Mr. Cliff & Friends Go On Safari - Part 2

After arriving at Baghvan and getting settled in our lodging, I didn’t waste any time going on my first safari. Our resort employed its own safari staff, consisting of two separate guides and cool three tiered jeeps. They ran two safaris a day, one leaving very early in the morning, the other leaving in the evening. Why, you ask? Because it was 47 degrees. You may be thinking, “Well, golly, Cliff….if it’s 47 degrees wouldn’t you want to go in the afternoon to get some sun so you aren’t chilly?” Well, no, because that 47 degrees happens to be in Celsius. I’ll save you the headache of trying to do the conversion yourself, and tell you that equates to about 117 degrees Fahrenheit.  In other words, it was frickin hot. So there was no complaining about waking up at 5 AM when you had felt the sweltering heat of central India summer afternoons.

A group of us in our sweet safari ride.

Jayme and I were the only ones that partook in the safari on the evening we arrived, while the others continued to get settled in and took in the sunset by a nearby river. The resort was only a quick 5 minute drive from the gates to the park, which was nice. Once we got to the gates, our guide checked us in and walked back with our escort that works for the National Park. Pench isn’t the biggest of the tiger reserves in India, but it is very well run. (You can’t say that about a lot of things in India.) They require a park employee to go with every tour to ensure you follow the park rules, and they also provide another set of experienced eyes to keep a look-out for cool things. They also limit the number of tours that can go per day, which is great because it never seemed too busy. You could go quite a long time until you saw another jeep, unless you were staked out by a watering hole or other common area and a tiger showed up.

Once we were all checked in at the park office we were off on our evening cruise. It was a great introduction, seeing many cool animals I’d never seen in the wild before. It’s amazing how they can listen for warning calls from different animals and try to triangulate the positions of the big predators whose movements would justify such alarms amongst the different members of the animal kingdom. There was one such time on our first safari that was an awesome example of this. Our guide Sangita heard a monkey warning call very close to the road, so we stopped to watch. We could see the monkey in the tree who gave the call looking down in to the thicket below. Soon enough there were 5 other monkeys that had joined him in his tree looking down at the predator giving their own warning calls. Sangita said we were very near a leopard territory, so that that’s probably what it was, but unfortunately we couldn’t see it due to the thick underbrush. Very cool to hear/see nature’s sirens in effect though.

The rest of the post will be mostly pictures of the cool animals we saw, and I’ll stop for a story here and there. Some of these pictures were stolen from others on my trip who had much nicer cameras than me, so thanks to my travel partners.



Deer talking to monkeys.

 I was very excited when we saw a herd of deer about 15 seconds after we entered the park. It didn't take long to realize that there was hardly ever a time in the park when you could look around you and NOT see a deer. Literally saw thousands of them.



Looks like he might have some leftovers. Might need a doggy bag. ( See what I did there? )

Once while making our way towards a watering hole hoping to see a tiger, we saw a herd of deer running frantically across the road a ways in front of us, obviously spooked by something. Seconds later, we saw a couple of jackals jogging lightly through the trees. Obviously they had spooked the dear, but it looked as though they were far behind and giving up. Little did we know they were just driving the deer into a trap where their friends were waiting. As we drove over the next ridge, we saw the fruits of their labor. It was awesome to see the food chain at work, even if the sight of the deer still struggling while the jackal tore out its entrails was somewhat unsettling. Our guide said that seeing a hunt live like that was extremely rare, so we (or at least I) felt very lucky to see it.

Not sure what this guys was called, but it was a beautiful bird. It's wings are entirely blue, especially underneath, so when it flew it looked like a blig blue streak across the sky. Beautiful.

I think this might be a Rocket Tailed Drongo-  and that is just a badass name for a bird.



Crested Serpent Eagles. Hartd to tell how big these guys are in these pictures.

 

Kingfisher




Some sort of small owl.



Peacock trying to defend its turf from the intruding deer. I don't think it's working.

There were more new species of birds to me than I can count. I didn't get pictures of even half the cool birds we saw. I really regret not getting a picture of the elusive pink footed pigeon. I also decided that for some reason, I hate peacocks. I have no idea why, but I really hate peacocks. If any of my readers is an amateur psychiatrist and could get to the bottom of that for me, I'd be interested in knowing why.

Also, we saw a group of quail, which really interested our guide. Apparently he didn't see a lot of quail. To me it was kind of like "Whatevs, NBD. Let's go find some leopards or something. What's so great about a quail?" But then I realized that a lot of people in my group had never seen quail before. I was also the only person in the vehicle (including our guide and the park employee) that knew that a group of quail was called a covey. Score one for the Kansas farm boy! I did not mention that I knew that because I like to shoot them and that they are delicious.


