Tadoba Tiger Reserve is a must visit destination for Tiger lovers in the country, thanks to the density of Tigers. It had been a while since we visited Tadoba and decided to pay a short visit. We stayed at Svasara Resorts, a well maintained property located at stone’s throw distance from the Kolara gate, Tadoba. On our first evening safari, we saw a Tigress cooling off in the shaded area near the Tadoba lake. The congregation of Jeeps, a resting Tiger and the thick undergrowth were not necessarily ideal conditions for photography and we came back with just memories of the sightings. During the next day morning safari, we were a little more fortunate as we saw the same Tigress sleeping on the banks of Tadoba lake and managed to take a few pictures. Inspite of waiting for over an hour, the Tigress never woke up.
A Indian Pitta kept our company during the long wait and finally we had to leave the sleeping Tigress and move on. That evening we came back to the shaded area near the lake and again found our Tigress resting, but again no luck with pictures. We decided to try our luck at another waterhole situated about 30 minutes away and our wait there was rewarded with the sighting of a Sloth Bear, but yet again it was difficult conditions for photography and we just came back with a record shot of the Sloth Bear.
We moved on and visited every waterhole in the area. Finally we returned to the same waterhole where we sighted the Sloth Bear a couple of hours back. There was nothing at the waterhole and we heard Sambar Deer alarm calls at a little distance away and rushed to investigate. After sometime, the alarm calls died and we were contemplating to return back to the resort. I requested the driver to reverse the vehicle and go back to the waterhole where we had earlier spotted the Sloth Bear. To our pleasant surprise there was a Tigress cooling off in the waterhole. The waterhole is barely visible from the road. We waited for the Tigress to walk out and got a good look at her as she disappeared into the habitat. We got a couple of record shots, one of which made it as the feature image of this post. Happy that we saw this beautiful Tigress, we headed back to our resort. We hoped that our relentless pursuit of this Tigress would yield better pictures the next day. Let’s see.