Purple Swamp Hen....

Purple Swamphen

 Long time back I had gone to Chatbir Zoo in near Chandigarh and saw these birds that looked and behaved like Coots but were purple in colour. Now - almost 20-25 years later I saw the same birds in one of the village ponds and clicked a few snaps. Then I started browsing the feild guide I have of Indian birds to see what they were. They are the Purple Swamp Hens... A fairly straightforward name and digging a bit more gave me an information that their conservation status is not of a major concern.

My point is straight forward. If that be so - how come a crazy person who stares more at birds than females missed spotting these birds for so long. What I am doing now is not only posting the photographs but also the position off the Google maps with Lat and long that whosoever is interested can build up upon it and can use this as data if so desired.

Peacock...

A thing of Beauty - whichever way you see this bird. It may be number one in elegance. I had a lot of them in our near vicinity for majority of the places I have been posted to. Every single time I have seen them I wanted a camera to shoot - shoot and shoot. Luckily on this day I had one (Canon 550D with my 55-250 lens) and shot this bird to the hearts content. Only regret that I still carry is that this bird was in Captivity and not the one in the wild. Anyway now I am better prepared with a good set of lens, a bi-pod and ofcourse my camera. Will surely look around for some good shots and post them here.

Colours of nature... Beetle

 I had bought a new Canon 100mm macro and was hunting around for little things to hunt down with my camera. It so happened that I just could not capture anything worthwhile as the butterflies, flowers, Dragonflies and anything interesting were just to busy doing their job for waiting and posing for me. it was the will and a beautiful spider shot that motivated me to continue hunting for more photographs.

After spending better part of month with nothing much to show in Macro Photography and perhaps I was also finding it difficult to justify the purchase to my Finance Minister (read wife) I saw this beautiful bug crawl up my bed one day - like a savior sent by the Heavens above. I clicked away and what I saw myself after I finished was God's wonderful creation - not seen or appreciated by so many. So here I am posting a few Photographs.

After I had finished - I started to read around how I could have made these photographs better. The problem that I saw in these photographs was very shallow Depth Of Field (DOF) that takes a lot of detail from the Beetle. Then I started searching around for a solution and surprisingly came across one that I will be trying in my next photograph and also explaining it in detail - that is if I get it right myself. Till that time please do have a look at these photographs and do leave a comment/leave a advise how I can do it better. All suggestions are welcome. The photographs are available in original full format and will be happy to share to whomsoever asks. Looking forward to Photo Critics. 

Scaly Breasted Munia...

Walking back from the office to my Vehicle - I caught sight of this beautiful bird. I remember as a kid I bought two pairs of these birds - I love birds and did take care of them as much I could but they did not survive for too long. I saw them being traded in markets every now and then for a fairly long time after this incident but had by then understood that these birds are not the kind that will survive easily in captivity.

I took another initiative and asked some of my colleagues whether they recognised this bird - to my surprise none of them had seen this earlier - let alone recognising it. I feel sad that our modern lifestyles have taken us so far from nature where we do not have time and aptitude to take time to appreciate nature - let alone being part of it.

 These are two more snaps of the same bird. And before I pen off - These photographs are with my Brand New 100-400L series lens....