Indian One-Horned Rhino

Having had a lot of success photographing rhino in Kenya I wanted to photograph the one horned rhino while at Corbett in India. The rhino is not widely seen in India and I had to go to an area close to the Nepal boarder. Dudhwa is a reserve that has a rhino sanctuary but is over 170 miles from Corbett so Anil had to make arrangements to travel there and to find accommodation. He managed to find a local guide who made arrangement from us to stay at a house owned by the  forestry service.

We set off after breakfast and travelled east along a fairly comfortable road passing through several rural towns and cities.

Arriving late afternoon we were shown our very well appointed rooms complete with en suite bathrooms. After a tidy up and a rest we headed to the forestry workers canteen for something to eat. The menu was limited to a basic meal of, rice spicy vegetables followed by a pudding of rice, carnation milk and raisins.

The meal was followed by a walk around the forestry camp to orientate ourselves.

An early bed after setting up my equipment ready for a quick get away in the early morning. It's always better to have everything ready for heading off and laid out so that it is easily found in case there is a power failure when we set off.

I was staying here for three nights and we had arranged with the local guide to get access to the rhino sanctuary. As is often the case the plans did not work out as planned and for some reason the director of the park would not give us permission to enter the sanctuary. This came as a blow and we were all disappointed, luckily the reserve also has tigers and other wildlife so it wasnt a total disaster.

While we explored the reserve Anil was working hard to get us official access to the sanctuary. I did see three rhino from a vantage point outside the sanctuary but they were a considerable distance away.

On our final morning Anil said that ‘arrangements’ had been made and that we were to meet with someone in the reserve and to be prepared to move quickly. It was all very ‘cloak and dagger’.

We met up with a car in the reserve and I was bundled out of the jeep and into the back of the car. A blanket was thrown over me and we set off. The car entered the sanctuary through a gate and we were in. The blanket was lifted off me and I found myself with two Indian guys. We worked our way along a track and came across a one horned rhino walking towards us and browsing on the long grasses. I was instructed to get my camera ready, the window was wound down, I aimed at the rhino and fired off a burst of images. This process was repeated another three times, the blanket was thrown over me and we headed for the gate. The whole process only took about thirty minutes before I was transferred back into the jeep and headed back to the camp.

Not what I had planned but I did mange to get some good images and the trip was a success.