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Day 1
Three fellow wildlife photographer friends and I made a four day visit to Bandipur Tiger Reserve in India this past January. I was warned by most everyone I spoke to beforehand - tigers are so elusive that I should keep my expectations for seeing even a single one very low. My favorite was the story of a man who had made over 30 trips to the reserve, never to have seen one, solitary tiger.
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Day 2
We were out the door pre-dawn the next day to reach the reserve in time for sunrise. It was a peaceful, calm morning, with the Spotted Deer grazing all around us. After our phenomenal luck encountering a tiger just the prior evening, we had no expectations of another big cat sighting for some time.
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Day 3
Day 3 opened with quite a tense moment. Our guide received word that a leopard had been spotted nearby, and when we arrived, the people in another jeep told us it was in a tree across a field from us. While trying to spot it, I stumbled across a Spotted Deer fawn that was hiding next to a pile of brush, entirely motionless. In the next shot, you'll see the leopard perched in a tree that's just beyond that pile of brush.
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Day 4
The final morning, after three days straight of tiger sightings, was extremely relaxed. Had we seen absolutely nothing on this last day, we still would've headed home satisfied. But in keeping with the trip up until this point, we did see some stuff...
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