Our much awaited 4 Safari trip into the Nilgiri Biosphere began with lot hopes of seeing the eluding big cats. We left home at 6 in the morning and reached the forest checkpost at Bandipur at around 10.45 with a short break for breakfast. Then we began our drive into the forest, rather slowly without sparing even a single tree for any beautiful bird. On doing so we came across a dead stripe neck mongoose on the middle of the road,some reckless driver has smashed the mongoose to death.....not a deserving death for that little creature though.

This kindled our thought on how we humans have, over time, lost our sense of co existence with other living beings on this beautiful earth.Over speeding ,honking are not the only two, throwing plastic water bottles and covers through out are also our contribution to the evergreen beautiful forest. On this low note we checked into our room in Tusker trails in Bandipur, our home away from home. After lunch and a short nap, we were ready for our first safari into the lap of nature. We left Tusker at 3:30PM and within a couple of mins, on the main road, we heard a lot of cheetal alarm calls and also saw a herd of cheetals all looking in one direction with their tails up right. We continued to wait there hoping to see some action right away....but nope...that was not to be....we had to wait a lil longer!!. After the entry was made at the Forest Dept. Reception, we took off to the Mulapura region in the forest. Exactly 10 mins drive took us to where our first sighting of the wild dogs happened. In our March trip to Bandipur, we had encountered a pack of two... Got slightly luckier this time around....just 29 of them:)

We ran into some moody elephants which gave us a mock chase!..There was hardly any provocation from us..as we approached the elephants, the mother turned and charged at us..

This was something that was uncalled for..the forest dept. bus driver kept irritating the elephants to get a mock charge..seen in pic below

I was quite intrigued by the behaviour of most of the herds that we encountered in Bandipur, they were really aggressive (without being provoked), something that I haven’t encountered till date. This was quite in contrast to the ones we saw in Kabini. May be experts could throw some light on this kinda behaviour...

Saw this peacock dancing after the elephants episode!

We set off from Bandipur to Kabini after a couple of good action packed safaris...not really knowing what was in store for us in Kabini!

Captured the white naped woodpecker, braminy kite in flight and the black shouldered kite on our way to Kabini....How I wish the perch of the BSK was more natural....

A lone tusker and a peacock welcomed us on our way into the forest in the evening safari at Kabini.

Few yards away we stopped on hearing langur alarm calls!..We waited there in unabated anticipation hoping for a leopard or a tiger to walk out of the bushes! 10mins passed and the alarm calls died down...we moved ahead...a tad disappointed but the fact that this was the beginning of the evening safari with another one to go next morning gave us a lot of hope to witness some action.....

Captured some of these during our ride...blue jay and the common hoopoe..

CSE and white bellied woodpecker male...

....until we reached the backwaters....and boy!!......did we witness some action out there!..what we witnessed, rather experienced was really magical!.....an experience of a lifetime I should say! There was this pack of 2 wild dogs looking to hunt and more than a hundred deer with their tails up and all looking in the direction of the wild dogs as shown in the pic below..The events that followed would rather be better explained by the pics below...im really short of words to describe what followed!!

Hundreds of deer looking in the direction of the 2 wild dogs (not in pic)

The wild dogs give a chase...
The cheetals start running helter skelter...

Some of them are cornered...and finally it doesnt take too long for one of them to get trapped!....the whole thing lasted for not more than say 2mins....it all happened so quickly.... Following snaps are the sequence of events that followed....In no time the cheetal was ripped apart and almost entirely consumed by the two hungry wild dogs within the next 45mins....

This experience was truly special..something which we will cherish for the rest of our lives!..but hang on this isn’t it!!.....we never imagined in our wildest of imaginations that we would be witnessing 2 more hunts the next morning..again by wild dogs and 2 different packs!..we couldn’t believe our luck!!...first a pack of 9 trying to hunt spotted deer and then a pack of 15 hunting a bonnet macaque..

In the pic below the wild dog has the bonnet macague in its mouth..it was scooting across the game road..sorry bout the image quality..i just went on a shooting spree the moment i saw this dog with the BM in its mouth...was just too excited!!

The hungry pack feeding on the BM.....

In all, 2 safaris in Bandipur and 2 in Kabini, 4 sightings of WD, packs of 29, 2, 9 and 15, three hunts (out of which I could capture two of them), mock chase by elephants, 5 CSEs, brown fish owl, peacock dancing and lots of birds! Couldn’t ask for more..In terms of sighting and action, this was far more successful than our trip to Bandhavgarh in Jan ’10!...But then...Bandhavgarh is a totally different experience altogether....I am sure people who have been there would understand that!!

....and by the way....did I say we missed seeing the big cats!!!!