Kahna first day

15th February 2018 – Kanha

We thought Satpura was cold and Parat had warned us to dress for it, but we were not prepared for how cold it was this morning. They provided blankets and hot water bottles, but we were still cold. In reality it was about 10C, but with the added wind-chill on a damp morning it felt considerably colder in an open truck doing about 50Kph. Luckily we’d put Gill next to the driver. Still when we reached the park entrance none of us could feel our feet. For some reason Kanha requires you to provide your passport so, we handed ours to the driver who headed to the park HQ. I guess it’s a job for someone.

Kanha Tiger Reserve, also called Kanha National Park, is one of the tiger reserves of India and the largest national park of Madhya Pradesh, state in the heart of India. The present-day Kanha area was divided into two sanctuaries, Hallon and Banjar, of 250 and 300 km² respectively. Kanha National Park was created on 1 June 1955 and in 1973 was made the Kanha Tiger Reserve, prior to all that it was created as a reserve in 1937. Today it stretches over an area of 940 km² in the two districts Mandla and Balaghat. Together with a surrounding buffer zone of 1,067 km² and the neighboring 110 km² Phen Sanctuary it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve. This makes it the largest National Park in Central India. Kanha Tiger Reserve was ranked among the top 10 Famous Places for Tourists.

The park has a significant population of Bengal tiger, Indian leopards, the sloth bear, barahsingha and Indian wild dog. The forest depicted in the famous novel by Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book is thought by some to be based on jungles including this reserve. It is also the first tiger reserve in India to officially introduce a mascot, "Bhoorsingh the Barahsingha".

The tiger population is thought to be about 100 adult tigers. An adult is around 2 years old so, this figure doesn’t include juveniles. In a 100 km square area typically you would have 5-6 females with at least 1 male passing through their area.

Sambar Deer

Slightly warmed up by the stop at HQ we waited until 06:30 when the park opens and 70-80 vehicles move in. There are 3 sectors which everyone is allocated 1 with a common area between them all.

No monkey business here.

As the sun rose we started to see more through the mist sighting spotted deer, samba deer, monkeys and birds, but no Tiger or Leopard. We stopped for breakfast at one of the former buildings that are in the park, many dating back to the late 1950’s when there was a hotel actually in the park. The day was now warming up and several layers were removed. We continued with our search for the Tigers until just before 11:00 when we had to be out of the park.

At 14:45 we headed back into the park and tried another sector. Parat kept saying there was a 70% probability that we would see a Tiger. I misused that information and said that statistically we should see one more than 2 times out of 3 and that we would see one on this trip!! He just smiled.

Indian Roller

Indian Pond Heron

In between when we entered the park and 18:15, when we have to leave, we wandered around our sector and saw a lot of thing that we’d already seen. About 15 minutes before we were due to start leaving there was a buzz as alarm calls could be heard. We started moving around and looking across a valley. By now there must have been 30-40 vehicles all crashing around and jostling for position. This may be a National Park but they still drive like Delhi taxi drivers! Sadly, we ran out of time and had to leave. As we were about to leave Parat pointed out some Boars doing what comes naturally to which I comment – “makin’ bacon”!

Jackal

We’re starting to feel a wee bit despondent now. Despite all the early mornings and hours being bounced around we’d not seen what we came for. We realise that having a range of 100 km square means you’re looking for a needle in a hay stack, but everyone else seem to have seen them at some point. The only consolation is that everyone we spoke to today reported that they’d not seen one either and Parat seems confident. Ah, well another early start so let’s see what that brings....