It had been almost 8 months and I was yet to get the next set of photographs of the swamp tiger. I was worried, but more than me it was my boatman Subrata Biswas who was worried like hell. It was such a condition that even with 104 fever and constant vomiting, he refused to leave the boat when I reached Sundarban on 24th Aug 2016 night. I didn't force him more. 4 days gone into the wilderness and still there were no signs of tigers. Subrata's condition, though, did not deteriorate but was not recovering either. At times he was shivering badly. As we has an alternate for him on the boat, we asked him to take rest for most of the time, along with medication.
28th Aug 2016 around 2pm when I was washing my hands downstairs prior to the lunch, heard some commotion on the top. It was obvious. Tiger was spotted. And the fever had vanished. Yes, you heard it right, the fever had just vanished within seconds. Subrata came back to 100% normalcy after that. A tiger sighting did successfully what dozes of medicine could not do!
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| The Sub-adult Male |
We had been searching the tigers from 3 days. 2 set of footprints were seen entering Pirkhali 3 island by crossing the Sundarkhali river. So there was some hope that one among them might come out and try to cross over to another adjacent island. As planned, we just kept revolving around Pirkhali 3, looking out for some signs of movement. And on the 4th day we got this handsome sub-adult male sitting in the river bank!
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| This is how we saw him first |
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| The Obedient Boy |
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| After chasing the Water Monitor |
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| Calm and Composed |
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| Crossing the creek |
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| Final look before vanishing into the thickets |
This sighting last for almost 25 minutes. He was extremely cool with our presence as we never tried to breach his comfort zone. Only after the unsuccessful hunting attempt he planned to move inside. However, as expected we again saw him on the banks of Sundarkhali river. As soon as he saw us he moved back into the thickets. At that point we decided to move out and make opportunity for the other boat whom we had called there to see the tiger. And yes, they too got a glimpse and some images of this handsome boy.
