With the end of 2012 fast approaching...and probably also the end of the Life cycle on earth ;P... few hopes pop up... new aspirations creep up for doing something different, being a bit more better, in the year to come.
Well my last blog was all about the new changes and the corresponding evolution I expected to bring in to survive and suffice my hunger for photography. Though the start was good in form of a short stint at the so called Mumbai Bhraman. But the wheel didnt seriously rolled, atleast not as much as I had expected. One of the major reason being my comfort zone with the Almighty's sane creations was way more than the unpredictable and insane in-human humans...
All my hopes for enjoying and rejuvenation seemed to be meagre. But then came a ray of hope in the form of a chat message from a good friend of mine. What was the message??? A group of people heading for a Bird Walk near Badlapur. There were three words that made me keen...specially the third and the last word...A Bird Walk at BADLAPUR??? Damn thats Great! Why so? For starters Badlapur is hardly half an hour train travel from my place, secondly its the place from where the actual nature trails start and thirdly, well any place where I can enjoy encountering nature and is located at close proximity to Mumbai is always a great news for me.
So here was a Bird Walk arranged by a Group named Nisarg Bhraman(http://nisargabhramanindia.blogspot.in/), which started off in 2005 has been actively conducting treks, walks and other various forms of recreational activities. With all the contact details being shared off with me it hardly took any moment to enroll self for the event. And as usual few requests/ invites to few close friends...went down the drain.
Finally on the 2nd of December, a Sunday, very early in the morning, we all headed off to the destination. Target was to get together at/near Badlapur station by 6:30a.m. and mind it "6:30 a.m." on a Sunday morning is tooooooooo early, especially when u have to spend half an hour train journey, I was moved to see some members traveling right from Dadar and beyond. So there we were, a group of 9 ppl, 6 from outside Badlapur, 3 guys from Badlapur , assembling at the seriously chillingly cold morning.
Finally on the 2nd of December, a Sunday, very early in the morning, we all headed off to the destination. Target was to get together at/near Badlapur station by 6:30a.m. and mind it "6:30 a.m." on a Sunday morning is tooooooooo early, especially when u have to spend half an hour train journey, I was moved to see some members traveling right from Dadar and beyond. So there we were, a group of 9 ppl, 6 from outside Badlapur, 3 guys from Badlapur , assembling at the seriously chillingly cold morning.
With temperature dipping down to around 18°C, which later on fell down to 16°C, and mild foggy environment, the weather seemed awesomely fantastic and an ideal one to witness the migratory as well as the local birds. But before that we had to reach to the area intended for the Bird Walk, i.e., Barvi Dam. Located almost 15kms from Badlapur station, we had to hire a tumtum which took roughly half and hour to 45 mins travel through the decently cobbled village sorta road. The route being on the Murbad S.H. road, early morning is the ideal time to visit the spot as there is pretty low highway traffic, so the birds enjoy quite a serene environment and we also can enjoy the struggle to spot the feathered beauties.
Below are few of the examples of the visual delight we witnessed.
