Tigers of Ranthambore & Western India Landscape

[Spalea]

David Yarrow: " The Queen Of Ranthambore⁣

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Today we celebrate #InternationalTigerDay. The tiger has long been an animal associated with fantasy and fable and it is no surprise that they are many people's favourite animal.⁣
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On our 1am drive back to Delhi after I took this photograph back in 2018 we did some maths. We calculated that in total we had spent 35 hours in a jeep looking for tigers and in that time, we were with tigers on our own for about 30 minutes. That equates to being employed for about 1.5% of the time and places this assignment right at the low end of what we do, along with polar bears in Svalbard.⁣
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This mother of three, is well known to the guides and because tigers feel the heat just as much as we do, watering holes in the middle of the day offered the best chance of meeting her in her territory. There is a great amount of luck involved in this approach as I need to be low as well as safe and many watering holes do not allow for this. I needed the right waterhole and to be there at the right time. She also needed to face me - and that in itself was against the odds.⁣
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On this occasion, I was able to get very low and she confronted me head on. The shadowed ripples of water fuse with her stripes in a manner I could never have preconceived. The 98.5% of gruelling torture was made totally worthwhile by this special encounter. "

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