Portrait of Tiger Queen

[Debasis Bose]

Portrait shot of Sharmilee the Tiger Queen of Bijrani Corbett.


Nikon, Nikor 3000 F 2.8, Shot @ 300 F4, ISO 200, 1/250s

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Expression of royalty captured at the right moment aptly. Long years ago when first Bengali translation of Jim Corbett's ' Temple tiger and more maneaters of Kumaon ' was published, the front cover of the book contained a similar image.Thanks for sharing. SaktiWild

P.S.: A tigress with cub has strayed into the upper stretches of Dalma Sanctuary, near Tatanagar. A villager has photographed it and TOI published a report with photo. Last time a tiger was seen about a decade back.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice profile photograph. Good details in the eye. Did she come close to the gypsy? When was this photographed? Thanks for sharing.

[Debasis Bose]

Thank you Saktida and Mrudul.

I remember similar image on the Bengali version of Corbett's Temple Tiger.

Yes Mrudul, the tigress was on hunting spree. It was an unsuccessful ambush, we were watching her from about 40 to 50 m away, with ignition of gypsy switched off. Suddenly she decided to walk towards us and came very close to us and then walked across in front of our jeep. It was a thrilling moment beyond description

[Sabyasachi Patra]

The image uploaded is 909x617 pixels. Guess a large sized image was uploaded and it got resized by the forum software.

Carnivores are known to take cover of the tourist vehicles to hunt. This behaviour is seen in Africa as well as in India.

[Debasis Bose]

Dear Sabyasachi,

I had cropped the image to 909 x 617 pixel as was unable to get the size below 400 kb in 1021 by Microsoft editor