Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Travelogues (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/)

-   -   Crouching Tiger, Unaware prey - Hunt and Kill: TATR - Awesome, Incredible, Amazing!! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/122286-crouching-tiger-unaware-prey-hunt-kill-tatr-awesome-incredible-amazing-4.html)

Hello Sach.sri,

Yes. That has to be anyone's favourite picture. One can clearly witness the fire the tiger's eyes. Simple awesome. Display of aggression at its best.

I have seen all the pictures in this thread atleast 5 times & still cannot get enough, waiting eagerly for another set of pictures from you.

Sincerely thank you for bringing such a perfect set of pictures for us.

Regards,

Thanks MAhesh. Working on the video - it will take sometime, meanwhile will continue to post some more pics. Hopefully they will also be enjoyable.

Thanks mate! It is Both - the boar is a full grown male - as you can see from the boar pic that i have posted before the attack began and the tigress is a 16 months old cub - not yet fully independent.

The audacity and fearlessness in attacking a full grown boar shows the spunk of this tigress and that will i guess help her in her years to come.

Thanks bro!

Thanks Jignesh - your compliment has made my day :) Stay tuned for more pics, coming up.

Another set of pics from the kill sequence.






As she could not finish off the kill, she broke open the skin from the neck and started ripping off


Gory grin! This is because of the hair, she is cleaning the hair and eating chunks of boar's flesh




Awesome Canines - formidable weapons


Finally, was able to grip the neck








Claws!



All gory and messy

Sachin and Annu,

clap:You two managed to pull off one of the best predator-prey live action in recent times. Believe me!clap:

Advantage Boar.

The odds were heavily tilted in favor of the boar. as he was a mature, adult boar and to reach this age he had tons of predator experience, strategies behind him in this small reserve.
He had his lethal canines capable of collateral damage right under the tigresses most soft and vulnerable belly.
Boars are extremely tough built even for an adult tiger, the neck to head is built like a tank, nearly impregnable.

Disadvantages Tigresses.

Inexperience.
Not fully muscled and built yet.
Canines not reached full size yet.
Didn't go for the throat.
Got herself In the most vulnerable position during initial combat, thus continuously exposed to the deadly, infamous boars canine lunge.

This tigress managed to do what is nearly impossible in terms of a win or lose situation. It was her sheer determination and spirit that not only killed the boar but saved herself.

Her inexperience also shows where she chose to initially eat from, instead of the softer rump she started to eat from neck which is hard muscle.

Though both were nearly equal in the offensive strength department, the tigress used it to the max and the boar didn't.

It sure must have been a very gory battle for life with the heavy growls of the tigress and the shrilly cries of the boar. At what point of time did the boar breathe his last?

Thanks for posting this awesome shoot and still awaiting for more and the video.
Regards,

Amazing pictures! I hadn't realized that the boar was that big, and a full grown one from the earlier picture angles.

So she finally got her position right...what a girl!

These are like Nat Geo or Discovery video stills - the fangs, the claw, the drool, the blood...thanks Sachin!

@ Fazal: maybe the boar was not fully subdued/weak enough, so the tigress couldn't let her go and start eating from the rump? Only the video/further pictures would tell...

clap: Absolutely Fantastic ! No adjectives to describe your experience !

The boar appears to be alive even in the last picture....how long was this entire sequence ?

Nevertheless, you were blessed that day !

@Sach.Sri - Rated 5 stars.
This is NatGeo stuff. Unique opportunity to witness as well photograph the entire kill sequence in detail. Been looking at this thread atleast 2-3 times a day for last 2 days to look for the entire kill sequence. Thank you for bringing this to us.

This has increased curiousity to watch the video in one go. Also, the video may bring in the audio along with it.

@Fazal: Nice narration to highlight different points of view. Is it a case that the boar was over-confident that the young tigress would not be successful in the overpowering the boar?

Awesome!

What was your distance from the scene? There is pic in which the tigress appears to be looking right through the lens! Incredible.

Can you share some details about the photography part? Where were located, distance wise? What was your gear? Did you use a stand?

5* stuff and rated so!

Holy cow! And WOW! What-an-experience you might have had! Awesome photographs and thanks for sharing them :) Do upload the video.

Rating the thread 5 *s.

Hi Sach.Sri,
Amazing pictures with a hunt in action. Just love the them in a sequence as it almost brings the action live on our monitors. Thanks for sharing. You are being extremely lucky with the stripes.
Rated 5*
Regards

Thank you Fazalbhai for the kind words. Your description is a very apt summation of the event and the feelings going through our minds during it happening. In the initial stages when the boar was pushing her in the bushes and she was head to head with the boar - we are very afraid that she has bitten more than she could chew - but she hung on and came up trumps.

