I've stated that there's nothing quite like Africa when it comes to watching wildlife, but having grown up reading the wonderful books of Jim Corbett, India certainly has it's own appeal. Corbett had a huge influence in the preservation of India's wildlife in the twentieth century. As a product of his time, he began life hunting the wildlife he would one day only shoot with a camera. T
he oldest national park in India was fittingly named after him, located in Nainital district of Uttarakhand the scene of many of his exploits.
Location: Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India. I picked this park as our first foray into watching Indian wildlife as (at the time) it was one of only two parks in the world where you could watch tigers from elephant back (Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal being the other). We flew into Chennai and then got an overnight sleeper to Nagpur. Travelling on Indian Railways was for me a once in a lifetime experience; do it once and you never want to do it again
Possibly the most memorable part of the journey was the comically inept attempts of the conductor to try and to pick up my missus. Anyway, we were then picked up from the station and driven the 4 (or 6) hours to the park.
Visited: March 2004. The park was quite cool in the morning, something we hadn't counted on. It was also just past the fawning season for Chital meaning that the key prey species for Tiger was in abundance.
History: In the 1930s, Kanha area was divided into two sanctuaries, Hallon and Banjar, of 250 and 300 km². Kanha National Park was created on 1 June 1955. Today it stretches over an area of 940 km² in the two districts Mandla and Balaghat. Together with a surrounding buffer zone of 1,067 km² and the neighboring 110 km² Phen Sanctuary it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve. This makes it the largest National Park in Central India.
Habitat: The lush sal and bamboo forests, grassy meadows (
maidans) and ravines of Kanha provided inspiration to Rudyard Kipling for his famous novel "Jungle Book "
Fauna: The park has a significant population ofRoyal Bengal Tiger,leopards, thesloth bear, rare Southern Barasingha, Indian wild dog. The following shots are scans from the original ten year old prints. I've tried my best to get them back to how they originally looked.
This is a Jungle Cat,
Felis chaus kutas, not particular rare distribution-wise but quite difficult to see. Very happy to see this in the early morning strolling about so brazenly.
First we were driven about in a jeep seeing Nilgai,
Boselaphus tragocamelus, the largest Asian antelope, Gaur,
Bos gaurus, very huge and impressive wild cattle, wild boar and the ubiquitous Chital,
Axis Deer. Then we had the opportunity to get on elephant back and look at a resting tiger. There is an additional. I don't recall what it was now. Whatever the cost, pay it.
Our first morning and our initial contact with a Bengal Tiger,
Pantera tigris tigrisA large male in excellent condition that really is this unrealistic orange. Tiger, tiger burning bright, indeed. For eyes accustomed to leopards this creature is a totally different order of magnitude; everything about them exudes power.
The same animal. Slightly blurry because, well, the elephant moves. Both elephant and tiger are wary of each other
A typical waterhole with a startled Chital
Tiger spoor. This is about five to six inches across, so even a city boy like myself wouldn't find it too hard to track a tiger
A picturesque lake with a Sal forest on the opposite bank