Wild boar leaping

The early morning game drive in India’s Kanha National Park had started off quietly. That was until monkeys’ alarm calls alerted us there was a tiger in the area.  Suddenly the forest erupted: birds took to the air and two sloth bears shot across the track, so we doubled back and eventually got a clear view of one running parallel with us.  Wild boar were charging past us in every direction.  We retraced our route and by the time they crossed the track in front of us I had upped the ISO on my new D3 and exposed a rapid sequence.

 In this situation, it is all one can do to remain upright in a fast moving bouncing jeep and impossible to know whether you have taken anything useful.  After all the excitement had died down – probably only a few minutes after it had begun – I was able to view the images.  The most remarkable one showed a wild boar taking off at 45º from the ground with its front legs tucked in like a horse about to jump a fence.  I had often seen boar running but never leaping like this before.  Such a shot would have been impossible with the D2X when I rarely raised the ISO above 200.

Nikon D3 with 80-400mm f4.5-5.6D lens at 500 ISO on SanDisc Extreme IV media