This indeed was a very gory battle with the shrill cries of the boar - but the tigress did not growl much - i guess she was concentrating on winning the battle :thumbs up

I think - initially she did try to go for the throat - but the boar dislodged her and then she just did what she could to gain upper hand.

I am trying to work on the videos - but being amateurs, the videos have a lot of shake and i am trying to chop off the shaky bits to present a smooth picture, taking time as i am not experienced in the ways of processing videos - infact, this is the first time when we have shot videos during our wildlife outings.
Still will post soon.

Fazalbhai - the boar was not yet dead when we had to leave due to time getting over, she was still at it!

Nilanjan - yes this was a fully grown male boar with good tusks on him. I think the suddennes of the attack took him by surprise and unnerved him. Normally, the whole stalking and attack takes sometime and the prey is also aware at some point in time that he is going to be attacked - but in this case, there was absolutely no warnings or alarms - one instant the boar was happily munching away and the next he had a tiger on him :).

Thanks for liking the pics - we are loving the comments and encouragements.

Thanks Raghu. Yes, the boar was indeed still alive when we had to leave because of time getting over.

We reached the waterhole around - 17.15
The tigress came to the waterhole around - 17.35
She became aware of the boar around - 17.49
Launched the attack - 17.51
We had to leave at - 18.09

So the whole incident lasted around 50 mins, with the attack around 20 mins.

Thanks Avid trekker for liking and voting. Appreciate the compliments. Like i said - working on the video, but it is taking time because of my inexperience in handling the processing of the video - but will post shortly.



Thanks TaureanBull for liking and voting. We were very close to the scene. Actually in the shots of the tigres lying in the waterhole we were behind a gypsy who had arrived before us on the scene. But they had to leave early because they had entered from Moharli gate and it is quite a long distance from this place, so when the attack came that time, they had to leave and we had the front seat :).

The distance should be not more than 10 ~15 feet and we had front seats of the attack part, i use a Canon 7D with 100-400L 4.5 to 5.6 lens. i did not use any tripod - all the shots are handheld and shot with max aperture available. ISO - 200.



Thanks mate - we had the best time of our wildlifing exp in this short 50 mins period - working on the video and will upload. Thanks for liking and rating.

Thanks Coooolcat21 for liking and rating.

I agree - this was a very good and lucky "season" for us in terms of getting to see Tigers. All the dissappointment of not getting a darshan in the last 6 months before June are wiped away :)

I can almost hear the groans of the professional wildlife photographer who with his million dollar budget and equipment fails to even witness such stupendous action far from recording it with such perfection.

I have known of a group that spent weeks camped inside Ranthambore just to catch the first ever live kill by a Tiger on film. It was after most of the crew had been recalled after weeks of fruitless filming that they finally managed to get those ever elusive shots.

I have visited Corbett almost every year since 1983-1984. I have seen a tiger twice..only twice in almost 30 years! A live kill is impossibly rare to witness. I mean impossibly rare.

Brilliant luck there Sach.Sri! The pictures are jaw dropping!! I had goosebumps at one point. The tigress seems to be quite a poser i must say. Even with an angry bear fighting her for its life she has time to look into the camera!!

All the same its inexperience put it in some mighty precarious situations. It was almost as lucky as you guys that day. Only the poor Boar came out the worst for it.

I cant even imagine the noise and excitement that all of you must have felt as you witnessed this drama of life and death. My congratulations for keeping your cool and my heartfelt gratitude for sharing those moments with us all.

Looking forward to the video.

Wow Sachin, those are probably the most interesting wildlife captures that I've had the opportunity to view. I guess the boar was darn unlucky as it tried to do all the right things to save itself but still became Tiger fodder! But then, I gotta admire the tenacity of the Tigress. Awesome!

Finally uploaded the videos on youtube - embedded below.

They are in sequence -

First video is of the tigress sitting in the bushes and slowly advancing towards the waterhole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aeb5sgw4T34


This is now followed by a video of tigress when she became aware of the possibility of hunting the wild boar and went into crouching position - this video is shot by my son with Panasonic Lumix ps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpcN_WmTbMc


Next video is of the tigress getting into position to launch onto the boar - you can see her twitching for action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEH15U40XTI&hd=1


Now comes the video of tigress launching onto the wild boar. I must say here that i was not confident of getting it right on video and so kept on switching between video and still modes. At that point - i was anxious to capture this event well on film as i was aware that this is a momentous event and i will never be able to witness it again. My feelings were of awe mixed with anxiety and nervousness - and i guess that shows in the video


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy-Kf2nshgw


to be contd..

I am getting 'this video is private' message when I click the last video...you might need to change the settings