Day 3 Land of the Tiger India, Leopard Day!

Leopard seen in Pench National Park.

Today was an exciting safari… we didn’t spot a tiger, but we did spot another very beautiful and exciting animal…

Today was another one of those ‘get up early’ days! We were up bright and early alarm set for five out of the gate by 5:45. We weren’t going make the same mistake twice and today we dressed in all our clothes! We had no idea that it could be as cold as this in central India! But it is still the Spring here after all… and it was still 6 o’clock in the morning!

Today’s safari was in another part of the forest, through a different gate. As soon as we hopped into the jeep we were whisked away at great speed! We really had to hang on tight as the driver weaved in and out the overhanging bushes; it felt like we were on a roller coaster ride and like we could tip out at any point. It was so much fun! We were hanging on tight, ducking under branches, covering our faces from the dust and generally having a fabulous ride!

The reason for rushing was that a tiger had been spotted with a deer a day ago and would be likely return to where it had left it to feast on its breakfast. We waited first on one side of a lake, then moved around to the other, but no tiger! Our guide told us that no safaris had spotted a tiger for a few days. We thought we might be lucky, but not today! Part of the excitement is the anticipation that something is going to be found for us to see.

Our guide was super observant and spotted some pug marks (animal footprints) in the dirt on the road. They were enormous! We were pointed out that they were from a female tiger - this is because the front part of the print was pointed, whereas that of the male is round. Further down the track some prints were spotted that were bigger still - those of a male tiger who had obviously sauntered down the middle of the track the night before. Mandar told us that a local school we had seen the day before had discovered pug marks in the playground one morning so a camera trap was put down and low and behold it captured the image of a tiger walking past ! Imagine that… a tiger in your playground!

The forest was really quiet and there was a lot of bird sound. One particular bird that was pointed out, a member of the magpie family, a Rufus Pie is referred to as a ‘tigers’s dentist’ because it spends time picking out bits of meat that are stuck in a tiger’s teeth.

We saw two different sorts of deer hiding amongst the trees - a family of spotted deer and a family of Sambar deer all feeding near to one another. Sambar deer are much bigger and more robust looking than the Spotted deer. We pulled in next to a lake and a huge Sambar stag walked into the edge of the lake and had a mud bath.

A Samba Stag seen in Pench National Park in India.

Suddenly it was time for another rollercoaster ride as something exciting had been spotted  across the park. We were jolted and bumped about, ducking under bushes and bouncing over boulders. It was so dusty we put scarfs over our faces! It was a lot of fun!

But when we got there the fun really did begin because  hidden in the bushes, just lying in a very relaxed way was a Leopard! It was so amazing and not very far away at all. At first it was really hard to see because of its camouflage which really does work! It was on its tummy looking back at us through the leaves and was absolutely spectacular. It looked so regal and important.

I asked what would happen if the leopard were to come face to face with a tiger as they are both such big animals and was told that the leopard would climb up high into the trees to keep out of the way!

The leopard can survive on much smaller portions of food than the tiger and therefore can prove a nuisance to the local people by stealing their smaller livestock and is very dangerous as they will often roam around the villages.

After all the excitement of spotting a leopard we stopped off at the guards’ patrol hut right in the middle of the forest. It is a very small accommodation building with a bedroom and kitchen for guards to stay in while on night duty. There was a communal kitchen where a lady was busy cooking for the guides and guards. I was presented with a very delicious omelette and a tiny cup of sweet lemon tea - it was so yummy.

Because the safari started so early we were back at our accommodation by mid morning so there was time for John to do a small painting based on our morning’s finds - a lovely sunrise painting in the forest with our very own leopard, a sambar deer and some Black Drongo birds which we had watched flying from tree to tree in the forest.

The afternoon was set up to be a busy one too, with our first trip to paint with the children in a local school in a Gond village.

When we got out of the car we were surrounded by a group of very excited children. They were so pleased to see us and treated us like superstars!

While we were setting up the art materials for the painting workshop, the children had their lunch. It was really interesting to see that they had big trays with doll and Rice and some children had brought their own food from home to add to the Rice. They all sat in a line on the floor opposite each other cross-legged and  tucked into their lunch. It was also interesting to see that they didn’t use any cutlery but used their right hand. After that finished it was one little girl’s duty to sweep up all l the spillages off the floor using a short broom made out of tiger grass.

The afternoon started off with a fantastic men’s dance group with musicians playing. Like the children who danced for us the other day, the dancers were dressed in yellow. They were amazing and so proud. By the time they had finished most of the village were at watching over the school wall and enjoying the spectacle. The children loved it too.

Twenty children who show interest in art were chosen to participate in the project - 10 boys and 10 girls. We presented the school with coloured pencils, crayons, paper, brushes and poster paint. Because a lot of the desks in the classroom were tilted, we decided that it would be better to paint on the floor outside. So some large mats were put down for the children to sit on and all the art materials were dished out between the groups of children. John did a short demonstration to show the children how the best way to use the materials would be and to try and make sure that they were comfortable happy to use them. He showed them how to do a painting using the the poster paints, covering the whole page with strips of blended mixed colours to give a background and then working shapes of trees and animals into the foreground. Then at the very end adding birds in the trees or animals on the ground. He then showed them the method of wax resist. Wax resist a very simple method of drawing with the crayons first and doing a wash of watercolour over the top.

After his demonstration, we left the children to do their own paintings. We didn’t sit and paint with them, we left them to see how they got. At first we were worried that things weren’t progressing very quickly, but then as they gained confidence, we could see that they knew exactly what they wanted and how they wanted to paint. Some of the children did some really amazing work and they all enjoyed themselves and worked really hard. They were so well behaved and sat so quietly and were completely absorbed in the activity. Two of the teachers joined in as well and looked like they were really enjoying it. The painting they did were wonderful. They used a lot of colour and filled the page. We will definitely be putting their work on the Last Chance to Paint world gallery.

At the end we photographed all the children with their paintings and photographed each of their paintings individually to put on the World Gallery on our Last Chance to Paint website and then all the children lined up with us and we had a photograph taken with all the children and their paintings. When we came to leave, the children were so delighted to have met us. They all  wanted to shake our hands and they all shouted ‘thank you’ in a chorus. I can only imagine that it really was like being famous! They gave us some flowers each to thank us and they were so happy to have had such a lovely afternoon. It was very humbling to feel that we had given them so much by giving them really so little. We left all the art materials with the school and hopefully the children will get to use them again and will enjoy doing art like you do at school over here.

The film we took about our afternoon at the school will come out on tomorrow’s video. We had such a lovely time there!

Watch our Day 3 Land of the Tiger Video