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| One of our colleagues for the day...accompanied us almost till half the way |
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| Rufous Treepie EXIF: f/8 Shutterspeed 1/500 ISO 800 Exp. Comp +0.3 Step |
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| Rufous Treepie EXIF: f/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/400 ISO 800 Exp. Comp 0 Step |
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| Racket Tailed Drongo EXIF: f/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/320 ISO 800 Exp. Comp 0 Step |
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| Spotted Dove EXIF: f/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 800 Exp. Comp 0 Step |
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| Misty cold waterfall...coming off the dam EXIF: f/22 Shutterspeed 0.8sec ISO 100 |
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| One of the onlookers ;) |
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| A Narcissist Indian Pond Heron??? EXIF: f/5.6 Shutterspeed 1/500 ISO 800 Exp. Comp -0.7 Step |
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| Sunbathing I.P.H. EXIF: f/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/1000 ISO 800 Exp. Comp 0 Step |
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| Focused I.P.H. EXIF: f/9 Shutterspeed 1/1000 ISO 800 Exp. Comp -1.7 Step |
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| Hyper active, Common Sandpiper EXIF: f/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/500 ISO 800 Exp. Comp 0 Step |
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| Wired tailed Swallow EXIF: f/9 Shutterspeed 1/640 ISO 800 Exp. Comp -0.7 Step |
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| Shikra EXIF: f/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/640 ISO 800 |
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| Yellow throated Sparrow EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/1600 ISO 800 |
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| A beautiful flower EXIF: F/8 Shutterspeed 1/80 ISO 400 |
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| Indian Black Wood Spider(As big as our palm) EXIF: F/8 Shutterspeed 1/125 ISO 400 |
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| Indian Black Wood Spider EXIF: F/8 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 400 |
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| Probably a Wolf spider...Check out its front fang type claws EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/100 ISO 400 |
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| Another side of the beauty EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/100 ISO 400 |
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| The wolfy EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 400 |
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| Levitating in the air EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 400 |
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| Indian Black wood Spider EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 400 |
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| A parasitic plant, see the beautiful red flower??? Thats the creation of the parasitic plant EXIF: F/8 Shutterspeed 1/500 ISO 400 |
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| Cicada type moth EXIF: F/8 Shutterspeed 1/250 ISO 400 |
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| Probably a Yellow throated Sparrow EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/320 ISO 400 |
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| A yellow Migrant on Yellowish Dried leaf EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/125 ISO 400 |
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| Keeping a watchful eye while others discussed some essential info |
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| Another brownish beauty trying to camouflage into the dried leaves EXIF: F/8 Shutterspeed 1/80 ISO 800 |
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| Some interesting sights with beautiful lighting EXIF: F/8 Shutterspeed 1/320 ISO 800 Exp. Comp -2 step |
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| Another example of the same EXIF: F/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/4000 ISO 800 |
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| Shades of the same plant EXIF: F/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/4000 ISO 800 |
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| Thats Rajesh Sachdev on the extreme right, sharing some essential knowledge along with fellow members EXIF: F/7.1 Shutterspeed 1/1000 ISO 800 |
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| My favourite bird since the life in Baramati...Green Bee Eater(G.B.E.). Loved this frame as the lighting was on the opposite side yet great amount of details of the bird is captured EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/250 ISO 800 |
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| Peeping thru the bushes...Not it but me... EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/640 ISO 800 |
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| Slightly burnt out shot of the G.B.E EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/1250 ISO 400 |
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| Purple sunbird EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/1250 ISO 800 |
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| Yellow throated sparrow EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/2000 ISO 800 |
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| Well capturing good shots is not easy and in this trip our neck was the recipient of the torture... |
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| Competition of the zooms... |
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| Now thats called meditation... |
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| One of the most difficult bird to spot and capture in frame...especially when its seated somewhere around 10-15m high and jumping around from one branch to other...Had to spend more than 15mins to get good shot A gold fronted Leafbird EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/500 ISO 400 |
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| Another shot of the Leafbird EXIF: F/6.3 Shutterspeed 1/4000 ISO 400 |
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| Another back lit frame... EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/640 ISO 400 |
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| The water flow from the Dam EXIF: F/22 Shutterspeed 1sec ISO 100 |
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| A tiger beetle...a nasty insect EXIF: F/5.6 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 800 |
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| The carnivores insect EXIF: F/5.6 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 800 |
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| Break time...Having Hot hot Wadapav |
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| Some discussions too happening along with peet pooja |
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| Walking and talking...Some essential knowledge sharing on the go |
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| Crimson Dragonfly EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/160 ISO 400 |
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| An Oriental Honey Buzzard...went quite a distance to capture it... EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/1250 ISO 800 |
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| Another I.B.W.S EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 800 |
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| A better view of the Beauty EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/400 ISO 800 |
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| Awesome creature+Interesting lighting= Amazing frame...one of my favourite EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/200 ISO 400 |
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| Another one slightly diff angle EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/250 ISO 400 |
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| Paparazzi behind the I.B.W.S., spot the spider on the extreme right top end of frame |
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| From the other side EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/320 ISO 400 |
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| The Golden glow EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/250 ISO 400 |
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| A green lipped Wild orchid EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/160 ISO 800 |
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| Black and white beauty... EXIF: F/9 Shutterspeed 1/1600 ISO 800 |
So here are the pics of the natures beauties that we came across, actually we came across lots more, but I could successfully capture only these. But few things did come into the picture or realization after the trip...my 55-250 lens seriously falls short of zoom power in such instances as most of the birds were almost the size of a sparrow and capturing them, especially when they are perched way on top of a tree, the quality of the image turns to be a bit soft and after cropping the image seems to be overly blurred or grained. Secondly, in such a walk one needs to be well aware of what setting and angle to use to capture a pic with full and clear details of the bird, as in most of the cases the lighting was behind the bird, causing for a silhouette as a frame or seriously burned up frame. Getting the right image was sheerly the skill of the experienced.
