Landscape photo moments..

Landscape photography is one of the challenging genre in photography field. Right equipment, time, composition and many more factors make a good landscape photograph. Here posting some of my landscape attempts. Please do share how you feel about these photographs by leaving a comment.

Sunrise in the middle of Bay of Bengal. Taken while travelling to Port Blair in a Ship.

This one was taken in Corbyn's Cove beach near Port Blair.

View of Port Blair in Dusk. This one is long exposure shot taken using tripod.

North Bay Island, Andaman.

Chilika Lake, Orissa

View from Gangtok, Sikkim

Tsongmo/Changu Lake, Sikkim.

Evening at Nalsarovar Bird Sanctuary, Gujarat.

Marine National Park, Jamnagar, Gujarat.

Somewhere near Ranikhet, Uttarakhand

Nameri, Assam. This one is from normal digital camera.

How do you feel about all these? Please share your views.
Thanks for viewing.
Regards,
Ganesh Hegde

Memorable moments in Daroji...

Protected areas are the best place to watch and study all types of wildlife. In these areas human interference and disturbance on their habitats and on their behavior is minimum . One can spot many rare animals and birds, especially those which are now absent in degraded habitats. In Karnataka the arid and semi-arid region occupies most of its northern part and majority of those areas are under cultivation and only few areas are left in which we can actually see original thorny and scrub forests un-interfered by humans.

One of such area is Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary near Hospet Taluk of Bellary District in Karnataka. Situated near World Heritage site Hampi, Daroji is around 15km from Hospet. Around 8000ha area is under protection and is one of the best protected dry and scrub forests available in Karnataka. Beside home of more than 100 Sloth Bears, its also best place for bird watching for dry region birds. I, along with my collegues had a great opportunity to spend some considerably long time in and arounpresentingeas. In this part will be presenting some wonderful moments with nature and wildlife.

In 1994 this area was declared as Sloth Bear sanctuary in order to protect endangered Sloth Bears. As a part of management and to enhance tourism inside the sanctuary, in the beginning, at some particular places food was provided sloth bears at regular intervals. This has been reduced over years and today no such food is provided and only some jaggery is applied on some rocks in tourism zone. We had some splendid moments with this mother bear with its two cubs.

Apart from Sloth bears this sanctuary is home for many wild creatures such as Leopards, Porcupine, Pangolins, reptiles and number of birds. 

Every undisturbed forest habitat has its own beuty. Landscapes around Daroji in evening light looks spectacular. This one is from top of the visitors watch tower.

Another major attraction of Daroji is birds.It is one of the best place for birding in Karnataka. Open habitat, scrub jungles and rocky terrain makes suitable place for many ground dwelling birds. Around 126 species of birds are recorded from here.

1. Painted Spurfowl (Galloperdix lanulata)

This beautiful bird is the icon bird of Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary. It’s a medium sized ground bird belongs to Pheasant family and believed to be monogamous. They are found in rocky hill and scrub forests.

male

female

2. Grey Francolin (Francolinus pondicerianus)

Grey Francolin or Grey Patridge is one of the common, medium sized ground dwelling bird found in dry regions of Indian subcontinent. In northern parts of the country its domesticated for fighting.

3. Painted Sandgrouse (Pterocles indicus)

It is  medium sized bird found in dry regions of India and Pakistan. When disturbed they sit on the ground and its difficult to spot them at that time.

male

female

4.  Indian Eagle Owl (Bubo bengalesis)

Also called as Rock Eagle owl which is a large horned owl found in hilly and rocky scrub forests. Here in Daroji they can be seen along rocky cliffs of canals.

In between we also had a great moment with a Indian Star Tortoise, a small tortoise found in dry and scrub forests. This species is now becoming endangered due to exotic pet trade.

Indian Palm Squirrel close-up.

In the duration of the stay I have recorded around 85 species of birds and able to photograph around 50 species.

5. Common Babbler

6. Spotted Owlet

7. Jungle Bush Quail

8. Rock Bush Quail

9. Indian Silverbill

10. Brahminy Starling

11. Indian Robin (female)

12. Red-vented Bulbul

13. Rose-ringed Parakeet (female)

14. Pied Kingfisher

15. Common Iora (male)

16. River Tern

17. Yellow-billed Babbler

18. House Sparrow (male)

19. Purple-rumped Sunbird (male)

20. Scaly-breasted Munia

21. Spot-billed Duck

There are many more images I would like to share and will share soon. Hope you enjoyed and had a glimpse of natural beauty of Daroji.

Regards,
Ganesh Hegde

Butterflies of Burnihat, Assam (part-4)

This part is about Family Lycanidae (Blues) found here in Burnihat, Assam.

1.       Pale Grass Blue (Pseudozizeeria maha)

A small and common butterfly in the campus. Can be seen on grasses and small herbs in roadsides.
wingspan : 26-30mm
status : Common

2.       Lesser Grass Blue (Zizina otis)

3.       Lime Blue (Chilades lajus)

4.       Common Acacia Blue (Surendra quercetorum)

female

male

5.       Purple Sapphire (Heliophorus epicles)

6.       Angled Pierrot (Caleta caleta)

7.       Common Cerulean (Jemides celeno)

9.       Metallic Cerulean (Jemides alecto)

10.   Dark Cerulean (Jemides bochus)

11.   Plains cupid (Chilades pandava)

12.   Malayan (Megisba malaya)

13.   Quaker (Neopithecops zalmora)

14.   Yamfly (Loxura atymnus)

15.   Zebra Blue (Leptotes plinius)

16.   Punchinello (Zemeros flegyas)

17.   Tailless Lineblue (Prosotas dubiosa)

18.  Common Lineblue (Prosotas nora)

19.  Indian Red Flash (Rapala iarbus)

20.   Slate Flash (Rapala manea)

male

female

21.   Copper Flash (Rapala pheretima)