I previously did a post on seeing my second Bengal tiger (post on December 12, 2025) in Ranthambore National Park. In that post I discussed events leading up to our trip to India as well as leading up to seeing our first (this) tiger. I was with my brother-in-law, Stan, and this was our fourth safari (we had one more before going home). The other four in our group opted out of our afternoon safari to visit Ranthambore Fort. That was nice as there were two of us sharing seats normally filled by six of us. Much of our safari was waiting, as numerous deer were barking, a sign that a tiger is nearby. We shuttled back and forth up and down a fairly steep canyon, with vehicles our size as well as much larger canter vehicles that seat 20 passengers jockeyed for position and passed each other. Our guide would talk with guides in other vehicles and assess the best place for us to see the tiger and we spent about an hour and a half just sitting, waiting, and shuttling back and forth. Finally, on what I believe was our third tip down the steep hill we leveled out and vehicles were leaving, I thought they'd given up. However, people in the vehicles were waiving wildly back the way they'd come and our driver quickly barged in among the vehicles waiting at the edge of a hill near a large tree. Our guide pointed behind a tree to a beautiful tiger resting near some rocks.
I believe she'd been there awhile and some of the other vehicles had had their fill. Also, it was getting close to the time we need to leave to get out of the park on time. Our guide indicated that we were seeing Noori (her scientific name is T-105). She was born in 2016 in a litter of three or four cubs to Noor (whose scientific name was T-39). Her father was Singhasth (whose scientific name is T-57). Her mother and her siblings (T-106 and T-107, Sultana) are no longer alive. But it appears that Singhasth, her father, still co-exists with her. Noori is now nine years old and had a litter of three cubs in 2021. She is normally seen in Zone 2, but we were seeing her in Zone 1.
Noori eventually stood up, walked up the hill a short ways, then turned and walked in our direction, just above our Jeep about 15 yards, walking perpendicular to us. This gave us our best views and was a real thrill.
For this last photo, above, our guide and driver were ahead of us in the Jeep and blocking part of our view. I had to crop our driver out of this photo just to the left of Noori. Noori walked up the hill, just a little bit, then meandered down the hill and sat down in some bushes near another tree for awhile. Our guide re-located our Jeep closer to her. She got up and walked a short distance and laid down again.
We were running into time problems with our need to get out of the park on time, plus Noori was being pretty boring, just laying in the grass. I've shown 21 photos, but I took 167. So lots has been edited out. My other brother-in-law, Dave, had made a comment that we were likely to see a tiger with the decision of the four of them not to come on this drive, and he was right. Stan and I were feeling a little bad and did not want to make a big deal of it. Fortunately, we had the second tiger sighting the next morning that everyone saw and that settled those anxieties.
Tigers are amazingly spectacular, beautiful and powerful animals. I'm hard-pressed to name an animal I've seen that has had as much preparation, anticipation and thrill associated with viewing it.
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