The drive back after a safari drive is something people don’t really look forward to, after all, the action is over and most of us would be browsing through the pictures taken during the day. There isn’t much more to see anyway, or is there? We were coming back from one such drive and that is when we saw a fleet of cars parked one after the other at the side of the road. Rolling down the windows which was up thanks to the steady drizzle, and in a hushed tone we asked the first car why they were waiting and a beaming young lady told us excitedly that they had just glimpsed a Tiger cross the road and move into the bushes! At the expense of facing her ire, I asked again, this time more directly – “did you actually see the Tiger or?” before I could finish, she replied “Oh yes, I.. think.. we saw the tail when it went inside that bush 2 minutes back”.. pointing towards a lantana bush at the side of the road.
There were 5 of us in our car, all wildlife lovers and there was a collective gasp when we heard the young lady say the word “Tiger”.. that magical, mesmerizing word .. “Tiger!”
After thanking the pleasant young lady we drove a few meters and slowed down to analyse the situation. There were a few things we could have done. Join the queue and hope the Tiger would make an appearance, if there was indeed a Tiger there; or drive on and hope that we wouldn’t miss the action any more or we take a step back and assume that there was indeed a Tiger there and think logically from a Tiger’s perspective on what its next move would be. We decided to take the last approach.
It was past 6, the light was fading quickly, and it had rained all afternoon. The young lady had said that they saw the Tiger, and if the Tiger was indeed there, what was it doing on the road? The key question we had to crack to have any chance of sighting the Tiger was – Why was it there? There were a few obvious thoughts that went through my mind. Was it going for a drink? After all, the cats would laze off under the shade to avoid the bright sun in the afternoon and then go for a drink in the evening? That thought was quickly dismissed because it had rained all afternoon and there would be enough puddles to drink from without having to go in search of a watering-hole, which is what it would do during peak summer, when there was no water around.
Why else would it be moving around? Perhaps it was getting ready for a hunt? Perhaps not! No Tiger would come out into an open area, such as a road when it was preparing to hunt. Tigers, just like leopards are stealth hunters and they use the cover provided by the bushes and rely on their natural camouflage to take their prey by surprise. This being the case, it would indeed be very unlikely that a Tiger would walk on the road in full view, announcing its presence especially when it was planning on a hunt. Think about this, if a human was able to see the Tiger, every other animal would have already seen it – as we say – you will see the Tiger when it wants you to see it. So if the Tiger is showing itself, it was unlikely that it was looking for dinner. So we ruled that option out as well. I recollected the thoughts again – it was not looking for a watering-hole to cool off or drink, neither was it looking to hunt and no Tiger would go for an aimless walk that too on a rainy day! So why else would it be here, IF it was indeed here?
Another thought crossed my mind. Tigers, like most carnivores are territorial and in my experience they are usually active during the breaks between the rain. That is when they come out and scent- mark their territory – they keep doing this as the rain would wash the scent away. More often than not, most of the animals use the path of least resistance, so when there is a perfectly nice road or a path, and if there isn’t too much traffic, you will see animals using the road or the path to move around and scent mark near-by trees or rocks. Well, that was a possibility indeed and after sharing my thoughts with the others we decided to explore along those lines – scent marking!
So the Tiger, as told to us, had crossed the road from our right to left and there were 5 cars waiting in a line waiting for the cat to come out. Towards our back, the road extended in a straight line for maybe 100 meters and towards our front, the road took a sharp left after 20 meters or so. In my experience, it was unlikely that the cat would come out especially when there were these many vehicles waiting, so we decided to continue moving forward slowly keeping an eye out to our left, which is where the cat would be. We were also on the lookout for trees, rocks or stumps which would be ideal for scent marking if you were a Tiger and believe it or not, it is not that hard to spot the tree where animals scent mark frequently. Tigers use the same trees or stumps to mark their territory and usually the scent marks would be around 3 to 4 feet from the ground. These trees would have a distinct stain, usually darker in color and more often than not, these would be trees with a smooth bark, as Tigers have the habit of rubbing against these trees and they wouldn’t do it against a tree with a rough bark. Keeping all this in mind and conveying to the others as to what to look for, we started driving ever so slowly peering to our left. 20 meters or so later, the road turned sharply to our left, and we took it leaving the waiting queue of vehicles behind and out of sight. The road after the turn was a straight one for a few hundred meters and there was not an animal in sight. It was completely deserted. We drove slowly for the first 200 meters or so looking for signs of scent marks on trees or rocks. The lady in the car had told us that she saw the cat around 5 minutes back, it was logical to assume that the cat would have traveled anywhere between 1 to a few hundred meters; as you know, they can cover a fair bit if they wanted to! We drove a bit more, looking at the left hand side at all times, looking into the bushes to look for any movement – and that is when we saw the distinct signs of the scent marks on a white-teak tree; the white-teak tree has a soft bark, a lot of animals use the white-teak tree as a scent marking post. One thing you don’t do is get out of the car when you are in the jungle, you have to respect the wild at all times. The dark patch on the tree around 15 feet away from the road got us all excited and we knew that the slightest of noises would drive the cat away if it was in the vicinity and so most of the communication between us happened using sign language using our hands and nodding heads.
After looking at the mark for a minute and making sure that it was indeed the scent spot, we thought about our next step. There was thick growth of lantana plants on either side of the road and the animals make “tunnels” through these plants to move around unnoticed. The next logical step was for us to find a well-used “tunnel” and see if the cat would come out through the tunnel, into the open. We had already traveled close to 500 meters from the waiting line of cars, and looking around, we saw what we thought was indeed a well-used game path on the left hand side. This game path was perhaps 50 meters behind us, so putting the car in reverse, we decided to gently move back so that we didn’t obstruct the Tiger if it was to come out. We reversed the 50 meters and got a good look at the game trail coming through the lantana bush out into the open, it looked well used indeed and it was leading towards the tree where we saw the scent mark. We reversed a bit more so that we didn’t obstruct the Tiger from going about doing what it wanted to do and kept a safe distance from the game trail, decided to try our luck by waiting there for a few minutes. Logically, we had a good chance of seeing the Tiger, but logic and wildlife usually don’t go hand in hand. The jungle was silent, no alarm calls, and after the rains, we knew that even in the unlikely event of the Tiger stepping on a leaf of twig, there won’t be a crackling noise, but we kept our ears and eyes open, we didn’t want to miss the opportunity if it presented itself. It was almost 6:30 in the evening and it was getting dark, which meant that the professional camera and lens were of no use any more, so we had our trusted mobile phones out and decided to wait and try our luck. Apart from the gentle hum of the engine, we were completely silent. A minute went by, there was no sound from anywhere apart from the cicadas welcoming the night. The road behind and ahead of us was completely empty, no vehicles, no animals, nothing moved, and then from our left, through the game path under the lantana bush out she came, with no care in the world?
Have a look at the video below to see what we saw…
Anil
