Early morning safari at Jim Corbett National Park, INDIA - Sactuary with maximum number of tigers in India !!!

Recently I was out to Corbett National Park with office friends and this was my third trip to this place. The only change was the resort where we stayed and safari timings as well. This time we decided to go early in the morning as Tiger had so far refused to meet us during the evenings...

Spotted deer at Jim Corbett National Park, the most common animal 'spotted' inside this wildlife sanctuary. Some of the friends also made some theories and both were opposite to each other. One theory says that high number of tiger means less number of tiger and then less probability of finding one. Other theory says - If you watch and wait at the place where deer are, the probability of sighting a tiger is high. I don't want to discuss these further :)

So most of the folks got up early at 5:00 am and this time is really very odd for engineers, except a few special cases. Vaibhav, Lalit, Priyanka and Anurag in their Safari van and waiting for other folks to join and start the real journey towards the wildlife sanctuary. We stayed at Tarangi Resort and all vans came to same place to pick us for Safari.

After driving at 100 kmph, we reached the forest gate and our driver went out to complete the paper formalities. There was still some time for the safari to start. This gate opens at 6:30 am. After all the formalities, one forest guide joined us in the van and he shared some interesting details, which were hard to believe.

We went through Amadanda, which is the entry gate for Bijrani region of Jim Corbett Wildlife Sanctuary. There is a limit on number of Safari Vans which can visit this zone at a particular time. We had approximately 8 vans and 2 were stopped at gate.

At least distribution of spotted deer was uniform as we were seeing them after every 5-10 minutes. At least there was something to entertain inside the forest. First time when we saw these deer, we stood up and clicked lot of photographs. Same thing happened second and third time. But after that we did not even bother stopping the van on sighting spotted deer or barking deer.

Here is a photograph of the newly build Guest House at Bijrani. There are five  main regions of Jim Corbett National Park which are known as Dhikala, Jhirna, Bijrani, Sonanadi, Domunda. And various entry gates are located at Dhangari, Khara, Kalagarh, Amadanda, Vatanvasa, Durgadevi !!!

Here comes the first break near Bijrani Guest House. There were some shops to have some tea and snacks. In this photograph, everyone has come near this safari van for a group photograph.

Everyone is relaxing at Bijrani waiting point. Somehow all drivers were more comfortable in spending time at this spot rather going inside the forest and waiting at an appropriate place for birds if not the tiger. Anyway, probably all depends upon the enthusiasm of people they accompany.

Elephant Safaris are also available at Jim Corbett National Park, but I never been on one. I would definitely try this one in Bandhavgarh or Kanha next time.

It seems Corbett has largest number of Tigers in India and few said Asia, but Kanha & Badhavgarh are two popular places for Tiger sighting. Both these Sancuatries are in Madhaya Pradesh. I have been to MP many times but never got a chance to visit these sanctuaries.

Another empty Safari van waiting for folks to come in and continue the next journey inside forest. It was standing near Bijrani Guest House. There are many Forest Guest Houses inside the national park and probability of finding a tiger increases. I have heard a lot about the guest-house in Dhikala. Few months back, I had an option to stay in Dhikala Guest House. But I had a question in mind that how important it is to go to Corbett for seeing a tiger if one needs to take leave from office, travelling in a bus n lot of other things :) ...

So finally we continued after a decent break of 25-30 mins at Bijrani Guest House and Check-post.

To know more about Jim Corbett National Park Guest Houses, check out http://www.jimcorbettnationalpark.com/corbett_zone.asp

We were welcomed by some colorful birds on the river bank. We were also to catch some of them in cameras and saw others through binoculars. Somehow I was expecting more birds on the way but probably we crossed very fast. This Safari seemed like a project to finish as soon as possible. On the top of that our forest guard was very negative and asked to enjoy this forest & this ride...

Kingfishers and Spotted deer are two things I have always seen in Jim Corbett. But fortunately this time this tiny bird was comparatively closer to us :)

Another photograph of same Kingfisher in a different pose :)

Eagle sitting on top of very high tree. Our driver saw it coming towards this tree and stopped the van. Soon after the eagle landed behind a branch and it was not visible from our van. We moved by few meters and waited for some time. Somehow the driver and the forest guard were more enthusiastic about watching this bird and we were relaxing back on our seats. But of course, me and Priyanka were trying to click some photographs with appropriate lighting on it.

Now it was time to see tiger :)

We reached near a high machan and some of us also went us with their bianoculars. After sepnding some time on top of it, everyone came back and thought of moving ahead. Although some of the folks wanted to wait and enjoy this place but most of us were in a hurry :)

Saurabh, Charu, Dhruv, Tarun and Ekta - All set to move forward and soon after we started seeing pugmarks of Tiger. This is a normal process which happens during all the visits to Corbett. I was seeing these marks for the third time but never saw that Tiger who went by that track few minutes back. This time there was one different thing which I missed to capture in my camera. There was a mark in the middle of the track, which was defined as a mark created because tiger was sitting there.  

After seeing a series of marks, we went towards dense forest and track was amazing. No one was allowed to stand and this time it was not the driver or the guide giving these instructions. It was the trees that made sure that we could not stand. I think I missed the part when driver/safari-guide sensitize every tourist while inside the forest - mainly folks are not allowed to wear vibrant colors, try to make to less noise and to sound when we see something. The only difference was that theories were not told this time. Otherwise there is a technology to track a tiger and the whole method is based on movement of birds, sounds in the forest and state of spotted deers. Best story I heard was the one by a guide in Ranthambore National Park.

There were lot water bodies inside Jim Corbett National Park. Some of them were quite rich with flowing water, few were in form of natural water ponds and some concrete ponds were also created to have regular water supply during summers.

Best part of this safari was the expereince of a dense forest with colorful grass on both sides of these tracks. One should wait here to watch various colorful birds. Although none of us had that patience, as most of us simply wanted to tick the wildlife safari off the checklist :)

Hope this man wasn't there on the top of this elephant :( ... Anyway, it was good to see an elephant inside the forest.

The most important activity was to click Photographs. Whole group was rich in terms of cameras. Most of the camera brands, types were accompying us inside Corbett National Park. Most of the folks had DSLRs with zoom lenses and few of the folks had point-n-shoot digicams. BTW, Tarun is carrying his personal camera which is gifted by Adobe on completion of 5 years of his service to Adobe and his sabatical is due.

Other interesting thing which was explained to us that Langoors help deer in getting green leaves form top part of the high trees. So Langoors go up and pluck some leaves for spotted deer waiting below.

Here is the forest office where each Safari van has to mention the in-time as well as the out-time. Forest department makes sure that no safari van is spending too much time inside the forest.

Finally everyone missed Tiger, as usual. Although most of us had minimal expectation of spotting a tiger but still everyone had this right to disappointment at the end of this Safari to Jim Corbett National Park.