The jeep was stopped at the side of a road that ran between the forest and some open fields. We were listening and waiting, and then suddenly there she was. The guide didn’t know her name, so I decided to call her Ana (from a song by They Might Be Giants).
At first the encounter followed the same pattern as the Solo sighting: the tiger moves through the woods, and jeeps follow. But then Ana made a turn and crossed the road.
She walked right in front of my jeep. I was maybe 15 feet away from her.
Then she entered the tall grass on the other side of the road. The driver sped around to a side road, and we waited to see if she’d enter a clear strip between rows of grass.
She emerged from the grass, crossed the open space and went back into the cover on the other side. There was one more open row to go, and I figured she’d cross it as well and then we’d lose sight of her.
But when she got to the edge of the grass on the far side of the second clear space, I guess she decided the humans hadn’t gotten a good enough look at her. So she ambled up the edge of the grass ...
And crossed the side road, once again super close to me.
From there she moved through the undergrowth until she found a shady spot in a grove of trees. She settled where it was hard to see her, and as the daylight waned we had to leave.
As we pulled away, she started to roar. It was an incredible sound. I’ve tried to find a YouTube video or other source that reproduced what I heard, but nothing quite matches my memory.
EDIT: In early April I friended an Instagram user from India who tells me her official name is Dotty 3, which is also a nice name.
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