Some more images from last day of 2009

Here are some more images

Last day of birding for 2009

It's been almost a year since I went to Hesaraghatta & I decided to end the year 2009 by making a visit to Hesaraghatta lake. Pandith & Abhijit joined me. It was their first visit to Hesaraghatta & no one returns empty handed from this place! It's just amazing how many variety of birds are around this place. I'm yet to identify this raptor. It looks like a Marsh Harrier to me. Do confirm if you know.

Elephant Behavior

Gopalaswamy Betta presented an incredible opportunity for me to shoot this herd of elephants from the top of the hill. I've never seen such a sight before. Watching elephants from the top as if it's seen from an air balloon was really amazing perspective to get. To add to that I saw very interesting behavior from the mother elephant. If you see closely there are two calves suckling from the same mother. It's very rare for an elephant to have twins! I suspect that the other calf is slightly old (may be 3-6 months) & perhaps has lost its mother. The aunt elephant, which is now the matriarch, is taking care of the orphan calf. This social behavior depicts very clearly the caring nature of elephants.

Do share your thoughts if you've witnessed such a behavior before!

Many moods of Jog Falls

Jog Falls has always been a special place in my heart perhaps due to the fact that we lived close by for over 7 years in Gersoppa. Last weekend I got a chance to recapture some of the moods of it. In next few days/weeks, I'll post some of them. I've called them the moods of Jog primarily due to the changing landscape every time you see it. The mist & the rain create an incredible harmony that makes it very special. Here is the first one to begin with.

Elephant Bathing

We'd a great time watching this matriarch taking bath in BRT WLS. For over 10 minutes, me, Nanda and Gargi enjoyed watching her bath. Elephants are child like when it comes to water & they play with gay abandon.

Blue tailed bee eater scape

They offer interesting opportunity for experimenting on the compositions. I'm yet to process all the images. I liked this compo where I was shooting from lower ground & the BTBE was perched on little higher place.

Blue tailed bee eater

Nagunvina halli is such a magnificent place shoot these birds!! It's the breeding season now. Here is a starter!

Kestrel Male

I've not had a chance to process my earlier images. This was from our last trip to Hesaraghatta before the Kestrels chose to return to their original home! By far this was the trip that I got the best images of all the major raptors. This Kestrel male was spotted by Rakesh & did give us few poses before it flew away.

LBV - Early Morning

One of the good things about Ramadevara betta is that it offers lot of possibilities for creating interesting compositions. This Long Billed Vulture gave us a quite a lot of options. I liked this one in the morning light with beautiful winter's blue sky and the grass in the background. Let me know what you think.

Early morning conversation!

Me, Raks & prema visited Ramanagar today morning. It was really eventful. We spotted Peregrine Falcon which was a lifer. There were 13 Long billed Vultures (& perhaps more) on a single rock bed. Though I couldn't get any decent flight shots, I did like this shot. A myna seem to having a conversation with the LBV. ACtually myna flew very close the LBV and picked something that was close to LBV and before it flew off, they seem to have had a conversation. It was interesting to see Myna sitting close it. I've seen (in photos/videos) Mynas being hunted by Peregrine Falcon & other raptors; and here it seemed unperturbed by its presence!!