I normally do not shoot butterflies, but tend to have a go at them once in a while. While in Bharatpur, I saw ‘Common Gulls’ in such large numbers that I could not do without photographing them. And one day when I was walking along a paths next to the marshes in search of the Sarus Cranes, I saw this congregation of ‘Plain Tigers’ sitting on a small plant. This place was on a track frequented by cycle-rickshaws. The butterflies would fly away each time a rickshaw passed by, but would soon return to hangout at the same place. My friend and I must have spent about fifteen minutes or more lying down on the ground trying to get a good image. None of the images I captured that day satisfied me and did not justify the beautiful gathering that we saw. On the other hand, lying down on the ground and obstructing the path of the rickshaws, we attracted the attention of all tourists passing by, as much as these butterflies attracted us!
Common Gull Butterfly
Plain tiger butterfly
No other birds drew my attention in Bharatpur like parakeets. They were everywhere in the park, gathered in small groups and chattering constantly. They were shrill and loud, keeping me aware of their presence all the time. Yet, their green camouflage hid them so well that it was hard to spot them even when half-a-dozen of them were sitting on a branch right over my head. During the three days I spent in the park, I saw parakeets trying to threaten an enemy hiding in a tree hole, having a brawl between themselves, squeaking loudly for no apparent reason, taking flight in a small groups and having a conversation mid-flight, idling on tree branches and sitting perfectly still and almost invisible in their camouflage, trying to expand a small hole in a tree into a more comfortable roost and having a delicious breakfast. Some pictures.
Let me begin by wishing you a very happy new year. May your dreams take wings in 2011!
I suffered from severe writer’s block for last two months of 2010 and left this space hardly updated. Some photography assignments and a few other things I was working on kept me occupied, which means I also did very little reading online, rarely visited blogs or kept myself updated with happenings in the online-world. However, I managed to keep paintedstork facebook page updated regularly.
I normally do not take the trouble to make new year resolutions—they get broken anyway—and it is no different for 2011. But at this moment, I am hoping to keep this space active at least for the next few months. Let me begin with stories from a visit to Bharatpur’s Keoladeo National Park in November 2010, recounting my encounters with the beautiful birds in the park.
In the three days that I spent in Bharatpur, I hardly saw any rare or exotic birds except for a pair of Sarus Cranes. But I could observe many common species from a close distance and cherished watching their behavior. The most common birds in the park were perhaps rose ringed parakeets that chattered loudly in the trees all through the day in every corner of the park. The rarest among the birds I saw were a pair of black necked storks and a pair of sarus cranes.
The first birds I saw in the park were Brahminy Mynas in a small gathering, followed by jungle babblers in their typical group of five to six. Soon after getting past the entrance, I was excited to see a peafowl family with five chicks foraging in the shrubs. There was further excitement ahead as I spotted two jackals shying away into the jungle and watched a parakeet trying to threaten an enemy hiding in a tree hallow.
The first of the birds that posed happily for my camera were laughing doves. There were plenty of them in Bharatpur. Early morning and evenings, a careful listener could hear the sound of their laughter filling the air. They were also happy to pose for the camera and did not run away at the first sight of a telephoto lens. I first saw a lone laughing dove sitting on the top of a bush. It sat there gracefully until I took a few pictures, but decided to fly away on seeing an approaching vehicle.
Laughing Dove
Half-an-hour later, I saw a pair of doves walking slowly at the edge of the tarmac road that bisects the park. They seemed wary of me, but did not feel threatened as long as I kept my distance. They hopped slowly along the shoulder of the road, occasionally picking whatever they found worth gulping. I lay down on the ground to get an eye-level picture, but they did not seem to like me doing that and decided to walk away from me. A little later, one of them sat on the lowest branch of a bush, started preening and at the same time generously posing for me. I was more than happy to go on clicking it displaying the colourful feathers.
A laughing dove showing off its feathers!
Coming up next: more birds from Bharatpur.