Dhikala Corbett Tour November 2020

15th November, the significance of this date you can ask from any wildlife photographer who visits corbett national park. This is the date when gates to so called heaven "Dhikala Zone" opens up for tourists. This year, excitement was at its peak because everyone was coming out of lockdown. I also had done my bookings for 19th Nov. We were pretty excited as we were about to enter the park after March 2020. 

Generally it has happened with me from past 2-3 times, that I have sighted the tiger while entering the park on the main road itself but somehow I was not able to click picture as I was not prepared for it. This time, I was prepared and was chancing on my luck.  Dhikala rest house is the  last rest house and it takes almost 75 mins from the entry gate to reach the rest house. We had crossed almost 26 kms and then suddenly our very alert and sharp eyed driver "Hemu" said, " Tiger aa raha hai road par". "Tiger is coming on the road". We got alerted and we could this beautiful tigress coming head on towards us on the main road. This is one such sighting which everyone going to dhikala wish to have.

We reached our rest house, checked in and in few minutes time, we were ready for our afternoon safari. We were all geared up and looking forward for some good sighting as the start was good. In the afternoon we decided to head on towards Sambar road as we there was movement and tigers were sighted on sambar road couple of days back. We started our safari from there and as soon as we entered the sambar road, we saw some jeeps stationed, which immediately gave the feeling that sighting was happening. Hemu parked the jeep at a good point from where we could see the movement and the tigress crossing the river.

 

The rest of the safari went blank but we were happy that we could sight the ever famous paar wali tigress. 

The 2nd day morning safari was full of excitement and it went very well. We went to grassland and immediately we saw the grassland female stacking deer and going for hunt. Thought she failed in her attempt but overall it was a thrilling experience. We also got some good shots of elephant herd. 

 

In the afternoon safari, we thought of starting with the grassland only where we left but in the afternoon, the jungle was very quiet. There was no evidence of tiger as there was no alarm calls or any sign of movement. We decided to head towards Sambar road where we thought of some action can take place. When we reached sambar road, we saw few jeeps stationed as there was a continuous langoor alarm call. We also parked our jeep and started waiting. We stood there for almost an hour and the calls continued. After an hour we lost our patience and decided to check the main road. This was the biggest mistake we made because as soon as we left from that place, paarwali tigress came on the road, walked head on and then crossed the ram ganga river, to give the some magical moment to the onlookers.

Day 3 went quiet for us as this time also we decided to try our luck on sambar road but the main action took place in grassland where quite a few jeep saw a tussle between two tigers, supposedly the grassland female and her last litter who has moved alone and trying to capture the territory of her mother. 

Our tour ended but we were pretty happy, more than the sighting it was the excitement of getting back to jungle again. We are eagerly waiting for our january trip now as the paar area would also be open by that time and there would be a larger area to explore then.