PROFILE

Since childhood I have always had a love of wildlife and the natural world.  Cats in particular have held a fascination for me stretching back to my early years when my family always had a cat.  Today my wife Annie and I live on a small farm in West Sussex where we have horses, sheep, a few ducks and two cats.  My first tiger safari was in 2001 when I visited Kanha and Bandhavgarh tiger reserves.  At Bandhavgarh I can vividly remember my first sighting of a wild tiger, he was B2, also known as 'Sundar', the dominant male tiger of the range open to tourists.  He was resting in a nala (dry river bed), full from having eaten some of the kill he had made earlier.

 Since 2001 I have travelled regularly each year to different areas of India to photograph tigers in their natural habitat, always hoping to find B2 whenever I am at Bandhavgarh.  In  2003 I visited Panna - apart from tigers, it too has a variety of interesting wildlife; a trip on the Ken River there was to reveal Mugger Crocodiles basking on the sandbanks and plentiful birdlife.

 In 2004 and 2005 my time was spent at Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve, a beautiful park set against the backdrop of a large fort said to be over 1,000 years old.  Ranthambhore has three large lakes and on my first visit I was thrilled to witness a young male tiger charging a small number of Samba deer into the shallows of the Ragbagh lake (due to the time of year the water in the lake was quite low).  The inexperienced youngster was unsuccessful but what an amazing scene!

Also in 2005 I travelled to the Virunga Volcanoes in Rwanda where I tracked through dense vegetation in search of the endangered mountain gorillas.  Over a period of two days I was in the presence of two habituated groups of gorillas.  Leaving Rwanda I travelled to Kenya visiting Sambura and the Masai Mara wildlife reserves where the sightings were amazing - the photographic opportunities were wonderful.

In 2006 and 2007 all my wildlife photography has centred on India and my passion for tigers.  In October 2006 early one morning at Bandhavgarh, I was travelling by jeep rounding a bend on the track and came across the 'Chakradhara' tiger family slowly walking towards us.  The family comprises four sub adult tigers (about 24 months of age), their mother and their father B2, Sundar.  This was the last time that I saw all six tigers together as the youngsters would soon leave the family group to find home ranges of their own.  However, on elephant in April 2007, I was surprised to find and follow the same tigress with her three sub adult cubs, into the forest where I witnessed the immature female cub charge and kill a young Chittal deer only to lose it to her brother; he in turn finally lost possession of the carcass to their father, B2, who seemed to appear from nowhere!

During the first six months of 2008 I visited Bandhavgarh in March/April and Ranthambhore in May/June, where I enjoyed some wonderful tiger sightings in both reserves.  More information on my most recent tiger safaris will be found in the 'News' section.