of a tiger is better than no shot at all.
To whatever degree such things matter, this is “mission accomplished” for my personal “operation tiger”. Sure, I’d love to have more and better, but I’m happy with my initial 51 frames.
We’re not quite finished with Corbett just yet, but it will now be several days before we return for another look at a different sector of the park. Who knows what that might bring us.