By the end of the day, for the trip, we had encountered/successfully spotted around 32 types of birds along with several insects, flowers and flowering plants and also some interesting orchids and parasitic plants. Overall it was great fun and the amount of satisfaction I got cannot be expressed in words. And this brought into light a new aspect for the City life...Mumbai is not so concrete jungle as I had imagined..there are places which will help me breathe, meditate and rejuvenate...all I need to do is search out by expanding my links and visiting such places and one such destination I am all pumped up to visit is the Sewri Mud Flats. I have always heard of it, saw amazing snaps related to this place but could never be at this place and hopefully by the end of this year I shall be able to give a visit and meet the most flamboyant migrants, The Flamingos.
As far as this trip was concerned, special thanks to Pratima for sharing details about the group Nisarg Bhraman and introducing to Sameer Patel, Mr. Organizer for the event, Rajesh Sachdev for all forms of knowledge sharing he could provide in that limited time span of around 6-7 hours and all members who had joined in for the Bird Walk. It seriously made my day... Thanks once again...and special thanks to you all for patiently going through the whole blog.
Finally the list of birds spotted:
2. Black Drongo
3. Racket Tailed Drongo
4. Coppersmith Barbet
5. Asian Koel
6. House Crow
7. Large Billed Crow
8. Spotted Dove
9. Wire Tailed Swallow
10. Pond Heron
11. Common Sandpiper
12. Indian Cormorant
13. Greenish Leaf Warbler
14. Shikra
15. Yellow Throated Sparrow / Chestnut Shouldered Patronia
16. Loten's Sunbird - Male and Female
17. Great Tits
18. Golden Fonted Leafbird
19. Oriental White Eye
20. Purple Sunbird - Male
21. Red Whiskered Bu.bul
22. Green Bee Eater
23. Ashy Drongo
24. Black Shouldered Kite
25. Oriental Honey Buzzard
26. Jungle Babbler
27. White Throated Kingfisher
28. Warbler
29. Catle Egret
30. Plain Prinia
31. Brown Headed Barbet
32. Little Cormorant
3. Racket Tailed Drongo
4. Coppersmith Barbet
5. Asian Koel
6. House Crow
7. Large Billed Crow
8. Spotted Dove
9. Wire Tailed Swallow
10. Pond Heron
11. Common Sandpiper
12. Indian Cormorant
13. Greenish Leaf Warbler
14. Shikra
15. Yellow Throated Sparrow / Chestnut Shouldered Patronia
16. Loten's Sunbird - Male and Female
17. Great Tits
18. Golden Fonted Leafbird
19. Oriental White Eye
20. Purple Sunbird - Male
21. Red Whiskered Bu.bul
22. Green Bee Eater
23. Ashy Drongo
24. Black Shouldered Kite
25. Oriental Honey Buzzard
26. Jungle Babbler
27. White Throated Kingfisher
28. Warbler
29. Catle Egret
30. Plain Prinia
31. Brown Headed Barbet
32. Little Cormorant
beautifully narrated..loved it..:)
ReplyDelete:) Thank you
ReplyDeleteVery good account for the day, well justified.
ReplyDelete