Love At First Sight

I clearly remember how she stepped out from behind the trees and into the morning light.  I even remember the date (March 11, 2013), and the time of day (7:50 a.m.).  Like the royalty she was, she walked with a confident and leisurely gait – casually glancing first to her left and then to her right.  She turned her gaze again to the left, and it seemed that her eyes were looking directly into mine.  Such beautiful eyes, such a piercing gaze.  It felt as though she could see right through me…  She moved forward and leaned into a tree, barely brushing her smooth back against its coarse bark as she walked past.  

And then she sprayed urine all over it.

Since the time I was a young boy, I have been fascinated with animals, especially tigers.  I often thought it would be really neat to travel to the jungles of Asia and photograph one in its natural surroundings, but it always seemed like something that could be done only by famous zoologists, or professional photographers, or people with tons of money.  Last year, I was lucky enough to see that dream come true.  And I’m not a zoologist, not a professional photographer, and my wallet is sufficiently lightweight.   I’ll launch this blog with the photograph I took that morning.  This is the first photograph that I ever took of a tiger in the wild.  I hope that it is not the last.

Tigers can be identified by the patterns of their stripes.  Like fingerprints, supposedly no two are the same.  After searching the internet, I have come to believe that the tigress I photographed is referred to as the “Sukhi Patiya female”.  The photograph was taken in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, India.