Near Encounter with a tiger http://www-int.stsci.edu/~yogesh/wildlife/ Near Encounter with a tiger An exciting experience in Corbett Tiger Reserve, India tiger,corbett,india,wildlife,chital It was the last day of a rather eventful trip to Corbett Tiger Reserve. We had  had a number of exciting experiences, but we were a little disappointed that we had not seen a tiger. We were ready early in the morning to see if we could get a place on one of the elephants at Dhikala. Unfortunately there was no space available so we were at a loss at what to do. One of the Forest Dept officials suggested that we walk to the the Gulargatti watch tower nearby to watch birds. We took his advice and walked to Gulargatti.  True to the gre at tradition of Corbett, we were not disappointed. Scarlet Minivets, Blossomheaded parakeets were there aplenty. After a couple of hours of fruitful birdwatching we decided it was time to return to Dhikala.

We were walking casually,  replaying the events of the past week, ignorant of the goings on around us.  Suddenly about 100 m to our left at the border of the forest and the huge grassland at Dhikala, mayhem broke loose. There was a loud sound of chital running, followed by a loud crashing and the loud spine chilling roar of a tiger. We realised immediately, that we were witnessing one of the most exiting events of the Indian jungle -- a tiger on his hunt.  A small herd of chital ran out of the forest into the grassland giving alarm calls. After running for about 50 m they stopped and turned and started looking in the direction of the forest, all the while giving loud calls.  More calls could be heard from the forest, beyond the area where we expected the tiger lay.  We were barely thirty feet from the chital, but they were ignoring us completely. We  strained our eyes trying to see if we could get a glimpse of it. For a minute we thought that the tiger might actually emerge onto the grassland. But it was not to  be our lucky  day. After about 5 minutes the chital stopped calling. Noticing us they began to move away.   We had not seen the tiger although it was probably no more than 100  m away. The silence of the indian jungle took over once again. We continued our walk to Dhikala.