Our Wild Classroom - Panna Tiger Reserve

The very nature of this cat is so deeply embedded in mystery that quickly compounds into an unknown fear, like the elongating shadows which slowly merge into darkness, the slight rustle of a bush, breaking of a twig and then the piercing call of a denizen pinned to death by this master of stealth.

For the last 3 months, I have been tracking this Male Leopard who lives in the vicinity of our camp. We have had many many encounters with him on the forest track, so much so that now I can say that he recognizes us and as a result of the same also indulges us with great shots.

As we drove towards the village, crossing the now extremely dense forest, reaching the spot of our multiple encounters, we understood something was different, there was utter chaos ...I stopped the car, Langurs had gone berserk on the Peepal tree, something sent a bunch of Peacocks squawking into the undergrowth and then we saw a lone Nilgai (female) calling out in utter alarm. For those lucky few who have had the opportunity to spend some time in the forests must have realized how rare this is.

For the rest, here goes, Nilgais are extremely quiet and rarely emit any kind of sound unless when cornered by clear and imminent danger and in the area where we were at, could mean only one thing - a Leopard.

And it was only 6pm with plenty of daylight left, the sheer audacity of a fringe area resident was clear, he was used to being out and about in daylight and/or he was very hungry which prompted him to come out at this hour.

Either way we felt we were lucky and waited with baited breath for 30mins and then nothing happened.

The sheer patience of a leopard can wear even the stoutest of personalities or put them to the test.

Already well versed with this behavior, I wasn't disappointed, in fact it brought me hope with the knowledge that he was back in the area and the chances of seeing him were brighter than ever before.

The evening was uneventful and again the next evening we were back in our search but now armed with some potent information.

Info

The Leopard had made a kill - a sub-adult calf at 7am, putting this together I knew that the odds were in our favor. With a kill made so late, it was impossible for the Leopard to drag it to the depths of the forest and also with being the suspicious cats that he was, it wont leave the carcass alone even, which meant he would be around.

So off we went with the Gurkha and waited, and just as unexpected as it had subsided yesterday, without warning, without a single alarm call (for it was 6pm and plenty of daylight) out stepped this magnificent cat, larger than any other I have come across.

He seemed surprised and I took it for a compliment for I had aced his movement to the T and here he was looking back at me.

But now it was his turn to throw a surprise and surprise he did by doing something extremely un-leopard like, he walked up to the car and stood barely 5 feet from my window (driver side) to look at me.

This was not expected, at that moment I didn't whether to just look back at him or take a picture or video. I fumbled around for my phone for my telephoto would be useless at such close quarters.

Then he walked up to a raised embankment and gave us the splendid opportunity to capture this...