We exited zone-3 after the evening game drive and were driving out of the reserve when there was a sudden langur alarm call on the road..It was 6:40 pm in the evening and the light had significantly deteriorated, but that did not fail to put us all in gleeful anticipation. The queen, Machli, had been reported in this neck of the woods just a day back. Out came our lenses that were all but packed, hoping for a dream end to the day.. the calls started getting more and more frantic and we carefully followed the direction that the langurs were watching..into the valley below.. Our anxious eyes scanned for any striped patterns among the stony layers and shrubbery below but spotted nothing. Finally our guide noticed a small white object moving in the distance and asked for binoculars.. after much effort, thanks to the awesomeness of their camouflage, we finally spotted this beauty taking quiet laps from a pool among the rocks below.. the white object happened to be the tip of its tail, which incidentally is the one part in its body a leopard cannot camouflage.. the excitement of seeing a leopard, that too outside of the core zones, obviously raised our decibel levels, which drew a quick furtive glance by this shy but sly predator before it quietly got up and slinked off into the woods.
<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Prasan82&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="User:Prasan82 (page does not exist)">Prasanna Subramanian</a>
CC BY-SA 4.0
<span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>