Tour to
Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra, India
About the
Reserve
44 Km to
the East of Chandrapur District, Tadoba Andhari is the largest Reserve of
Maharashtra, Central India and is one of the 41 Indian forests reserved under
“Project Tiger”. The reserve includes Tadoba National Park (28,400 Acres) and
Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary (1,26,000 Acres).
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| Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, Maharshtra, India |
Details of Tour
Type: Custom (Not a Packaged Tour)
Period: 27-06-2013 to 29-06-2013
Duration: 03 days, 02 nights
Route: Hyderabad
(Andhra Pradesh) to Chandrapur (Maharashtra) – 382 Km via Train; Chandrapur to Moharli
Gate – 44 Km on road via Car. Total – 426 Km (8 Hours)
Members: 05
(Srihari, Jagannadha Raju, Varma, Padma Kumar and myself)
Expenditure: INR 4,000 per person
Accommodation: Maharashtra Tourism Development
Corporation (MTDC), Eco-tourism Cottages, Youth Hostel Dormitory, Moharli,
Chandrapur. Standard rooms are also available.
Contact: Mr.
Pankaj
Stay Tariff: Dormitory @ INR 250
per bed per day (All 20 beds should be booked in prior); Standard AC/Non-AC Double
Bed Rooms @ INR 1,800 per day (INR 500 for extra person).
Entry Charge: INR 3,000/INR 3,250 per
Safari for Weekdays/Weekend (Inclusive of INR 750/INR 1,000 Entrance fee for
Forest Department, INR 200 for Guide, INR 1,800 for Safari vehicle and internal
drop/pick-ups)
Safari: 20 vehicles
per trip from 06:00 Hrs to 10:00 Hrs and 15:00 Hrs to 19:00 Hrs through the
three
entrance gates namely Moharli, Tadoba and Kolsa.
Best Season: Summer for adequate animal
spotting; Monsoon, winter for beautiful greenery, nesting birds but less animal
spotting. Park stays open in monsoon but weather determines. Off on
every Tuesday and for a couple of festivals.
The Tour
It has been nine months since we went out on a tour and when every one
of us were fervent for another outing, Jagannadha Raju and Varma came out with
this trip plan. Initially, I opted out due to busy month-end work schedule but everything sorted out in the last moment and
I was in. On 26th night we started at Secunderabad and Raju joined
us in Kazipet. We reached Chandrapur the other day morning, hired a cab and started
to Moharli. We entered the buffer zone of the reserve through the coal mining outskirts
of Chandrapur. The gorgeous green grass carpet on either side of the road, tall
teak trees, bamboo plants, chirping birds made us get down at some places and we
took some photographs and moved on. We reached the Moharli gate area, took MTDC
dormitory rooms and got refreshed.
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| Myself at a stop in the Reserve's Buffer Zone |
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| Varma near our Youth Hostel Dormitory, Moharli |
We planned for evening safari on that day, morning safari for the
next two days making a total of three safaris and on the third day’s afternoon we
start back and reach home by night. To spot more animals and especially rare animals
like tigers the ideal time of visit should be during summer near the water
holes. In contrary to that, having our trip during monsoon amidst heavy
downpour, we had least probability of spotting a tiger and we were mentally
prepared for that.
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| Moharli Entrance Gate |
First Safari
It started with us clearing the security and crossing the Moharli
gate. The first thing we saw were a couple of Asian elephants, though not
wild were an auspicious sign for our start and we moved inside. This rich deciduous
forest consisted mainly of Teak trees, some fully grownup, some sprouts,
some felled, burnt and dead. Bamboo plants and Jamun trees take
the next place and occasionally we saw the Wood Apple tree, Bel tree and
Ghost tree. Onset of pre-monsoon gave a splendid look to the forest in every
direction. We reached Telia Lake which is one of the two major water
sources, the other being Tadoba Lake.
