Bandhavgarh ....end of my last morning round ....9:30 am ….returning to the main gate ....via Sidhababa.....the familiar grassy open patch near the stream…and on the opposite side unfolded the most exciting moments of my jungle life.

Firstly, to expect a Leopards in a strong Tiger territory - is an exaggeration of wishful thinking! Just the sight of a leopard in itself is a great joy in a place like Bgarh. 

Taking a strategic position atop a high rock - this feline ghost kept an alert eye on its probable prey.  below and suddenly started stalking towards a deer below and then it was sheer display of speed and strength.

Am I seeing a dream.. ???  My eyes could not believe what all was happening in front of me. The grace, the glory and the gasp.

Being totally mesmerized...I lost a sense of everything around me ...

Whether to use my 500mm+1.4x or stick to 100-400mm ? Whether to pre-focus only on the predator or both prey and predator? Whether to use a larger depth of field...but then losing the shutter speed.....the unwanted blurr....whether to push the ISO...........whether to use AI servo or not.....how to balance the shadows and sunny patches..... hundreds of questions crowded in my mind ….AND ….I had hardly only two seconds available to decide all that.

There was all the chance of messing it up completely if I thought too much about technology.

My heart stopped for a while but never realized that my finger on the shutter trigger was still doing its job inadvertently…

Some 9 frames frozen in 4 secs. 

When I looked to the captured frames in my viewfinder ...I skipped a heart beat! Its so good that cameras dont have hearts but have only chips. If my Canon equipment had a heart …I would have surely missed this shot.