We headed off to the Difalumukh camp to stay for a few days; it's located deep in the far reaches of the park. I wanted to stay here because of its remote forest location and close proximity to many open beels (lakes surrounded by grassy areas where many animals graze), but also to be close to the forest guards and learn more about what it takes to protect this awesome place.

The guards have a hard, lonely, and dangerous life. Living with them gives me a more intimate view of their lives. One way to do this is by going on patrol with them as they survey their designated area of the park looking for poachers or otherwise unusual behavior.

On our first morning in camp, we set off at dawn in large canoes with three rifle-toting park guards, paddling through an estuary all the way to where it met up with the miles-wide Brahmaputra River. There we beached the boats and walked along the sandy shoreline. Around a bend in the river, we were confronted by a group of wild water buffalo – which the guards dispersed by grunting and waving their rifles. Then we moved into the dense, incredibly beautiful forest, where we came upon a beel with four rhino feeding. We watched the rhinos do what they do best, and I was partly disappointed but also very grateful that they paid no mind to our presence.

We met up with some guards from another camp who followed us back to our canoes as we made a big loop—but found no apparent signs of poachers. Back at camp they made a big midday meal for everyone, Assamese vegetables, rice—and “jungle greens.” Although it smelled good, I skipped it. Have been sick too many times in too many countries, so I’m really careful about what I ingest!

Large migrations of elephants once kept these grasslands from reverting back to forest, but the growth of roads, towns, villages, rice paddies and crop fields that continue to grow here now keep many elephant herds from ever reaching the park. About 45 percent of Kaziranga is grassland, and to keep it that way, the grasses are burned every year. Burning is a very piecemeal event this year as it has been uncharacteristically cold and wet. Visually it would be great if large areas were on fire—Konwar talks of wild burns ten years ago that lasted for days—but it has not happened that way for us.

Since the animals are quiet during the heat of the day, that afternoon I decided to see if we could find guards who were going to burn the drying grassland areas.
So off we went in our small Maruti Gypsy jeep into the far western reaches of the park, eyes on the horizon looking for smoke.

It ‘s a new adventure every time we go into an unfamiliar area. And today was our lucky day!  We came upon two male rhinos submerged in water and mud munching on water hyacinths, a typical-enough scene, but I started photographing anyway. One of the rhinos stepped up onto the bank and began eyeing the other. Soon the other rhino followed. Neither made a sound—they just stared each other down for many minutes. Then one bellowed and they charged at each other, going horn to horn. Dust was flying and low grunting noises filled the air.

We are told that rhinos actually inflict the most damage by their teeth, from biting each other, not necessarily from goring with their horn, though the puncture wounds we often see on the backs and sides of rhinos we assume are from the horn of an adversary. These rhinos pushed and crossed horns for about 10 minutes until the stronger of the two chased the other one back into the water.

Making a photograph of a rhino in Kaziranga is not very difficult—it’s a piece of cake to get a shot of a rhino in a field or in the water–but it is extremely difficult to photograph rhino behavior. It is hard to be in the right place at the right time to see the mating ritual of running and fighting that precedes mating, or to capture alpha rhinos fighting for supremacy over territory or a female. We have been here five weeks and it was our fist glimpse, partly because of the unusually cold, damp weather.

It was so exciting to watch and to know that finally the more active spring season was beginning! We got great shots – which I will save for the story – but here is an idea of what it looked like.

I cannot begin to describe how happy and relieved I was to finally see this action and get it “in the can”. Konwar has often told me “Do not worry, you will see lots of this behavior mid-March until the end of April.” But knowing that the exciting times have finally begun and that we have the “money shot” makes all the days of waiting and driving around and looking worthwhile. Patience…patience – that is the name of the game when shooting natural history.

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