You want a piece of me?!





Meeting of the minds.



This guy just looks smart, although no doubt he's thinking about hurling feces at me. Which some would probably agree is a smart thing to do.



I was unsure if this is a baby monkey or an alien. Still undecided.



Looking back, there were obviously a lot of baby monkeys.

 Monkeys are always fun to see. Pench housed two main types of monkeys, but the majority of the ones we saw (and in the pictures above) are Langur monkeys. There were probably as many monkeys as there were deer. They were all over the place, and they seemed to be at ease with the other animals of the forrest. They mingled with the other animals quite comfortably. I'm guessing they have worked out a deal that they can roam wherever they choose as long as they continue to sound the alarms when predators are in the area.

 Alright, enough with the smaller animals and birds. We were really there to see tigers. That's the one thing everyone hopes to see when they are on safari at Pench. And it definitely isn't a given. Sometimes the park can go for days without any tiger sightings, it's all up to them. And since they are committed to be as least disruptive as possible, there are very strict rules about where you can go and what you can do. The vehicles MUST stay on the roads and approved pull-off areas. No ifs, ands, or buts. You absolutely can not get out of the vehicle unless you are at a designated area. So when you pull up to these watering holes or any area in the park, you are completely at the mercy of the animal and the trees and grass. That's why in almost all of the tiger pictures, you can see trees or leaves disrupting the pictures. There's no getting out and walking around to get a better angle. It's kind of frustrating, but when you think about it, it's a good thing. Tourists would become a frequent snack of tigers I'm sure if we were allowed to roam. Plus we'd destroy their habitat, as man is known to do. We were lucky enough to have 3 total tiger sightings spread over 2 different safari's.

Thirsty tigers.



Muddy tiger don't care.



Say "Cheese!".  Or maybe in this case, "Antelope!"



Sufficiently refreshed from his mud bath. 



I just like the reflection in this one.

 

And this one.



This is one of the watering holes in the park.


Also, when there is a sighting, word gets out quickly. Lots of vehicles will just stay camped out at water holes, since that is the most common sighting area. One tiger sighting I think every jeep in the park showed up at the watering hole. And when the tiger got up and left, it was a race to the other side of the ridge where the tiger was most likely to emerge from the forest back to his lair. It was a complete mob mentality, and sometimes got somewhat dangerous. At one point there was line of about 20 vehicles driving as fast as they could in reverse because someone thought they heard or saw something. Pretty entertaining actually.


Did someone say Tiger?

 

Checking to see who got the best pictures.


We also stopped to ride elephants during one of the safaris. I was on the fence about this, because I didn't have an awesome experience with this in Sri Lanka the last time I rode an elephant. But this was much much much better. These elephants were huge, and 4 of us (plus the mahout) rode it at one time. And instead of a 5 minute trek around a track with a mahout pounding on the elephant with his stick, we roamed lazily around the forest for about 45 minutes or so. It was really cool, and I'm glad I did it.



Riding sidesaddle. And yes, I was able to stay on for 8 seconds.

Other elephants we saw on our elephant ride.



Tickle tickle. It's good to know elephants have a sense of humor too.



These last two are just artsy pictures taken by Andrea Z that I really liked.

 Here are some other random animal pictures I won't go into too much detail on.


These deer like thingys are called Sambar.



Another Sambar.



This guy is called a Blue Bull. Weird creature. It's like a combo of a horse, antelope, and cow. When you see it in real life it actually looks kind of blue. Can't tell so much in the pictures.  



Another Blue Bull. They were an endangered species once upon a time when they were called Blue Horses, and people used to hunt them. So they changed the name to Blue Bull, and since cows are sacred to the religion, people stopped hunting them. Pretty clever.



Pumbas.



Guar. (Pretty much an ox.)



Wild Dog.

There are lots more animals that we saw that we didn't get good pictures of. The trip was amazing. Being out in the wild and seeing animals like this in their natural habitats has ruined going to zoo's for me. You might get a better look at them in a zoo, but out in the wild you are seeing them on their terms as free animals. It's a completely different experience, and one I'll remember for the rest of my life. I think it's safe to say that this was my favorite India vacation so far. One might say it's the Taj Mahal of India vacations. But then again that would be confusing. (For the record I enjoyed this more than the Taj Mahal)

The group with our guides.