The Jungle Book in Kabini
Between us and wildlife sanctuaries, it’s not a long and peaceful love story. Animals used to hide when we went in this kind of places. So we had a deal : stop trying to see animals. If they want to see us, they’ll come to us ! Anyway sanctuaries are above all made to leave animals in peace.
But, thanks to “bird watchers” friends we have, we went last month to the Thettakad Sanctuary and we took a fresh look at this kind of places. This time, we have followed our family on the banks of the Kabini river. Kabini is a very particular lake located between 2 National Parks : Bandipur and Nagarhole.
After renting a tele objective (we had been frustrated last time in Thettakad not to be able to click those wonderful birds), we decided to do a safari and, what it is great in Kabini is that you can do a boat safari, which is far less agressive than a jeep safari. We also thought that at least, we would be able to see some birds and that will be a nice ride.
But it really it was finally an animals festival on Kabini banks. As it is summer, animals all gather near the lake to drink and eat the greener vegetation. So, even if we haven’t seen a tiger nor a leopard (but it’s possible, our family saw a tiger the day after we left) we have seen hundreds of dears, sambars (kind of big deers), wild boars, monkeys, peacocks, many kind of birds, some elephants, indian bison (gaurs) and even a big crocodile, with the open mouth, just perfect for the picture.
What we really enjoyed was this kind of magical moments where all these animals are mingling together on the bank of the river: monkeys playing on deer’s backs while the wild boar and her family is passing by, while the crocodile is having a sun bath and while the snake bird is doing his snake stuff…. It was like in the Jungle Book finally! And now, we’re willing to go back there and try to cross a tiger path…