Today we were expecting to all be in the same zone as we'd visited yesterday afternoon, however as we left the registration area having picked up our local guide we unexpectedly turned right towards another zone. We spotted Mugdha in one of the other trucks and shouted to her but she didn't seem to know what was happening and before we could talk further our driver sped off. I was particularly concerned that neither the driver nor the guide spoke much English and therefore should an emergency occur we would be very much stuck.
The sunrise was beautiful.
I think this photo pretty much sums up our luck, we were fortunate enough to be this close to a Gaur (Indian Bison) and what do we get - a ruddy great post right across its face! The lack of communication with the driver made moving to a better angle impossible but at least you can see its long white socks.
Nothing special about this tree except how lovely it looked.
Having seen virtually nothing for 3 hours we drove the same route along the perimeter fence as yesterday to the breakfast stop and of course the Scoops Owl was waiting for us.
A very tatty feathered Crested Serpent Eagle
The food stalls ready for the Indian tourists and indeed probably 95% are Indian which is fabulous as they're now interested in learning about the importance of wildlife conservation. I just wish they wouldn't shout so loudly.
The Strangler Figs in this park are certainly very aggressive.
Yep, that's it for the morning - it was the most boring game drive of our lives.
But fortunately nothing went wrong although we did have strong words with our tour leaders at lunch. It transpired that as we'd booked late (us in January and B&L early December) there were no permits left for the other zone. We all felt we should have been told before we left the lodge this morning, but apparently neither of them knew about it otherwise they would have ensured one of them came with us - yeah, yeah yeah!
And as we barely saw any animals, the lack of English to identify species didn't really apply anyway - whereas in the other zone, sloth bear and several tiger sightings occurred, allegedly!
Heading off for the afternoon drive, the barrier at the park entrance is very unsophisticated, just a simple rope.
And this is the Rope Wallah
The Parks Dept schedules regular burning of the undergrowth to create a fire break and prevent accidental fires getting out of control. Taken from the moving truck this is very out of focus but quite atmospheric I thought.
Pretty much every other "worker" we've seen though has been sitting down on the job.
One of the few birds we saw this afternoon, yet another Red Vented Bulbul.
The afternoon was just as quiet as the morning, so much for the "almost guaranteed" tiger sightings.
The next day we had our 5th and final visit to this NP and I for one won't be sorry to be moving on. All 4 trucks were in a new zone which gave us a change of scenery, with numerous man-made water bodies.
What I can't work out is when the Forestry Department are creating these by flooding an area, they don't seem to take into account that very few trees will live with their roots completely submerged and consequently there are a lot of dead trees around.
But for our truck, the dearth of animals continued, this was all we saw.
Indian Hornbill, a long way off high on a tree.
Egret
We had Deepti in our truck and she was hell bent on finding a tiger and to her credit she did, although I think she thought me rather churlish when I expressed my view that this did not constitute "a sighting"
The most interesting part of the morning was the breakfast stop where Barry bought several packets of local snacks to try.
I think I've mentioned canters before, well this is what they look like although the one I was in in Ranthambore was open topped.
Generally they carry 25 or so people so this one was quite spacious.
And that was the sum total of my photos this morning. Unfortunately for us, Bandhavgarh has not lived up to its reputation and we've barely seen any wildlife, although we have seen enough langurs for a special!