And there, having looked back at the year that went by, I can’t have asked for a better way to begin 2022. In December 2021, I travelled after nearly two years. The forest had been calling me for months, but I knew I had to bide my time. We went back to Pench, the place where we brought in the year 2019, and there, we brought in the year 2022.
And on the morning of the 1st of January, this beauty greeted us. It was one of those dream sightings, where we, rather than the guide or the driver spotted the tiger. There was just one other jeep, no whispered shouts, no revving and roaring of engines, nothing. She walked by us on our right, looked at us, and then bounded across the road behind us, striding through the jungle for a few moments before disappearing.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that we’ve never been those tourists who see tiger after tiger after tiger. In fact, there was a time when, in Tadoba, we were the most famous tourists of the season because it took us eight safaris to see our first tiger.
Yet, this time, we saw five tigers. Each safari was precious, full of adventure. We wouldn’t be jungle enthusiasts if all we wanted from the jungle was a sight of one of the big cats. We saw so much more – the collared scops-owl, jungle owlets, flycatchers and woodpeckers, wild boars and gaurs … I even had the dubious honour of having a frog jump on me! We were all a little too startled to photograph that, but that didn’t make it any less of a story worth telling. As the days go by, perhaps I’ll write a little about each safari that was special, but sometimes, I think no words do justice to the beauty of the place, so I’ll sign off here with four tiny pictures that make Pench the joy that it is. Happy 2022, Readers!
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