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| Asian Elephant |
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| Paradise Fly-catcher (Female) incubating her eggs |
With varied diversity of aquatic birdlife and raptors, Tadoba is an
Ornithologist’s Paradise and being accompanied by Jagannadha Raju, who has fair
knowledge in bird watching, we identified upto 35 different bird species in our
three visits and learned a lot about them. The most common bird we saw was a
Red-wattled
Lapwing which crossed our path every now and then. On the banks of the
Telia Lake we spotted small groups of
Whistling Teels,
Open-billed
Storks and
Cormorants (Water Crow). The guide showed us the hammock nest
of
Paradise Fly-catcher where the female bird is incubating her eggs. That
was one beautiful bird and its male counterpart is much more beautiful with a
long white tail feather which we saw at the end of our third safari.
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| Open-billed Storks, Telia Lake |
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| Monitor Lizard |
Alongside the path there are stone masonry towers some twelve feet
high, erected by a ruler of that place some centuries ago, to serve the purpose
of torch-bearers, atop of which we spotted a
Monitor Lizard which was
the first reptile of our safari. Meanwhile, Padma Kumar spotted a group of
around 20 to 25
Wild Boars crossing the road and vanishing into the
bushes on the other side within seconds before everyone could see. Then we saw
the
Indian Pitta, the most rarely spotted bird. It has nine different colors
on its feathers giving it a local name Navrang. On the dry branches of a teak
tree we saw an
Indian Roller (Pala Pitta). Its magnificent blue colored wings
can only be seen during its flight.
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| Tree Pie, the cunning bird |
Then the
Tree Pie, though beautiful
with a tail feather protruding a little bit farther from its tail is the most
cunning bird, which tries to pest other birds’ nests for no reason. Whenever we
saw it, there is always a
Racket Tailed Drongo chasing it and trying to
keep it away from its nest.
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| Indian Roller |
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| Indian Pitta |
We saw big herds of
Spotted Deer (Chital) grazing in the plush
green lands, a huge herd of above 100 Spotted Deer crossing our path,
Grey
Langurs (Hanuman Langurs) eating plant leaves and grooming, beautiful tiny
Button
Quails frolicking along the roadside. A shy
Barking Deer suddenly
crossed our path and as soon as Srihari spotted it and tried to capture its
photo, it swiftly vanished into the thick and dark bamboo bushes. Then we saw a
White-eyed Buzzard sitting on a top branch of a tree and couple of
Indian
Gaurs (Bison) grazing below. With this our first safari ended and we
returned back to our dormitory, had dinner and went to bed.
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| Huge Beetle |
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| Remains of a hunted Gaur |
Second Safari
We woke up at 5’o clock and by 6’o clock we entered the gate and
once again we visited the Telia Lake. To our surprise we spotted the Mugger
Crocodile resting peacefully on the banks making it the rarest reptile we
have ever watched in the wild. We saw a young Shikra on a teak tree,
nesting grounds of a Little Blue Kingfisher, a female Magpie Robin
building nest while the male is watching over from the tree top, Common Myna,
Starling, Robin, Pied Bush Chat, Bul-Bul, White
Throated Kingfisher, Black Shoulder Kite, Grey Hornbill, a
lot of Doves, Peahens and Peacocks, Cuckoo, Jungle
Fowls, Chess Necked Munia, Ashy Prinia and many others.
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| Mugger Crocodile, Whistling Teels, Red Wattled Lapwing |
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| Magpie Robin (Female) building her nest |
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| Red Wattled Lapwing |
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| Shikra |
Our second safari also ended without any glimpse of tiger. We returned
to our rooms, had lunch and took rest as we lacked proper sleep last night due
to bugs. We spotted a
Brahminy Myna at our dormitory. Raju and Srihari
took macro shots of a beautiful
Red Velvet Mite.
