It was great to be back in the forest today after a couple of days off. We tried Zone 3 as I am hoping to show my clients the giant Star Male, the tiger that I shot in the Rajbagh Palace nearly two weeks ago. We found his pugmarks in Jalhra and followed them up onto Mandook but the trail went cold. Returning to the lake we spotted T17 lying on the wall adjacent to the Palace. She eventually moved off in the area around the back of the complex and as we drove around we spotted a large male leopard jumping down a vertical tree trunk from a height of about 20ft. The noisy approach of our vehicle had scared him off a freshly killed spotted deer that lay at the base of the tree. I started to get excited at this point as we knew both tiger and leopard were within 100m of the carcass!! We waited and waited but to no avail, eventually a couple of jungle crows landed on the kill and started to feed which made for a nice image.
In the afternoon we went back to Lakarda-Aridan-Semli and found another freshly killed spotted deer close to the road. Twice in the same day!! Again we waited and waited close to the carcass just off the road but there was no sign of any predators. As we left Aridan we saw the faint impression of a leopard's pugmark on the track. It is possible that a tiger scared the leopard away and did not notice the carcass or we could have disturbed the cat as we arrived on the scene. Either way it was another blank afternoon and I am hoping our luck will change soon....
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