📷 Sambar in the Dry — Central India · 11 Jul 2026
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Sambar in the Dry
Central India · nature
A young sambar stands in pale dry grass at the edge of a forest, ears alert. The dry season has bleached everything down to two colours.
Sambar are the largest of India's deer — adults stand a metre and a half at the shoulder — and they are also one of the favourite prey species of the tiger. This is a young one, probably a female or a male too young to have grown his antlers in. She had stepped out of the sal-forest edge into the open at exactly the wrong moment, looked up, saw the vehicle, and froze.
I shot fast. Sambar are nervy and don't usually hold a pose. The dry season had turned the grass and the leaf litter and most of the forest behind her a uniform pale brown — the only colour in the frame is the deep wet black of her nose and the soft fawn of her coat. She held the look for maybe six seconds before turning and trotting back into the trees. We didn't see her again. Most wildlife photography is about being lucky enough to be in the right square metre at the right second. This was one of those seconds.