Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

As deponti pointed out, I finally did see a tiger in wild! w00t!

After having driven in the BR hillsforest up/downhill umpteen number of times on saturday, I and sanath were really tired and all that bird/mammal spotting left our eyes under a lot of strain. Anyway we had to drop the Range Forest Officer to his quarters(outside the forest) in the night (9:50pm) and again start our journey through 30kms of forest at around 10:30pm.

After a 25km journey and having spotted a great horned owl on the road (which was of the size of a langur), we were *really* *really* tired, sanath would doze off and I had a tough time keeping my eyes open. And then sudddenly we saw something cross the road around 100m ahead (11.50pm). We speeded to the place, turned the car towards the grass area on the right and waited for 5 mins, all this while, the tiger has crossed in front of us without even a small movement in the grass nor a sound (I don't know how, as the jungle was dead silent except for crickets). Then again we spotted something another 50-60m ahead which we were dead sure was a tiger! Then we drove again for another 50-60m, turned the car towards the grass and lo! we saw a tiger in its full splendor cross the grass land and leaped into the forest(of course no photographs).


This trip has been amazing in more ways. For we spotted all the 4 kinds of deer in a single day
1. Spotted deer
2. Muntjak (barking deer)
3. Sambar deer
4. Mouse deer (This was just after the tiger sighting!)
also saw mongoose, civet, elephant! wow! Is there any other herbivore left?

Also some long term plans for spending more time in the jungle and especially BR hills took some shape! And some projects that me and Sanath plan to undertake also got more clarity.

Running a bad cold, will post pics once done with.