May 23rd,

A business trip on which I saw Tigers…still cant stop talking about it!!

A business meeting was planned at BEL, Ghaziabad for the 25th May morning. Not wanting to go on a day trip to Delhi, I checked with Hitesh and Khan, if there was anything to do over the weekend. Lucky me! They were on a trip to CORBET Tiger reserve and they let me tag along with them. I couldnt wait to see the Corbet country that I had read in Jim Corbet tales during my childhood…..and still read!!!!

My two days at Corbet were spent in the Dhikala range and we did take one ride through Bijarani range on our way out. Apart from the 7 tigers that I saw (couldn’t photograph the mother and 2 cubs), I thoroughly enjoyed the great birding, close encounters with elephants and a fabulous landscape!

Dhikala Sunrise! A Very inspiring way to begin the morning Game ride...

CHARGING Welcome! She was dangerously close and almost got us. U can see the guide frantically Shoooing her and the front end of the white gypsy only a few feet away.

Dhikala male Tigerscape. He sat in the water for an hour and was still sitting before we left...

A elusive and camera shy TIGRESS! We saw drag marks of a kill on the road and tracked her. Alarmed macaques looking into the grass, led us onto her location but she was not visible. After 2hrs of waiting, saw the stripes moving in the grass and finally got this picture near the waterfront. Learnt good lessons of Tiger tracking in Corbet country!

This is @ 3200 ISO! Good job 5DMKII!

May 10th,

Amazing 3 days in Agumbe Rainforest. 

Starting at 3AM from Bangalore and a 7hr / 400 kms drive to Agumbe was not so tiring, when I got to see the King Cobra on a nest within 15mins of arriving at the site.

Photographed and Filmed a King Cobra nesting (only females build the nest to lay eggs in it)…First time ever that this has been filmed (not to mention First time ever on HD Video camera and 5D Mark II).

Saw two nests of different individuals in different locations. The second one was at a site that was more photographable and She (King Cobra) was more beautiful, according to the bachelor co-camera man, Chinmay!!!

On this trip I also got to see Gauri Shankar, ARRS rescue a large male King Cobra. His skillfull handling and bagging of the snake made it look a very easy job!.

Smelling the air! Watchful King Cobra on the nest.

Nest building - She brings a bunch of dried leaves from around the nest site in her Coils!

Kings favourite meal - A Rat snake! ...hunting for frogs under the leaf litter.

SRIKANTH GP

Here’s a quick video compressing six weeks and six thousand kilometers of mountainous terrain into two minutes!

If you have a fast internet connection watch it on HD!

Cheers,
Sandesh

Secrets of the King Cobra is an unprecedented journey into the natural history of the wild King Cobra, following them into their world-revealing what they do, where they go, and who they interact with-when we are not around. And surprisingly, the people of India are very much a part of the story. Early evidence suggests that kings might be more intertwined with humans than previously thought, making this project more important than ever. It is a close and personal look into the secret life of the King-and the best chance we have of ensuring the survival of this legendary snake.

He is the king of serpents: Unblinking, hypnotic, deadly, and hungry for his own kind. The king cobra, the largest venomous snake in the world, is powerful enough to kill a full-grown elephant… and yet we know almost nothing about it. Fortunately, that’s about to change. Tune in to find out how..

From Left to Right: Sandesh Kadur, Andy Brandy Casagrande IV (Yes that’s his real name), Andrew Mitchell, Gerard Martin, hannah – Ophiophagus hannah aka King Cobra

INDIA                                                Sunday, May 17th at 8pm, re-telecast at 11pm & 3 am
SINGAPORE/HONG KONG                   Sunday, May 17th  at 9pm
USA                                                   Saturday, May 16 at 8pm ET/11pm PT

Apologies for the delayed information. Please do check local listings or the internet to find out when the next showing for the doc would be in your area:

http://www.nationalgeographic.ca/features/Secrets_of_King_Cobra.asp

OK, so now I’ve gotten way ahead of myself and I’ll have to compress a month’s worth of blogging into one post and probably the easiest way to do that would be to post a few pics – a picture says a thousand words doesn’t it?!

