Wildlife Reserves of Central India

If you would like to see some of the main sights of Delhi or get a feel for this bustling city then we can organise a sightseeing tour of the city for you or you can just relax after your international flight

Travelling around India - The country is large so most of the longer distances are best done by flying. Our flight departs Delhi at 10.10 and we should arrive in Jabalpur at 11.50. It is then a 170km road trip to Bandhavgargh ( circa 3-3.5 hours)

The road trips are a good way to see the country and our guide will be able to explain this rural area as we pass through the villages and fields

This is not simply a reserve with a high density of tigers and cubs. Keep an eye out for long- billed vultures that circle around the hill fort, dragonflies around watery meadows, chital herds around the pools, sloth bears and the Malabar pied hornbills whose shriek is instantly recognisable. The great forests of sal hardwood trees and ever-changing greens, browns and yellows of the deciduous crocodile bark and tendu trees or clumps of bamboo hide many treasures against the stunning backdrop of the sheer sandstone cliffs of the ancient Vindhya range. This is a park with much to offer the seasoned nature traveller and the first timer.

It is hard to imagine as you drive through these forests that this area was originally home to powerful kings and Maharajas residing in the large hilltop fort; its meadows were rich agricultural lands tended by farmers and Buddhist monks; and sadhus occupied an extensive cave system in 100 BC. Bandhav-garh means ‘fort of the brother’ and is believed to have been gifted by Lord Ram to his brother Lakshman. In the twelfth century, the fort was given in dowry to the Baghela clan, of which the present Maharaja of Rewa is a direct descendent. After almost continuous occupation, the capital of the Baghelas was moved to Rewa by the nineteenth century and the forests became the hunting reserve of the Maharaja and his guests. Gulab Singh of Rewa shot 480 tigers across his kingdom. By 1968, all the animals in the park had been hunted out and on the day the present Maharaja’s late father gifted the forests to the State, there were no quadrupeds left in the park. Soon after, the forests were declared a National Park and later a Tiger Reserve.  The park was extended in 1986 and today it covers 1,161 square kilometres, including the buffer areas, in which village communities exist. Famed over the years for its charismatic male and female tigers that are well documented, it today has over 90 individuals residing within its forests. The park is divided into three separate tourism zones - Tala, Magdhi and Khitauli.

Kanha faces similar pressures to most protected areas, including developmental and infrastructure projects, grazing, illegal poaching, woodcutting, forest product extraction and bush meat off-take. It also has both historic and present issues with compensation and support for many of the Baiga and Gond village communities relocated over the years to make way for viable wilderness habitation. However recent research highlights the economic value of the park at R 1,650 crores (£176 million per year) ensuring support for this well managed park continues.

Stopping your vehicle beside one of the large golden grass meadows with the sunbeams angled by the tall sal forest behind you; a morning mist and the unseen crack of horns from a pair of barasingha stags clashing and you might well be reminded of Mowgli’s forests made famous by Rudyard Kipling. These lowland forests are a mixture of great sal hardwood trees, once heavily felled for railways sleepers and other mixed species of forest. It is interspersed with grassy meadows - the habitat of spotted deer, the rare hard ground barasingha and ambush ground for the tiger. The higher forests are more tropical with bamboo growing in clusters within which gaur, wild pig, sloth bear and sambar deer make their homes. With all this prey, tigers are numerous too (over 100 at last count) and habituated to jeeps, ensuring memorable sightings. The Reserve lies in the east of the Central Indian highlands of the ancient Satpura mountain range. Here, flat-topped hills support grassy meadows and the river Sulkum flows through the valley. The Banjaar and Halon valleys used to be hunting grounds of the British who would hunt the barasingha deer but their rapid decline in numbers forced the authorities to gazette Kanha as a Sanctuary in 1933. In 1955, a 250 square kilometre patch of land was declared the Kanha National Park. The Mukki Valley was added to the Protected Area in 1970 and then, thanks to Project Tiger, a vital part of the upper Halon Valley was also included. Today it stretches over an area of 940 square kilometres with a surrounding buffer zone of 1,134 square kilometres. Along with the neighbouring Phen Sanctuary, it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve. There are four tourist zones here, each worth a visit - Kanha, Kisli, Mukki and Sarh

