Caught in the camera - a huge Tusker swaying away a relaxing Tiger

Now this is something I’ve seen for the first time with my naked eyes, right in front of me just 100-150meters away.. yes that was a tiger relaxing at the tiger tank and here comes a huge tusker and charges at the tiger to make the cat run away and leave the place immediately. So this was our last and 4th safari of this trip and we were super lucky this time to have seen at least one cat in every safari we had so far. This one was no different that after roaming around for some time and scanning the jungle, we spotted a tiger sitting & relaxing on the water body.

Tiger relaxing at the tiger tank

We stayed here waiting for the tiger to wake upon make some move .. but she was deep asleep I guess

We just stayed here clicking some shots and waiting for any action..

It was a great moment to capture and just witness the sheer luxuries of life our cats have in the jungle.. I mean who doesn’t want to relax by the water/lake without any fear of anyone specially when you’re the king of the jungle.

And suddenly I saw the tiger waking up and I was excited to see her wake up and making a move so I can capture some more shots without being aware what caused her to wake up..

The moment was great as we waited for the tiger to wake up and give us some shots but she did not budge. It was nearly 10-15 minutes we waited for her to wake up but all we saw was that she was deep asleep UNTIL someone shouted from the jeep TUSKER TUSKER and here we were stunned to see that scene, it was magical to see a wild huge gigantic Tusker in front of the Tiger, swaying her away and charging at her to send her out of that place.

The golden shot! Loved this frame with Tusker and Tiger in one frame :)

The moment was so quick that by the time we realised that there’s a tusker, the tiger just disappeared leaving the place without giving us any great time to capture shots of them both in a single frame. As I was shooting a video and doing still as well, I saw it later that I got the action covered in the video. See the video below for the golden moments.

See the tiger on the left side going into the bushes after seeing the tusker coming ..

The tusker stayed here for a while eating and drinking and then left the place as well.

See the video below of the whole drama

The mighty Tusker with his huge teeth and gigantic body, swaying away the tiger to go and find some other place for herself... wow what a moment it was!

This was the entry of the gigantic tusker swaying away the tiger ... out of this place. Couldn't shoot both in one frame as was using a tele lens... :( and by the time i realised the scene, the tiger was gone!

Tusker at tiger tank

The last shot of the Tusker before it went back into the deep jungle..

This was perhaps a great and rare sighting I’ve ever had in my entire life and the numerous safaris I’ve done so far. It was truly magical. Now also when I see the video, the feeling is simply awesome. We were so happy with this sighting after seeing almost 3 tigers and 2 leopards in one trip, who wouldn’t be happy.. I think having a good setup of cameras really paid well and helped me capture the moments. This is how I shoot now with 2 cameras. One with 70-200 2.8 VRII lens and one with 200-500 VR lens for covering the entire range you would normally need for capturing cats. The best part was to have the video recording along with the stills ..even though I couldn’t capture the stills with both tiger and tusker in one frame, but the Video captured it all making me super happy at the end.

This was the setup I had