The acceptance of birds

The little I know about India's wilds, and of the ways of the Ghoom (and hunt) hasn't been learned on Facebook :-)

But, by reading and re-reading classics (of word-smithy and storytelling) by doyens such as Kenneth Anderson and Jim Corbett.

And, of course by sheer dint of being out in the sun, being footloose and fancy free, being in no hurry at all -- like a dim-witted student (in a class of one) who learns each lesson slowly, but learns it well.

So, I acknowledge in all sincerity that the little I have achieved in terms of "pro" quality photography nature and wildlife photography is because nature (and specifically birds) is a good teacher, and because I have being a willing pupil.

While I lug around a "big gun", I am no "set your rig on a tripod and fire away" kind of person...because the "chase" is what motivates me the most. Pitting my wits against the terrain, the bird and the light conditions constitute the chase for me.

The chase, the joy of being outdoors, the awareness of so much of "life" all around me is what constitutes "birding" for me.

The photograph is a bonus.

This is a photograph made in January of this year (2015) that is close to full frame, taken with the sun almost below the horizon, and like most taken by me, handheld. 

But, that is not what matters.

This bird has been the reason I have been on a Ghoom for more than a month. But that is also, not what matters.

What matters is, though the bird -- perched deep in the foliage of a tree -- could clearly see (and hear me) approach and repeatedly point a long thing at it, till I was just 8-10 metres from it, it did not fly away.

Even when I walked away and then walked all around to get the light (or rather whatever remained of it) behind me and was probably 7 or so metres from it, it still did not fly away.

I could have sat there, totally out in the open (to the bird's gaze) watching it and it would still have stayed put.

In fact, I did just that, sat there and wondered...and still it did not fly away...as if it now recognized me and accepted my presence

That this "acceptance" took a lot more than a month is not what matters.

That it did come about, does.

Thank you Shikra X, I will remember this chase, and all that you taught me.

Nikon D750 review

From the very day I have read about the Nikon D750 (and checked out its specs with an eagle eye) I have had no doubts about the fact that this is a camera that will kick some serious butt -- when it comes to nailing "lifers" in bird and wildlife photography.

At 750 grams, its lighter (by 100 grams) than the D600 / 610 -- something that I could instantly feel, as I assembled it onto my 600 mm f/4 lens and hefted it out of the car, for a bird walk on the Gandipet lake bed on what was already a pretty advanced hour on a bright and sunny day in February (2015).

Also, size does matter! The D750 is also more compact than the D600 / D610 (which is in itself pretty compact for a full-frame camera that outputs 24 mp image files)...even if its just 4 mm less thick. 

I had a little more maneouvreability, when I was down on the lake bed's slush, and crawling towards the waders -- in my by-now-patented-to-perfection imitation of an infantryman's advance through the trenches.

(What does an infantryman's rifle weigh, by the way?)

When even with 850 mm reach (I habitually use a TC 1.4 on my 600 mm lens) you still use field-craft and bird sense to get really close to your subject, many a time you can get into impossible situations -- with no elbow room, a narrow field of view and a frame that consists of a little bird and a pebble and a tuft of grass...and for some pernickety reason best known to itself, the camera's AF decides to focus on either the pebble or the tuft of grass.

                                             

Or on the sun's bright (and blinding) dazzle from fool's gold (Mica or whatever else) at the water's edge.

So, while you are cursing your situation and trying to refocus on the bird, it just walks out of the frame...and all you can do is think up unprintable variants of "I am large, I have multitudes..."



Little wonder then, I was pleasantly surprised (to put it very mildly) to see that the D750 was on the spot -- again and again -- when it came to acquiring focus, and keeping it nailed! To be honest, I had even expected this (remember that remark I made earlier, about reading up specs and an eagle eye) but still performance in the field is just that, performance in the field.

Once I was done with getting some lifers of the Little Pratincoles, next up, or rather once I had clambered up (no, I don't use the 600 mm f/4 as a staff / support) from the embrace of Mother Earth -- I made a beeline to the lake's edge...and had a go at photographing some River Terns.

Again, the results were extra-ordinary. The 51 focus points were at work and (even though the light was very harsh and more or less impossible to shoot in) I could get exceptional flight shots, without really trying hard!

And yes, these are full-frame images!

Here are two more images, slightly cropped, one of a Glossy Ibis and another of a Blue-tailed Bee-eater (which incidentally is a passage migrant through Hyderabad).

So, even though I could get to test the Nikon D750 for a little less than two hours, and would certainly not call it a proper review (which I hope to do, soon!), my verdict is out.

