With Satra nursing a nasty wound to her left front foot, making her almost immobile and restricted to her protector’s domain, her estranged mother Machali, the wily old lady of Ranthambhore has exploited the opportunity to go and see her old haunts around the Rajbagh lake. Its an area she has had to avoid visiting ever since her daughter banished her from here three and a half years ago.

The pungent smells of a tiger's bush telegraph is an extraordinary effective mechanism for big cats. Machali would have picked up on the news that her daughter was nowhere to be seen for the last ten days, after her bruising fight with a dominant male, Sitara (T28), on the edge of her territory. It could not be a better time for Machali to go on a rapid visit back to her old home and haunts and see just what has changed under her daughter’s reign.

Sitara nodoubt would have been pleased initially. Adding another tigress to his harem is always part of a male’s ambitions, but when he realised that it’s the wizen old great grandmother, now an ancient 16 years, unable to add any of progeny to his own family tree, his enthusiasm - and ardour - will diminish, and he will seek to keep the territory open to a younger model.

Oh – it’s so predictable.