Here's What I've Been Up To: Sunday, April 1, 2007: Ranthambhore & Chittorgarh

Here are a ton of photos from Ranthambhore National Park. This place was AMAZING. Here's the link to the website--please visit it. http://www.ranthambhore.com/ Ranthambhore is one of the best parks to see the Bengal tiger. They were nearly extinct when the land was designated a reserve, and have had a rough go of it building their numbers. There are still a number of villages within the borders of the park, and poaching and disease are constant threats. In 2005, with the population below 26 tigers, the Indian government intensified protection and policing in the area and a large number of cubs were born between summer 2005 and summer 2006.

A number of these photos were taken by Ron--he is a far superior photographer as compared to me, and he had a great camera for capturing wildlife whereas I just have a high end point and shoot. So I'll let you know when I took a picture, but otherwise assume that they are his pics. There are a few that I took that were pretty nice. Plus we were also in separate trucks, so Ron & Diane caught things I did not and vice versa.

Ron took this photo at the entrance. This was another day we had to be up with the roosters.

Another of Ron's...the sun rising over the park.

Some birds by a lake.

Anothe rbird--check out his super long beak.

This is a Sambhar deer.

The amazing tiger.

I wish there was a way to help protect them. They are just majestic animals.

The environmental conditions in Ranthambhore make it a great place for seeing wildlife in general. It is pretty dry and brushy so you can see animals pretty easily. Although the tigers should be trained toNOT lay behind the bush....haha just kidding.

Here kitty kitty...

Besides tigers, there is all sorts of wildlife in the park. Here's a Marsh Crocodile.

A bird of some sort and his reflection...

That same crocodile in the water...

One of the structures within the park.
Another bird of some kind...
Another bird of some kind...
Another bird of some kind...
I snapped this picture of wild boars. They are kind of ugly animals...
This peacock posed for me. None of them would spread their feathers though.
I took this of the landscape within the park. It is an interesting terrain; very rocky and craggy with lots of low vegetation.
There is a mongoose in the upper right hand coner of this shot. I was really far away and was snapping wildly trying to get a shot of it. The mongoose was having some sort of an "argument" with a porcupine and they were both running all over the place.

A green parakeet--you see these in India like you see pidgeons here.

See those webby things??? SPIDER NESTS. That's all I have to say about that. (I took this)

Another one of my landscape shots.

So there was this German lady (not Gretel from my previous post) in the truck with us and for whatever reason she had bread in her purse. Well, she decided to feed the cute little monkeys. Let me just say that that is a bad idea all around. She pulled that bread out and it was like a scene out of Congo. The trees started shaking as the monkeys lept from branch to branch trying to get to the truck for the bread. The chatter picked up to a crazy level too--they were definitely hollering at each other that there was a nutty woman with bread nearby. I was shocked she would even think to feed them. Didn't she see Outbreak??? (I took this)

This is a Banyan tree--a ficus tree. It is the same family as the kind we put white Christmas lights on and stick in our living rooms for decoration. They also call them walking trees--they grow down into the ground and appear to walk as they get bigger and bigger. (I took this)

The truck thing we rode around the park in. (I took this)

This was as close as I got to a tiger personally. We smelled something rotting and thought there might be one nearby, but there ended up being nothing to see but a foot print. Of the 4 trucks that were people from the train, we were the only truck that didn't get to see the tigers.