What a sighting, mate!

Nagpur: A tiger sighting is a tiger sighting is a tiger sighting, right? Wrong! For any wildlife photographer worth his 500mm lens, two things are the holy grail: a tiger making a kill, and two tigers mating. While both occurrences are an intrinsic part of a tiger’s life, getting them on camera is exceptionally rare because of the sequestered nature of these activities. In fact, while TOI has been publishing wildlife photographs clicked by readers, we have never got an image of a tiger killing its prey or mating with another tiger.
That is why, an image clicked by naturalist Himanshu Bagde of Tadoba’s fabled tigress Maya mating with one of the park’s once-dominant males Gabbar, which we published in our Monday edition, is very special. Another acclaimed wildlife photographer from the city, Varun Thakkar, had got a similar image of mating tigers in January 2012. Both of them say that getting to witness the mating was a privileged experience.
“I have seen tigers mating six times in my life. But the earlier ones were not in clear sight as the tigers were partly hidden by foliage. But Maya’s mating with Gabbar was different. She had no inhibitions and about 30 tourist vehicles witnessed them mating,” Bagde says. He remembers the tense chemistry between the two big cats. “The male was very aggressive and wouldn’t let the tigress get up from her spot,” he says.
Thakkar’s sighting from 2012 was similarly memorable. “We were indeed lucky as we were the only vehicle to witness the mating session of the tigers. Over the course of two hours, the two (Tara and Namdeo) mated five to six times, each one lasting barely five seconds. By the end of it, the male was pretty exhausted,” he recalls. He added that even witnessing a tiger mating is a ‘rarest of rare’ phenomenon, leave alone photographing the act at leisure. Sure enough, Thakkar has photographed hundreds of tiger sightings after that day in 2012, but no mating.