Ravi & his weekend habitat ;)

Ravi is almost a resident of Turahalli! Here is habitat shot!

Flowers & Plants

Till my wife Nanda joins me for all the outings, I'll have to learn how to identify some of these plants & flowers. She's the expert in biology. So I got to buy the book on flowers!

Lizards & Salt Gland

After seeing my pictures of the lizard, I observed that lizards has some strange glands. After searching on the net I found that they are salt glands. For info at http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/~barrylab/Lisa/Pages/research.html

Barbet & my mistake!

This was supposed to be the 1st actual test of my new lens. Unfortunately I didn't notice that I had not switched on the IS before shooting this Small green Barbet. Well, as long as I'm learning from my mistakes, I'm happy. 'coz I know I can improve my making more mistakes & learning from them

Oriental Honey Buzzard?

Kiran, Ravi & myself saw 4 Oriental Honey Buzzards at Turahalli today. Though I'm yet to clarify wrt identity of the bird, Kiran was very clear that they were indeed OHBs.

Turahalli - Gloriosa Superba!!!

I saw my first Gloriosa Superba the beautiful flower (called Gowri pushpa in kannada) today at Turahalli. What a change this place has undergone in last 5 years due to urbanization. Sad, 5 years down the lane, it'll be another concrete jungle. Here are some of the images I shot from Turahalli.

Got the new lens - Canon 100-400mm IS USM

Thanx to Guru & his father in law, I got my much awaited Canon 100-400mm IS USM yesterday night. I couldn't wait till the weekend and hence got the camera to office today. Myself & Murthy (who also got his 350D yesterday) went out for half an hour to shoot some pictures inside our office campus. Here are some of the results.

Sunset at JLR, Bheemeshwari

Ever interesting subject for a photographer. You never get tired of shooting sunsets!!

Grey Hornbill

There are plenty of Hornbills inside the JLR @ Bheemeshwari. This was sitting right infront of our loghut.

Wagtail Flight - failed attempt

I wanted to capture this wagtail in flight. However I couldn't react fast in time. Hence the result is a slightly unsharp photo of its flight.

Some more bee eater shots

Well, till I get my 100-400mm L series lens, I'd never be satisfied with the quality of the image! Here are some more of the bee eater series.

Large Pied Wagtail

This one certainly did pose for me. I was hiding behind a tree & that acted as a natural hide. On the flip side there was a small stick which acted as an obstruction & preventing from getting a good foto.

Bee Eater

I couldn't get the best of the bee eater at JLR, Bheemeshwari. This was close to what I could get.

Catch from Bheemeshwari - JLR - Grizzled giant squirrel

While on a trip from office to Jungle Lodges Bheemeshwari (100kms from Bangalore), I found this endemic, beautiful Grizzled giant squirrel. For more info do check out http://www.care4nature.org/wildindia/squirrel.htm. This particular species is found in patches of riverine forest along the Kaveri river in south India and also in hill forests towards the southern tip of peninsular India

And finally...

Well, this is not a promotion of the resort (as they don't pay me!! ). We stayed @ The Club Mahindra resort & it's beautiful!!

Some unidentified flowers

I'm yet to identify these beautiful flowers. Till I get a macro lens, these pictures would remind me that I need to get one quickly!

Goa - The Sun & the Sand

In my last post I posted the Sunbird & now it's the turn of the Sun & the Sand. Attached is the sunset at Club Mahindra beach.

Sun, Sand and Sunbird - Goa

Goa is known to people as SSS (Sun, Sand & Slum) in that order. For us the last S turned out to be Sunbird. I'm glad it did. On the last day of our trip I managed to get few shots. I'm yet to process all of them & here are few of those.

Water lily

They always present a fascinating subject to shoot! If not anything in lalbagh you'll get umpteen opportunity to shoot them! The single lily was taken by SVN.

Sunbird & Lalbagh

For the 3rd time in as many weeks we noticed the sunbird & it is breeding. I've not managed to great shots as I'd not taken the tripod. I'm yet to get out my intertia in proper packing my gear!

Purple Moorhen at lalbagh

We had a good time in lalbagh. Raks drove early in the morning to Nagesh's place & myself, Nagesh, Raks & Murthy had a good time birding & shooting. I missed couple of very good chances of Purple Moorhen taking off from the lake. Partly due to my unpreparedness and partly due to my lens. I can't wait to lay my hands on my new 100-400mm IS lens, which I expect to get by Sept 20th.

Evening @ Manchanbele

Rakesh-Prema, Myself, Nagesh & vivek went to Manchanbele yesterday & we had fun. Ofcourse we wished if the roads were only as good as the place itself. Though there wasn't much lighting by the time we reached there, we still spotted quite a few birds. Here are some of the pix from Manchanbele. Thanx to Raks for his precise driving I could get some decent shots.
Ofcourse this trip motivated Raks/Nagesh to act faster in getting their 30D.

My first sigting of white eye

I sighted white eye for the first time in my life at Manchanbele & it's such a beautiful bird!