Introduction

As per its name, morning mode of safaris are done in early phase of a day. Its safari timing varies  from state to state and month to month. Every state have its own forest department which manages all its tiger reserves, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests thus they decide the safari tourism activities and timings. At Madhya Pradesh we usually do 3 rounds of safaris in popular tiger reserves like Kanha tiger reserve, Pench tiger reserve, Bandhavgarh etc. They are morning round, afternoon or evening round and night safari round. Here in Madhya Pradesh, morning safari activity starts slightly before sunrise and lasts for next approx. 05:00 hrs. As per season, sunrise timing varies thus safari starting timing also varies but closing timing remains static.  

Safari Activities

During the morning safari slot, different safari related activities are possible for normal tourists and these set of activities may vary from one national park to other national park. Reason is simple, that as per ground realities and feasibility of activities, local tiger reserve management team decides which activities to offer to normal tourists and which are not possible or may suspend any ongoing safari activity as per current circumstances. Suspension duration of any safari activity may vary. It may be of few days or few months or for few years. 

Safari Destination	Possible Safari Activities
Kanha National Park	Jeeps safari, Nature Walk (Walking safari)
Bandhavgarh National Park	Jeep safari
Pench National Park	Jeep safari, Nature Walk
Satpura National Park	Jeep safari, Nature Walk, Boat safari
Panna National Park	Jeep safari, Boat safari
Sanjay Dubri Tiger Reserve	Jeep safari

How to book ?

Booking procedure for morning safari activities varies from activity to activity.

Safari Activity	Booking Procedure
Jeep Safari	It can be booked online, in advance or by visiting ticket counter nearby safari entry gate. If both the options are not possible for you then take help from your travel agent or hotel, by paying their service charges.
Nature Walk (Walking safari)	This activity is vulnerable and may get suspended or cancelled at anytime thus it can be booked only from ticket counter. Thus no advance booking and no online booking facility available till now. If you are unable to visit official booking counter then take help from your travel agent or hotel management team.
Boat Safari	It is also a vulnerable safari activity thus can be booked from booking counter only. It means no advance booking possible till now. If not possible for you to visit booking counter, then take help from your travel agent or hotel management team.

Safari Duration

Morning safari duration varies from activity to activity like duration of jeep safari is longer than duration of walking safari and boat safaris.

• Usually duration of morning jeep safari is for 05:30 hrs where as walking safari duration varies as per interest of visitor.
• If able to walk and enjoy the activity, you may do nature walk for 2-3 hrs or if not able to walk more, you may wind up it in 1 hrs or lesser duration. Late morning risers may start this safari with 1 hrs delay also.
• Boat safaris are usually offered on per hour basis. It means boat safaris can be done on per hour basis within the duration of 05:30 hrs allocated for jeep safaris activity. It means if you are interested to do more boat safari, you can book the boat safari for 02 rounds within the morning safari timings allocated for jeep safaris.

Morning Safari Timings

Safari timings for morning activities are usually starts from few minutes before sunrise. As per variance in sunrise timings, on every month, we will notice that safari timings get changed.

Safari Activity	Safari Timing
Jeep Safari	Starting time varies from 05:30 AM to 06:45 AM but get closed by 11:30 AM (Guest may windup early also)
Nature Walk	Starting time varies from 06:00 AM to 07:00 AM till 11:30 AM but usually guests wind up early in 1-3 hrs period.
Boat Safari	It is offered on per hour basis. It starts 15-30 minutes later than jeep safari opening time. It also get closed till 11:30 AM.

Benefits

Morning more of safaris allows exploration of forest area in morning hours thus all be benefits associated with morning timing, can be experienced.

• As majority of tourists visits national park with foremost objective of tiger safari experience may get benefited because usually tigers do movements in early morning phase of safari. Wildlife photographers thus prefer to do more morning safari. 
• Duration of morning safari is longer than evening or night safari thus visitors will get more time to spend in critical tiger habitat and do more photography, do more exploration of forest.
• Birding lovers prefer this time as majority of birds shows active movements in morning hours. Thus it is good time for behavioral study, birding photography and birdwatching activity.
• Butterfly lovers will get better chance to witness butterfly movements and may do good butterfly photography.
• Visitors will have good opportunity to do nature photography with sunrise on background. Early morning sunrise offers excellent photography opportunities for photography and nature lovers.