The trip so far has been a blur as most trips tend to be…

I started the trip with Dr. Kamal Bawa, my co-author and Founder/President of ATREE. Spent a week in Arunachal Pradesh after which he had to get back for meetings and such. I spent a few horrible days in smoggy, mosquito filled Guwahati getting the vehicle ready for the rest of the journey. Soon after that I headed to Pakke Tiger Reserve on the border of Assam and Arunachal. This little-known and least visited place has very little in terms of tourist infrastructure but the place is a haven for hornbills.

This wreathed Hornbill is coming back to its roost site late in the evening where it joins a flock of over 30 hornbills that roost together on a tree. Later in the year once the females and young emerge from the nests these roost sites can have nearly a hundred of these birds together on a single tree!

This little tree frog was not from Pakke but there were some other herps that were really cool. Caught two snakes here – a White-lipped Pit Viper and a Cat Snake. I can only imagine what this place might be like during the monsoon.

Hopefully I’ll be making another trip here just when the rains begin. The Cat Snake was caught in the little hut above the old ladies bed…It was probably living a good life there feeding on geckos and such… but i had to move it… didn’t move it too far away and it’s probably back above the bed by now.

After an exciting and busy week at Pakke I traveled south to Kaziranga where the story of the deer and the tiger took place. But Kaziranga was a lot more than that – saw some beautiful Rhinos like this one emerging from the water at dawn.

Among the other highlights at Kaziranga was this enormous inflorescence that had freshly emerged after the recent rains.

From Kaziranga drove 15 hours solo to Darjeeling and spent two nights there. Caught up on email and work, cleaned up and then headed up to Bhutan…

This is the story of the deer and the tiger… that neither the deer or I ever saw. It was my first day back at Kaziranga National Park in Assam. I was with Bani Saikia the ranger’s right hand man who took me on an amazing journey along the periphery of the park. Within the first half hour I had witnessed and photographed all the LARGE mammals that Kaziranga is so well known for – large herds of elephants along side rhinos and not too far away, wallowing herds of Wild Buffalo. It was simply magical to be back in a place that right after my first trip had me captivated. The most impressive difference coming back here after my trip in January was the transformation that had occurred within the three months. Kaziranga was transformed into a lush green herbivore paradise. Everything looked incredibly fresh and green – I felt like eating salads again.

The park closes on the 1^st of May as the roads which were already in pretty bad condition only gets worse and even now we had to use the Getaway in 4WD.

OK – I have limited time on the internet, so let me get straight to the point. We were in the Kohora range and along the main tourist track when I spotted a Sambhar deer – wasn’t like it needed spotting abilities since it was right out there in the open standing in the middle of a Nullah. I quickly got the vehicle to stop and composed a shot – saw 3 pied kingfishers zipping along the water and managed to get 4-5 shots in. All the while the guard and Baini were whispering and talking – obviously debating, but they were speaking in Assamese and I couldn’t follow a single word. I, ofcourse was in the very back of the vehicle and without a window to the cabin of the vehicle a little hard to communicate. About a minute later Bani sticks his head out from the side and says, “Saar, aap tiger Dekhliya?” Tiger? Kidar? I ask… and he says, “Sambhar ka Peechay”

I scan with binoculars everywhere ‘Behind’ the sambhar but find nothing…

Moments later it was gone…

Got back to the room and started downloading the pictures after dinner and I was eager to see if in fact I could find the tiger in any of the shots… I thought there may have been a slight possibility that it may have been lurking somewhere in the bushes that I could zoom in on. I downloaded the pictures and what do I first see – A bloody tiger standing in the open on the bank of the nallah looking towards the deer!!

And neither the deer nor I ever saw it – I suppose that’s the way the tiger likes it – to be a ghost, to be undetected – and so there’s the story of the Deer and the Tiger as George Schaller so nicely wrote a book about.

Moral of the story – Focus, but always be mindful of your surroundings.