If you are looking for a full-frame camera with top-notch AF speed capable of delivering exceptional, professional grade performance -- for bird and wildlife photography, go for the Nikon D750.

Yes, the Birdman recommends it.

Face to face with an other-worldly bird

There is something surreal and hypnotic about the whole experience of scouting for and photographing an owl. Something that borders an encounter with the paranormal or the other-worldly, even...

Its not just the mien of this bird -- owls are probably the only birds with front facing eyes -- though it doesn't take much imagination to see something human in the expressive countenance looking at you. Its not just the knowledge, weighing on you painfully -- that this is a nocturnal bird and you aren't only trespassing on its territory, but even impinging on its rest and slumber. 

 

Its not just the lack of knowledge either -- science is still "discovering" a lot of facts about this silent predator of the night -- that makes you wonder if you are in the presence of something "unknown", something beyond the ken of your so called civilization.

It is all this and more.

Natural then, that every-time I photograph an owl out in the wilds, I am thrilled to bits, left tingling all over, and can't stop grinning from ear to ear for quite some time after.

 

Here's a full-frame (and hand-held)  image of a Jungle Owlet that I had made in Kullu, (Uttarkhand) in May 2014.

 

A bit more than a year after, there are still some lovely memories of this encounter...and of the other-worldly experience of seeing this amazing bird in the eye, through the larger than life magnification of 850 mm focal length. 

 

Looking back now, it felt as if the Owlet was gazing unimpeded, deep into my soul and being.

 

The green blur in the image adds to the overall surreal quotient, does it not?     

A Snakebird taking to the skies

What does it mean to be a bird? What does it mean, to be able to fly; to be of this world (when perched on it) -- the terrestrial range of hooves, paws, feet and other rooted things -- and also intimately know the realms of another?

Mankind can only imagine, and fail. Because for all our imagination, we are a species totally lacking in bird sense. And, (even if I say so, strictly in passing), a species utterly incapable of piloting away from the traps that we, in our so-called evolution, have set for ourself -- development, consumerism and greed. 

But then, I digress. This isn't about man, anyway.

What does it mean, to be a bird of the water? What does it mean, to be able to lord it over another realm that is not exactly terrestrial, to be able to dive and scythe through the water, with a fluidity and grace akin to someone born to it?

If I could talk in the language of the birds, and had to pose these questions to any one of them, it would have to be to the Snakebird. For this is one bird that rules both of its realms with supreme elan -- a powerful flier capable of really long hauls (unlike Cormorants, Snakebirds don't really "colonise" a particular lake / pond, and are relatively footloose), it can also prowl the waters with the silent menace (and relative invisibility) of a submarine.

All that is visible (that too, if you have a really keen eye) is that slender neck, gliding through the water snake-like, as the bird darts this way and that -- reading the scripts of bubbles and fish-tails on the surface of the water, and readying for another dive.

And then, it will disappear. Most often than not, to come up with a smallish fish -- already impaled and half-dead, in its bill. Then, with the nonchalance of a master conjurer, that snake-like neck comes into play again, as the fish is tossed up, to be gobbled down head first.

Seen here as it is about to take off -- in a welter of water drops -- the Snakebird is a bird neither of water, nor of air; and also, Janus-like, for this one captured instance, one of both.

There are two stories being told here; the immensity of that wingspread can only mean a mastery of the skies. And, of what happens below the waters, we can (again with the limited grasp and imagination of our kind) make a guess.

With that powerful neck cutting through the murky depths like a boat's prow, propelled (among other things) by the working of that tail -- what chance does a fish stand?

Two well-behaved young birds

When I look back at my eight plus years of bird photography -- a lot of which has consumed all my "spare time" and a substantial part of which has been pure and simple work -- there are days when I have a thousand misgivings.

For one, purely from a professional view-point -- when one considers the aesthetic quality of the photographs and the amount of back-breaking labour involved in making images of birds in the wild, this is a bleak field to be in. 

Like I keep saying, I am a professional when it comes to bird images, but then birds don't / can't pay me for my labour, what to talk of the artistic merit of my work!

For another, like any other thing that becomes a "fad", the bird photography "field" in India is also choc-a-bloc full with those who go about their photography solely with the intention of ticking off boxes from a list -- the type who count the number of species they have bagged, or exult about having photographed "rare birds".

And as can be expected, most of these folks are pretty good when it comes to PR, etc, etc.
Which means, the field that is bleak to begin with, gets even bleaker.

And yet, when I shake my head to get rid of all these meddlesome misgivings, and look at things with the right perspective, I realize that there is so much that I have already gained from the time I have spent in the pursuit of birds.

