We saw a tiger in the grass walking very slowly and there were few spotted deer in the same patch of grass. I expected some hunting action, but it did not happen.
On the morning of 23rd December, I along with Ajit Singh and Alok Kumar was on Thandi Sadak in Dhikala waiting for some sighting when Ajit realized that there was some action on Car road. We asked our Driver and Guide to drive to Car road and when we reached there, we saw a few Gypsy vehicles parked and people standing excitedly on their vehicle looking at the long grass towards the side of river. When we reached their, some excited tourists told us that they just saw a tiger in the grass. Ajit, Alok and me stood on our seats to try and find something interesting. After some time, we saw a tiger in the grass walking very slowly and there were few spotted deer in the same patch of grass. I expected some hunting action, but it did not happen. Since we were the last to reach Car road, our vehicle was on the very back of pack of vehicles and we asked our driver to park the vehicle on the side of the track so that we do not block any other vehicle's approach. There was no point in trying to click the tiger in the grass as the weather was very foggy and sun light was very low. After few moments the tiger moved perpendicularly away from the road and we sat down, when I looked on our back, the morning scene presented a beautiful frame and I moved to the back of my vehicle to click a few shots.
After I clicked a couple pictures and was just reviewing them on the LCD screen of my camera, suddenly few deer sprinted from the grass on the track from the same side of the road, where we had just seen the tiger. The running deer again made a good subject for clicking and as I was clicking these deer, on the left side of the track, the grass again moved and I was half expecting a deer to come running out again, when I saw this majestic, striped large cat stepping out of the grass cover and moving on to the track. The sun was on the front towards a little right side of the track and its early rays tried to penetrate the dense fog and haze and played on the fur of this beautiful animal which gleamed in early morning light. A few minutes back it was a disadvantage that our vehicle was the fag end of the traffic and now it became an advantage as I gleefully clicked this beauty.
Clicked with Nikon D7100, Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-400 mm f/4 G VR-II at 330 mm, ISO 100, Spot metering, 1/1600 seconds, Exp. Compensation -0.67.
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