26 October 2021
Wow! I just cant decelerate my excitement. Our backyard is crowded with exciting birds and its a pleasure moment for me. Generally I walk straight towards the canopy which is flat. Today for a change I walked uphill and that change was immensely fruitful. See whom did I get during this unconventional walk. For sure, this walk would turn conventional from subsequent day onwards! To start with light was damn poor and I like how the lens+camera reproduced the picture with enough exposure. Especially I like the way 10yr old camera managed to get decent picture despite extremely poor light conditions. Had it been bright sunny day, this would have been memorable birding. Other things I did was to manually set ISO to 400 which gave less grainier images.
The drongos perch high in canopy or at eye level. They are the ones with less shyness and audacious :-D. Except the racket tailed and bronzed drongos, other drongos are quite bold enough to face the humans :-). Today I caught this drongo (not sure ashy or black) nearby my position and it came out quite clear thanks to proximity :-). Here are few shots.
The unusual bulbul call was mistaken with usual red-whiskered-bulbul. The bird was over my head but still ignored. The bird sound though seemed unfamiliar later. To give some confirmation, the bird perched nearby bland tree before flying away. They were like "identify me now" :-). Wow! that is yellow browed bulbul to enjoy! I had some quick shots but again poor light did not allow me to get some crisp shots. Clear shots would have been possible if sun had come out. Hope to capture them more in brighter days.
Similarly bunch of small minivets. One of them was busy munching the worm which it caught in bald vegetation nearby. Lot of close-up picture but again poor light :-(. The final images turned out well due to proximity but still not appealing. Here are few for record. Both female and males perched on same tree
When I was about to enter house gate, the yellow footed green pigeon beckoned by its quasi police van call. I shot couple of its photos to conclude. Once again the low ISO helped a lot with fine image reproduction post image edits!
Spotted dove to end today's birding. They are the ones who pose well without flying away :-)
What went well!
The switching to manual ISO 400 was the most positive outcome. If you have steady hand or light is ample, turn off auto ISO in Av mode (aperture priority mode which I call "a pathetic mode" nowadays) in DSLR. That would prevent plenty of disappointments after post-processing!
What I missed?
The Indian paradise flycatcher with mix of cinnamon+white plumage was fetching its breakfast from nearby canopy. It saw my movement and disappeared into canopy. Hopefully to get some good glimpses soon!
What went bad :-(
There are some troubles too :-(. Yes the street dogs rest in large numbers in open space. They are biggest trouble makers :-(. Today also they did not allow me to peacefully shoot bird with harrowing/horrific barks. The other trouble is that such barking shoo away the birds as well :-(
Check out my Bird Series blogs here : NKBirdSeries
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