That, I have a treasure trove of moments that no money in the world can ever buy, and that most often than not, I have managed to capture those moments by using a keen intellect, sharp reflexes and quite a lot of woodcraft.

Its one of those days when that perspective is at work. Because these two young Shikras delighted me with their presence for almost an hour...while I circled the Neem tree in which they were roosting, a tree that is incidentally full of knots, snags and apparently full of gnarled branches -- which meant that these guys were will-nigh impossible to spot most of the time whenever they turned their backs on me.

And then, while I was footing it yet again, going round the tree one more time -- I struck gold. Or you could say, I simultaneously struck two veins of gold.

Does seem as if they wanted to pose for me, no?

P.S. -- A well-deserved plug for Nikon

This image was made on a Nikon D610, with a 600 mm f/4 lens (and thanks to a Teleconverter, an effective reach of 850 mm). I had to crouch from a standing up position, to be able to focus on the birds through intervening branches; and was hand-holding the lens. The tree was back-lit (that accounts for the blown out white spots in the foliage in this image) and all that my eye could see was two pale washes of white, and yet the AF performed immaculately and delivered this outstanding photograph!

A Blue-faced Malkoha, in a summery blue setting!

Normally, I am not the kind to stay at home (or luxuriate under the vents of an AC pretending to work, for that matter) even on the hottest day in May, if there is birding to be done.

In fact, birding in the peak of summer has one distinct advantage, the weather is mind-bogglingly "sunny" and the light is the kind that will make any photographer go ga ga with delight!

But then, this May was different, thanks to the heat wave that battered most of North and South India, accounting for a lot of deaths (mostly of the poor, those unlucky enough to get any work other than the kind that calls for getting broiled in the sun) and the weather was certainly not something that can be called "sunny", in a flippant, or conversational way.

But as I keep saying, a man has to do what a man has to do, so I  tried to put in a spot of "hot weather" birding, as is my wont, and braved the dust devils and the mirages while striking it afoot, looking for birds.

Then again, at some level this is work for me, and I better keep at it -- sun or rain, no?

I made this image of a Blue-faced Malkoha on a May evening, after spending almost half an hour patiently tracking the bird as it worked its way through a couple of thorn thickets, a Ber tree and then, through this Tamarind.

This is a full frame image, and seems just about perfect. And, that dazzling blue sky in the background gives an idea of the light that was on offer.

P.S. -- I never knew Tamarind flowers were pink

Nor did I know that the Blue-faced Malkoha is NOT a brood parasite. So much to learn daily, while in the pursuit of birds. I better keep at it -- sun or rain, no?

The Koklass pheasant -- regal hauteur lighting up a gloomy Himalayan morning

By now, J and I -- thanks to our umpteen trips into the hills -- know a thing or two about the pheasants that forage on and across the less frequented roads that criss-cross through precipitous heights and sheer drops : the (relatively widely seen) Khaleej, the (relatively rare) Cheer and the Koklass.

(I don't mention the Himalayan Monal here because, immaterial of the fact that we were successful in Mission Monal, this magnificent bird will always occupy rarefied ground for me...and its certainly not a bird that I would expect to see "besides the road"... but rather out in the open, with its iridescence blazing gem-like across the greens of a tussocky expanse :-)  

On second thoughts, I wouldn't exactly mind if the Monal graces me with a car window "opportunity", either. )

And, we also know a thing or two about that constant companion of the inveterate stumble-about birder -- failure and defeat.

Because, there isn't much you can do when you are on a road that is on the dark side of the mountain (and draped by trees) and a pheasant shows up on it, as a shadow that is slightly lighter than those around. Even as the car stops and you hoist the bean bag onto the window, and then hoist the lens onto it, many a time you realize you have been slow -- a lifetime too slow, for the bird has long disappeared into the early morning gloom.

(At other times, the bird will just walk on the road, right in front of the car and clearly in sight -- but who wants to photograph a bird through a thick car windscreen? And yes, tiptoeing out of the car, even on cat's feet also doesn't mostly work, for somehow the bird catches onto what's afoot and vamooses.)

But then, if you persist and back yourself -- sooner or later you are at the right place at the right time.
And you get to experience the regal hauteur of yet another wild bird, right in the vastness of its chosen domain.

Seen here is a full-frame image of a Koklass Pheasant (male) that we encountered somewhere in the forested swathes of the Kedarnath Musk Deer Sanctuary.


This guy was totally unaware of our presence and in fact, we slowly drove off, letting him be, while he bent down to forage, since we were in a bit of a hurry and had other birds to bag.

Exif : Nikon D610, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR, Nikon TC-14E II AF-S ; f/5.6, 1/125, ISO -- 800