Ranthambore — March 2024

Driving in from Sawai Madhopur, you can almost feel the forest tightening around the road. The hills come closer, the trees lose their colour, and the dust starts to take on that thin gold tone that Ranthambore carries in March.

We stayed near zone 3, so most of the safaris were the lake circuit and the upper valley. There were two cubs travelling with their mother in zone 2 that everyone was talking about, but we never quite caught the timing.

Day 1

Quiet, as first days usually are. We saw a male sambar standing in fading light near the second lake, and a pair of crocodiles that didn't move once. The forest was waking up around us — the calls came in soft layers — but nothing crossed.

Day 2

This was the morning that produced On the trail. We sat at a bend for almost two hours waiting for the alarm calls that never quite landed, and then he just appeared, walking the same line he'd walked the day before. The frame is from his second step into open light. ISO had to climb. It was worth it.

The trick with these sightings isn't being lucky. It's being already there.

Day 3

A long quiet morning, then a tiger crossing in red bush at golden hour. The foliage in late winter takes on this deep rust colour that I'd been hoping for and didn't really expect. Among the red bushes came out of about thirty seconds of shooting.

Day 4

A cub on the road in the afternoon, briefly, and then a male on the dam in the late evening sun. Neither felt like a clean frame, but the experience of sitting on the dam with him fifty metres away — slow, breathing, nobody talking — was the kind of moment you keep for yourself.

The drive back to Sawai Madhopur was quieter than the drive in. It usually is.