It was going to be my last safari of a short trip to Ranthambhore, the tiger park in the western state of Rajasthan. Ranthambhore is the first national park I ever visited, back in 2008, and where I had my first wild tiger sighting, so it is always a special place for me. It is close to my home in New Delhi, so I come often, especially in summer, when tigers are easier to see as water dries up in the park interior.
I had done three safaris on this trip already, none of them good for photography, with no clear sightings. In summer the temperature here can reach 50 degrees Celsius, and the afternoon drives test even the hardiest visitor. Just after entering the park we passed the Rajbagh lake, beside the old hunting palace of the maharajas, and at the far end we saw a tiger asleep in front of the bushes. It was far off and sleeping, so we took a quick round of the rest of our zone. There was no other sign of a big cat anywhere, so we came back and settled in with this one.
We parked at the end of Rajbagh lake around 4:30pm and hoped the tigress would at least give us a pose. Now and then she woke, glanced our way and dozed off again, which gave us some distant habitat shots. From those we could identify her as Arrowhead, a daughter of the dominant lake tigress, T19, also known as Krishna. Krishna had a litter around April 2014, and Arrowhead was one of those cubs. She was about 25 months old by then, and had recently separated from her mother.
Around 6pm, as the light dropped, some sambar and spotted deer came down to the lake edge to drink, seemingly unaware of the tiger; otherwise they would have raised the alarm. The tigress kept still. The deer stayed at least 200 metres off, well beyond a tiger’s charging distance. Once they had moved back from the water, the tigress slipped into the long grass at about 6:30pm and we lost her for a few minutes. Then our guide called out: she had taken a sambar in the bushes.
For a while we could see only patches of the two of them in the grass. The sambar kept struggling and dragging the young tigress along, but she never lost her grip. After about fifteen minutes the sambar broke into the open, pulling the tigress out with it, and now the real action was in front of our cameras. She struggled to bring it down cleanly. A full-grown tiger would have gone straight for the throat, but this inexperienced tigress kept clinging to the body and the legs, unable to reach the neck. It was unusual to watch. Just before our time was up, she finally found the throat and ended it.
What I saw that day has stayed with me. One animal lost its life and a predator found a meal for the next few days: the food chain in its starkest form.
Below is the story in pictures, arranged as a slideshow.
