Thursday October 29 - Panna

As planned we were ready and at the coffee station at 5:15 AM. It was hopeful that even though it did rain on and off throughout the night, it wasn't raining this morning.

The entrance to the park was about half an hour from the Lodge and pretty soon we were at the gate.












Soon after we came in, the forest departments Bolero drove past us and after pulling off to the side, took out their receiving antenna and started tracking. Apparently T1, a female tiger with a tracking collar was located in the area together with her two young cubs.

We waited for about 45 minutes and finally saw all three of them, kind of barely since there were many jeeps ahead of us. She was yet another gorgeous tigress, her color was on the darker side and she was smaller than average in size.

The rest of the morning trip was pretty uneventful.

We returned to a hot breakfast, rest, and to get ready for lunch followed by the afternoon safari.

The afternoon safari was somewhat uneventful except we sighted giant sambar and Sudip twisted his knee.












We also watched a nilgai (blue bull) eat a hard shell fruit called bael. We had heard about this but somewhat doubted that it was possible.

We drove up to the highest level and the view of the gorge was magnificent, there were some vultures nesting here.

We returned to the lodge, tired but happy.

Our naturalist guide was Shukra, who is originally from Chitwan in Nepal. His knowledge of wildlife was excellent as was his personality and helpfulness. We were fortunate to have him as our guide.

Dinner and then we retired for the night early to be rested for the long drive tomorrow.

Location:Ken River Lodge