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| Common Rat Snake |
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| Striped Keel back Snake |
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| Paper Kite Butterfly |
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| Scare Copper Butterfly |
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| Brimstone Butterfly |
While we were resting,
Varma went out looking for birds and he spotted
Egrets,
White Eagles,
Green Bee Eaters and
Jacanas near our dormitory and also a
Common
Rat Snake. Raju and I spotted a
Striped Keel back Snake,
Purple
Heron,
Purple Moorhen,
Paper Kite Butterfly,
Scare Copper
Butterfly,
Brimstone Butterfly and a variety of Flora around our
dormitory.
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| Red Velvet Mite |
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| Common Myna |
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| Purple Moorhens |
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| Green Bee Eater |
At times when we enjoyed Fear
We tried to go safari in the evening but as all slots were booked,
we planned to walk around for some time and went out. Thinking that it is a
nature trail we went inside taking pictures and group photos and later realized
that we went deep into the core area. Raju and Varma were still advancing into
the thickest part when we stopped them and everybody returned back. Walking
further would have made us enter in to the tiger prone Telia Lake.
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| Varma, Raju, Srihari and Kumar |
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| Swamp inside the Reserve |
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| Padma Kumar sitting on a spillway |
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| Myself inside core area |
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| Varma, Srihari, Kumar and myself |
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| Monsoon sky |
Final
Safari
Next day
morning we entered the forest and it is our last chance to spot a tiger. Though
we knew that it was not the correct time to spot a tiger, we felt that we would
be a little downhearted if we did not see it by the end of this safari. As usual
we went first to the Telia Lake and by the time we reached, there were already
around ten safari vehicles waiting for the tiger. They told that they saw the
tiger and it is resting on the bank which is about a meter deep from our level
and further told that it may come up at any time. We waited for around 15 to 20
minutes.
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| Waiting for His Excellency |
There are many ways for it to get out of that place without getting
watched and so we kept looking at all corners of the lake. Some 30 minutes
later it came up and through the tall grass it came towards our fleet of
vehicles. Everyone were amazed and tried to capture every possible glimpse of
this majestic 2 year old healthy Royal Bengal Tiger.
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| Coming out of tall grass |
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| The Royal Bengal Tiger |
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| His Majestic looks |
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| Crossing the Road |
It stopped, looked
at us, looked around, walked slowly about 10 feet from our vehicle, marked its
territory, crossed the road and vanished into the adjoining bushes. No words
can describe the feeling we had at that time and we felt very satisfied as this
viewing experience is much more than that we had at Kanha National Park.
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| Pug marks of a tiger |
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| Crested Serpent Eagle |
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| A young Wild Boar |
Happily
we moved forward, found pug marks of the tiger in the wet sandy track around
the Lake, spotted a Huge Crested Serpent Eagle preying on a snake, Wild
Boars, bunch of young and playful Langurs, a species of a lizard with
Radiant Red and Black colors and finally the male Paradise Fly-catcher.
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| Playful young Grey Langurs (Hanuman Langurs) |
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| A species of lizard with radiant red and black colors |
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| Paradise Fly-catcher (Male) incubating eggs in hammock nest |
While
returning we saw a Common Hoopoe, Eurasian Golden Oriole and very
noisy Jungle Babblers. With full satisfaction, we returned to our
dormitories got refreshed and packed our luggage.
Mr Pankaj, the Manager of the accommodation, is very enthusiastic in developing the Eco-tourism complex and he had the same ideas as we had suggested him for improving the stay experience of the visitor. Upon his insistence, we gave our feedback, which he studied and told that he will send it along with his own proposal to the higher authorities.
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| Ghost tree inside the Reserve |
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| A typical tree near our dormitory |
We booked a cab to Chandrapur rail station. Raju planned to go directly to Kakinada and we headed back to Hyderabad. As usual the trains ran late and we had to wait at the station for about 1.5 hours during which we shared each other's tour experiences and views. Raju and I listed out the species we have spotted that helped me in writing this blog. First came Raju's train and we bid him farewell and next we got on ours. At around 23:00 hrs we reached Hyderabad and went home.