Challenges

Some visitors finds morning safari drives as challenging for them and thus not prefer to undertake this activity. Lets see how it is challenging for some visitors:

• Early starting time is a challenge for different kind of tourists like visitors with small child or senior citizen members may find it difficult to wake up early in the morning and get ready to undertake it. Similarly visitors who did late night check-in or did some party till late night may not prefer next day morning safari so that to relax properly.
• During winters, due to chilling cold weather conditions, many visitors avoids morning safaris. Similarly in summers, after sunrise temperature rises swiftly thus many visitors prefers to avoid morning safaris or may cut short the safari duration. It is a very common practice.
• Those who would be interested to witness some nocturnal species may avoid morning safari and prefer to do more evening or night safaris drives.
• Many times some national parks are visited more for sake of tiger cubs photography. Visitors have belief that cubs movement occurs more at late evening hours, especially in summers thus some tourists prefer to abstain from morning safari and try luck on evening jeep safaris.

Preparations

Jungle safari drives are some extra ordinary tourism activities for tourists which is not done frequently in our daily urban life thus for this activity, we need to take some precautions and do some preparations like:

• Always recheck your safari permit dates, zone name, mode of safari (sharing or non-sharing), reporting time etc.
• Always check and make sure that you  and your co-visitors are carrying their original ID document, for verification at entry gate.
• If you are going for current booking option then carry sufficient money to make required payments.
• Go early for sleep as morning safari drive starts early in the morning. Here timing are fixed thus too late entry may be denied thus to be on time, go early to bed to have sound sleep and wake up early in the morning, You may use alarm call or wakeup call option.
• If you have camera then charge your batteries, check your memory cards, clean up your lens, put your binoculars and other equipments in your bag.
• In Madhya Pradesh, as morning safari duration is longer thus after returning back to resort, guests may not be able to get breakfast thus they need to carry it with them for morning safari so that they can have it inside the national park area, at a fixed point. For this we need to inform your hotel front office team in day before evening so that they can prepare it for us in early morning and arrange the tiffin box for us.
• Carry your cap, sunglasses, dust mask, camera cover with you. Dust is a most common problem that we will face when safari vehicle moves in a fleet format, during park entry or exit time. 
• Washroom or restroom facility is not frequently available during safari drives thus try to get free at your hotel from all such requirements. During safari drives, if emergency nature call arises, inform your guide to arrange the service.

Visitors Analysis

If you are planning your safari schedule and would not be able to decide in between morning safari and afternoon safari or would like to know the difference between day safaris and night safaris then please check below given information to analyze the difference and take suitable decision.

Criteria	Morning Safari	Afternoon / Evening Safari	Night Safari
Operation	These safaris starts 30 minutes before sunrise till 11:30 am	These safari starts in evening (timing varies as per months) and ends 30 minutes after sunset.	It starts after sunset. In winters it usually starts after ending of afternoon safari but in summers it may start before closing of afternoon safari.
Safari Zones	Here we have chance to visit both core safari zones and buffer safari zones	Here we have chance to visit both core safari zones and buffer zones	Here we will visit only buffer safari zones.
Safari Duration	Morning safari duration is approx. 05:30 hr	Its safari duration is normally 03:00 hrs	It is approx. 03:00 hr.
Booking	It can be booked online or from ticket counter.	Here safari permits can be booked online or from ticket counter	It can be booked only from ticket counter.
Advance Booking	It can be booked in advance or current basis.	It can be booked in advance or current basis.	It can't be booked in advance, only on current basis.
Safari Types	Here we can do jeep safari, boat safari (if operated), walking safari (if operated).	Here we can do jeep safari, boat safari (if operated), walking safari (if operated).	Here we can do only jeep safari. No boat or walking safari possible.
Sighting	We have chance to see diurnal species	We have chance to see diurnal species but sometimes nocturnal species also seen at closing time.	We have chance to see nocturnal species
Tracking	Here tracking options are more as due to better light conditions we track animals through pugmarks, jungle calls, message exchanging, binoculars based tracking.	Here more tracking options available like pugmark based, jungle calls, message exchange, binocular based tracking.	Here tracking is more challenging, mainly based on jungle calls and message exchanging.
Crowding	It is more popular among visitors and its safari quota is hight thus we may face crowding problem	Here more crowding possible in holiday or peak season dates.	Here very few permits are issued thus we will not have any crowding problem.
Camera Friendliness	These safaris are more camera friendly as offers good opportunity for photography and videography	It is good for videography and photography.	It is more challenging as due to low light photography results not comes good but good for videography.
Costing	Here core zone safaris are costly in compare to buffer zone safaris.	Here core zone safaris are costly in compare to buffer zone safaris.	Here we do only buffer zone safari thus will cost less in compare to core zones.

As per above shared information, we hope you will be able to judge the differences well and take suitable decision as per your requirements.