Day 4 .. visiting the Kisli/Kanha region

Since we spotted the tiger in the Mukki region the previous day, we decided to choose the Kisli / Kanha zone this morning. The jungle of Kanha is really huge, and you can enter from the Mukki or the Kisli gate. The gates are about 20 kms from each other by road. The rule is that depending on the region you choose, you get to visit only that part of the forest. So since we had been staying at Mukki and had seen the forest in that area, we decided to choose Kisli today. We entered from the Mukki gate and drove into the Kanha region. It was surprising that the Kanha region was barren and dry. Our guide informed us that the grass was not growing much in the region for unknown reasons. Since the forest was less dense here, we spotted this beautiful peacock really closely with no disturbance. He did not bother about us and try to hide. Less vegetation made taking this shot possible very easily.

We then drove through Kisli which had more dense forests and was really beautiful as it was hilly. There were tall green trees on the hill slopes and we drove through the ghat roads through this most beautiful landscape. Comparatively, Mukki was more flat land and quite thickly vegetated.

We did not spot any tigers again but heard lots of tiger stories from our guide who had also been working here for 9 years. He said tigers would coolly walk next to the jeeps undeterred and unfazed. He also said that some people were unlucky enough never to spot a tiger even after several visits, and some just saw it in their first day. It was quite a thing.

We were leaving to Bandhavgarh, another tiger reserve 260 kms from Kanha and also located in Madhya Pradesh, and somehow the urge to see a tiger again caught up again. We had been told spotting tigers in Bandhavgarh is easier as the vegetation is not dense and its a smaller area with a 29 tigers. Kanha was much larger and the numbers which were supposed to have been 89, were probably not as high. Plus the area of Kanha is 1100 sq. kms. and that is much bigger than Bandhavgarh which is just 487 sq. kms. Hence the tiger density in Kanha is lower. But the junlges of Kanha had amazed me and made me want to come back again and again. Kanha had some kind of a mystery and a feeling of longing made me want to come back soon.

Somehow spotting a tiger again had a link to this urge as well. The tiger spotting yesterday had been hurried and from a really far distance from behind 7 or 8 jeeps and a better sighting would be just perfect to end it.

So we went back in the evening, and tried to get our best guide. Unfortunately, he was booked and we had to go with another one. But to help us out, our best guide Guru had told us to go where a bison kill had been found. The tiger was sure to be close to the kill and not move far away.

To our despair, our guide wanted to check out some other places where he knew of pug marks. I tried telling him to go to the kill area first and coming back here later, but he was determined. We lost more than an hour in this process, and when we reached the bison-kill area, the tiger had already been spotted running after a sambhar deer. This was a tigress who had 2 cubs and she was obviously hunting for herself and the cubs, who were about 2 yrs and quite big by now.

I was really disappointed and upset. Somehow the pleasure of spotting a tiger in Kanha is more because it is more challenging. We had otherwise been told that the tiger counting had upset the morning entry time and tigers were only seen in the cool early morning time. Due to the counting we entered only at 8 and did not see much of the tiger. If we had known about the counting and timing change we would have planned on different dates. The counting ended this morning and would be back to normal the next day. But we were already leaving! :(

Some additional Kanha photos here.