Well known individual tigers are sought out commonly including many tigresses with cubs. However, leopards, sloth bears and exciting packs of hungry wild dogs or dholes also abound in these forests. Prey species like the chital and sambar are found grazing in herds. The barasingha or swamp deer (hard ground swamp deer) is found only in Kanha and barely 1,200 of them survive in the wild. Look out for rhesus macaque, golden jackal, Bengal fox, smooth- coated otter, honey badger, small Indian civet, Indian grey mongoose, spotted chevrotain and pangolin. There are also 175 varieties of birds in Kanha including the purple heron, shikra and white-eyed buzzard. The Indian ghost tree (kullu) is hard to miss with its ghostly white trunks. The sap from these trees is used in the production of chewing gum!

Tiger is the main cat species but commonly seen wildlife includes chital, sambar, nilgai, wild boar and jackal. Other wild animals found are leopard, sloth bear, wild dog, porcupine, jungle cat, fox, striped hyena, herds of gaur, four- horned chowsingha and barking deer. There are more than 170 species of birds including several migratory ones. Some of them are crimson- breasted barbet, red-vented bulbul, racket-tailed drongo and magpie robin with lesser whistling teal, pintails, river terns and northern shovellers on or near water bodies.

The evidence is undeniable, the feeling palpable, as you drive down the dusty dirt tracks, that around every corner a drama will unfold, a glimpse caught, a movement spotted. The sun-dappled forest floor is alive with spotted deer. Vast herds also gather on the shorelines of the park’s reservoir, offering a smorgasbord of food for Pench’s hungry carnivores that include leopards, wild dogs and tigers (thought to be close to 65). The remarkably unshy tigress, Collarwali, who has nurtured 20 cubs in five litters and whose mother was featured in the BBC’s Spy in the Jungle series is a treat to spot. It was here that Rudyard Kipling chose to base his story of the wolf boy Mowgli. However, it wasn’t until 1992 that Pench was included under the umbrella of Project Tiger. Today, the Reserve covers districts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The park is predominantly a teak forest, but other hardwoods and flowering trees support a rich and diverse array of birdlife too.

Seeking a tiger doggedly can cause you to miss the whine of the cicada, the sight of the common butterfly or the shrill call of a crested serpent eagle. It’s India’s densest population of prey species, nearly 25,000 of them, including spotted deer, wild pig and sambar deer. In April when the Pench River dries out, the animals use dohs or perennial springs as waterholes, or crowd the shoreline and tender grasses of a receding reservoir. It acts as an artificial wetland where you can see hordes of water birds sitting on what were the tree stumps of flooded woodlands

Game drives are largely along the more accessible and open Western side. In the Tadoba range, make sure to stop at Katezari, which is an evergreen valley, drive around Tadoba Lake and Pandharpauni meadows that have two waterholes where animals make frequent visits. In the Mohurli range, visit the Telia Lake, which is a good place to spot migratory birds and Andhari Nala is excellent for gaur sightings.

This classic teak and bamboo paradise epitomises a Central Indian jungle - from the lush green foliage in early monsoons, to the dry and dusty browns and yellows of summer, you can enjoy Tadoba’s beauty throughout the year. Often referred to as The Jewel of Vidharba, Tadoba was overlooked until very recently. Visionary management and better protection now ensures it sits amongst the best parks in India with recognised tigers and their playful cubs residing around picturesque lakes like Tadoba and Telia, and the meadows of Panderpuni, Khatoda and Jamunjhora. Recent village relocation programmes are opening up new areas and new habitats and the greater area now contains over 100 tigers in its 1,854 square kilometres area.