B2 and Other Great Tiger Pics from India

[Pckts]

More of the Backwater Male (rip) with the elephant

One of My Favourite and dream Click of Tiger with Elephant

The backwater male of Kabini (Mastigudi Male) - RIP

*This image is copyright of its original author

Deepu's Chayachitra
August 24, 2015 ·
A Roar No More!
Rest In Peace Masti!
The Mastigudi male/Backwater Male/Dominant Tourism zone male/Euco these are some of the names he was called. 24th August, 2015 morning he breathed his last breath! Saddened by the loss, I try to relive my encounter with one of the most photographed Tiger in Karnataka.
Feb 3rd, 2015 last day of my planned visit to Nagarahole/Kabini, we headed towards Zone B in pursuit of our Cat luck. A jeep heads towards the back water sunset point and we stop for a moment to shoot jackal wandering the open greens. Camera's lock the focus and we hear a Sambar dear disturbing the silence of the whole forest, shutters stop and there's gush of blood in our veins as we move in the direction of the music hoping to see the burning orange stripes.
As we reach the sunset point we are greeted by the fellow photographic enthusiasts with a big smile on their face and I am disgusted! Again I have missed the sighting by not more than 60 seconds. Curiously we ask the driver which direction did the tiger go? to plan our next move.
Suddenly the tree's in the ticket start to break, giving away the identity, yes it's the gentle giant of our forest. More exciting news the tiger is heading directly towards the elephant, the gentle giant feeling nervous about the predator heading its way raises the trunk to warn. A fitting response by our boy he roars to glory and pushes the elephant out of the thicket. Complete forest comes to standstill for a second before the panic buttons of the forest is turned on with alarm calls.
I was not more than 20 meters away from the tiger but still I was not able to see him, his roar drove me crazy. My hairs raise as I relive the response from our beloved tiger and it remains etched in my memory forever. I did not spot the tiger that day but the roar made me take a crazy decision to extend my planned trip till I sight this tiger!
5th of Feb 2015, I was blessed with multiple sightings of Masti and also made some memorable frames.
You will be missed Masti, Kabini and the banks of the back water will not be the same without you!
‪#‎mastigudi‬ ‪#‎backwatermale‬ ‪#‎kabini‬ ‪#‎RIP‬
Deepu's Chayachitra

*This image is copyright of its original author

Another memorable incident we witnessed in January 2015. It was our evening safari and no predators sighted in spite lots of alarm calls being heard by us during the last 2 hours in the forest . Our guide decided to take us to the Hoskere waterhole. Reaching the water hole we saw another jeep waiting there and taking images of a sub adult elephant standing in the water hole and enjoying itself. The other jeep moved away when we reached there as they had waited over half hour and wanted to investigate an alarm call further down. We stay put and were enjoying the sight of elephant and suddenly the elephant exhibited nervousness and went out of the waterhole squealing and was constantly raising its trunk smelling the air. It crossed the safari path to the other side and was putting up quite a show with mock charges , trumpeting and squealing. All in our jeep were filming the elephant shown and i was watching the water hole...and suddenly from the bushes Mastigudi male tiger walks down the slope and squats in the waterhole for sometime. He then gets out of the water and starts to stalk the squealing elephant... then the elephant chases the mighty mastigude male. Here is an image of the chase extracted from the video i captured and then have processed it.. hence the image may not be perfect but the moment was indeed
— with Ramashesh Athri,

*This image is copyright of its original author

It seems as though this guy was quite fond of elephant, whether he had successfully predated on one is another story, but obviously he felt fairly confident with them since he was spotted so many times in close quarters of them. Reply