I am indeed lucky with her…She is very different than her neighbor Maya. She looks more composed more cautious… My golden sighting of her happened on 6th November 2014 635 AM when she came to jamni village school to get her cubs perhaps admitted in the school! I have had indeed fortunate luck to see her cubs in the wild.
Her male cub from the first litter unfortunately died but the female cub is surviving well. It had been a while since seeing her with cubs. And then exactly two years later, on 6th November 2016, I found her sitting with her cubs on the side of the road. I watched them for a while then I photographed a few memories and returned happily to the lodge.
Unlike Maya, Choti Tara is not so secretive about the father of the cubs, last time she introduced “Gabbar” as the father and this time it was “Matkasur.” She definitely likes the heroes to get acquainted with the cubs. This is such a happy memory which made me feel special at the same time…thinking about it a lot raised a question in my mind, why two cubs on both occasions?
Generally the other females in and around the tourism zone has a higher number per litter three to four then why her only two? Both the occasions, the father of her cubs is different so this outcome does not seem to be from the father side…Few more questions…Her pattern way of movement, coming out with her cubs, the basic routine of her nurturing the young ones shows that she is more confident now and maybe she understood that more than the number, the quality of the young is important. The competition, the pressure everything is increasing on them and she as a mother has experienced both happiness and sadness. Now it’s time to see how she manages her new litter. She was known as CHOTI TARA as she is the daughter of TARA now she has grown enough and most probably she is a granny by now! So in my mind she is no more a Little Star, in fact she is one of the important, brightest Stars in the map of Tadoba!
To follow the story of Choti Tara and see more pictures of her and the cubs, like her photo album The Bold & Beautiful Choti Tara on our facebook page.
