Pyari's cub stalking squirrel, 2006

This day in 2006 pyari made a kill in Barua Nala and brought all her cubs to share the kill.
At this age cubs are very curios and wants to explore the area. They get alert from any noise or movement. This cub just heard a squirrel and heard the rustling sound made by squirrel by running on these dry leaves.
He came as close as 2 mtrs to the jeep without looking at us but sniffing ground to find the source of that rustling noise.
He was highly disappointed but we had fun.

Wildlife Photographers who stayed with us in last 19 years.

In late 90s we met a young wildlife photographer rom Britain in the park. Often we were the only two vehicles in the park so often we chat about the Tigers and the park.
One day he, Mr Iain Green , asked us if he could come and stay with us.
That's when we had just the one spare room so in fact Iain Green was the first person who started Skays Camp.
He started coming for long stay with us and then about 2 to three visits in a season.
Later on he was the first person to write a book Wild Tigers of Bandhavgarh.
This was the time when Bachchi  was growing and Charger was losing his domain. When Bachchis three male cubs grew they were the only male tigers in the park. They never faced any challenge from any other male means there was no other male tiger in close vicinity of Bandhvagarh.
B2 a.k.a  as Shashi settled in Chakradhara B3  found hills safer for himself and B1 moved to Rajbehra and Beyond.
Shashi became a regular feature on daily basis in Bandhavgarh.
Iain wrote another book this time Tiger Jungle on Shashi.
By this time Steve Bloom, Nick Garbutt and Tony & Sharon Heald started visiting Bandhavgarh on regular basis and staying with us.
Once my picture of a tiger cub appeared on BBC wildlife cover then photographers started enquiring about me and our place.
Then came the Andrew Parkinson, Danny Green, Mark Sisson, Paul Hobson, Tom Way, Richard Barrett, Kim Sulivan and many more who are still patronising Skays Camp.
We dont provide luxury but we comfortable accommodation with running hot and cold water in each room. (All the rooms have attach bathroom). 
Food is mostly vegetarian.
So why all these top grade photographers comes to stay with us?
The answer could be that we provide the best Jungle Experience to them. We have the best record of Tigers of bandhavgarh. Kay keeps the family tree of Tigers of Bandhavgarh which is from 1982 to up to date although now it's getting little difficult to track the record of all the tigers because the tourist zone is limited to 20% of the park.
We are here since 1990.
Now Skays Camp Homestay have 5 twin bedded and one double bed room.
Best way to contact us is through email skayscamp@gmail.com
                                               

Elephant feeding

After coming out of corral and showing his skill of understanding the Mahavat's command he was offered food first time out of corral.
This is the best way to feed a captive elephant, Mr Mridul K Pathak said.
You can see here Roti and Jaggery in his meal.
By this way the number of roti he gets per day and amount of jaggery gets embedded in his memory.

Just within less than four months he became such a docile animal that here the mahavats are standing just having a stick in his hand. I have seen them working in corral it was simply the Tender loving care of the staff which made him friendly towards human being. No doubt this was all possible under the stewardship of Mr Mridul K Pathak. The new boys were appointed to work with these new elephants and very soon they develop a rapport between them.  

There is a story from Bori from 70's about elephant feeding.
Hopefully Dinesh K Dubey will tell us because this was told us by his father, who use to be CF Hoshangabad in those days. 

Wild elephant release from corral on 26th Jan 2019

When I say that this wild elephant capture programme was unique in many sense then really it was. There are so many stories which needs to be written about this.
This elephant was the most naughtiest in all for breaking the wall. His footprints were smaller than the other big tusker and his footprints were more common around the houses.
He was the caught in mid september and in October he was put in the corral.
Mr Mridul K Pathak the then Field Director of Bandhavgarh Ntl park use to visit Corral almost every day and every time he went to see them he use to feed them Jaggery or Roti by hand.
His stewardship made new mahavats to work with new, unknown, temperamental elephants.
His only order for them was to win them with love.
Staff worked hard to achieve these goal and results were very positive and were seen very early.
In two months time Mahavats were telling me that they can go inside to clean the corral and for dressing of their old gunshot wounds.

One even offered me to take his picture inside the corral but I refused.
In less than four months time this elephant is brought out of the corral.
You can see a houda on his back with sandbags.
This all was done when elephant was in corral.
After his release he walked around and then his hauda was removed.
Within 40 minutes of his release Mr Pathak was feeding him by hand.
This was confidence and faith on that animal.
This was a great achievement in elephant training.
We know in other states the elephants were treated so badly that court has to order to release them back in the jungle.
Initially when he was put in corral he tried his level best to get out that corral and in that process he broke his left tusk.
In May I saw him standing next to a tiger.

Rai Grass

This is one of the most common grass in our area and its most non palatable grass for herbivores but in our garden it comes through cow muck. It means the cattle do eat it.

Animal deaths and Shashi / Bamera pugmark

Some animal deaths in the jungle really made me very angry and often you find yourself very helpless in these cases.

Charger, Bamera, Indrajeet and Indrani deaths are some of them.

While looking my old files for habitat shots I just found these two pictures of Shashi / Bamera pugmark.

Bamera had a small injury in one of his pad. For Cats that kind of injury is nothing. It's like a scratch for us.

Shashi / Bamera had this injury in his pad for months together and ultimately he died of septicemia of this injury.

You can see the pugmark in dry sand where constantly he is leaving a wet mark on the sand.

This all happened when Bandhavgarh have a qualified Govt Vet posted especially for looking after the wild animals.

Jungle Cat.

Not an easy subject to photograph. Sightings in this forest are very irregular. You need lots of time to let her accustom to your present but nowadays that's not possible only because of unruly guests ibn the park.
People do not respect other animals or do not respect other guests in the park.
This has happened only because of Guide and drivers who do not have any knowledge about Natural History of the area or one can say if tiger is not there then they don't know how to keep their guests interest in the park or how to keep their guest busy by showing other animals in the park.
luckily we found this cat in the area where other vehicles were not there so we had the opportunity to watch her pounce on a mouse in ten minutes time.