Tiger Tales
On our first morning drive during this visit to Ranthambhore National Park we found Riddhi’s three ‘cubs’ who were on the cusp of forging there own paths into adulthood. Two of them were in thick bushes but moving towards the lake area of zone 3, Padma Talao. We couldn’t see the female cub but knew she wouldn’t be far as they were still moving in a group. The boys gave us a great road walk as they moved further from the noisy fort gate.
We stopped at the bottom of the track in pole position with two other Suzuki Gypsy’s behind us and we were facing the Tigers moving towards us. One of the boys moved off to our left but the other came and stood not far from the track edge. As we watched him the female cub came out the bushes at the top of the path and walked down towards us giving us another run of walking shots.
Her fur was wet so she must have been laying in the water at the edge of the lake, as she got closer one of the boys turned and headed towards her, I told all the clients to get ready for some interaction. Cats will usually rub faces when they come together or one will act submissive to the other depending on the dynamics of the group. The male for reasons unknown to us swiped the female in the face, I don’t think he expected the response he got though.
She was briefly taken aback by the cheap shot but then retaliated with her claws out so she meant business, she held the high ground, turned him around and then they both stood up right in front of us no more than 5 metres away, snarling and swiping at each other.
The female on the left definitely asserted her dominance over her brother who turned tail and ran to join the other male on our left. We were all smiles after that, to have such a great display of behaviour right in front of us was amazing but our girl wasn’t done, not content with rebutting his attempt at dominance she went after him with gusto.
She had well and truly put him in his place, twice. She will definitely be a great female for the future, confident, courageous and powerful I won’t be surprised if she becomes the new queen of the lakes. What a fantastic half an hour, big thanks to Lokesh for his Gypsy driving and Ashlesh for his telepathic like Tiger knowledge of what they are thinking, I couldn’t do what I do without them.