India – Its People, Its Culture and Its Tigers

We are very grateful to Janine for bringing forward her talk originally scheduled for January following the late withdrawal of tonight’s planned speaker.

After images of street life in Delhi, Janine took us on a tour of important archaeological sites including the Taj Mahal. We were then transported through views of rural India to the places where Janine’s passion clearly lies, the nature reserves of central India and their most iconic resident, the tiger. Janine’s photographs showed the different landscapes of each reserve and some of the bird life and the monkeys and deer which co-operate to warn each other when a predator is nearby. Then she showed the first of her tiger pictures; while those of solitary animals showed their beauty, size and power on land and in the water, those of two sub-adult tigers interacting brough gasps of amazement from the audience. However, in my view the images of the elusive leopard were particularly special.

Janine then took us to the northeast of India, the architecture of Kolkata and life in the countryside of Assam along the Brahmaputra River. Here the wildlife included a pair of frisky one-horned rhinos, a pod of gangetic dolphin, crocodiles, snakes and many different birds. But we could not get away without some more tiger pictures, one of a tiger encountered a few metres away while Janine was exploring a tea plantation on foot and others swimming in mangrove swamps. Janine, however, saved the best for last, a huge male golden Bengal tiger with very striking markings caused by a rare genetic variation.

As Janine has just returned from Africa, I hope we can look forward to seeing more of her travels in future.

Phil Whiffing