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I cycled to Swapan Mori, about two and a half kilometers from the main entrance of Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, and found purple swamphens unusually foraging on the trail alongside a painted stork holding a twig. An elderly couple walked by and disturbed the scene, but I managed to quickly take a photo. Later, I discovered the birds were collecting nesting materials, not food. I took this photo in December 2022 / Nikon D500 / Nikkor 500MM F/5.6E PF ED VR
It stays dark until 7:00 am on cold winter mornings in Bharatpur. I would head to the park at 6:30 am, often the first to enter, enveloped in silence without any birdsong. The cold would pinch my arms and legs, and my hands felt like blocks of ice.
To cope with the low light, I had to increase the ISO sensitivity to 16,000 at f/4 to achieve a usable shutter speed, but this isn't ideal for photography as the high ISO introduces too much noise, spoiling the photo.
Workable light doesn't appear until around 7:15 am in December. I took this photo when the first rays of sunlight touched the left wing of a bird, which, for me, became the focal point of the image, rather than the bird itself.
Notice how the rays, coming from behind the bird, emphasise every texture and detail of its wings because the sun is much lower on the horizon at that time of day / Canon EOS 7D Mark II / Canon 300mm f/4 IS
From November to March, I tracked sandpipers in Bharatpur. Initially, they were plentiful but skittish, flying away as our boat neared. By March, as water levels fell and islands appeared, the birds found firmer ground, allowing us closer access. On my last day after four months, the conditions were ideal with an overcast March morning providing perfect light to photograph this magnificent bird in its vibrant habitat / Nikon D500 / Nikkor 500MM F/5.6E PF ED VR
To freeze the action of small birds fluffing their plumage and preening, we need to use very fast shutter speeds. I used a shutter speed of 1/3200 with the ISO set at 6400, which is quite high and typically results in significant digital noise in cameras like the Nikon D500. However, modern AI noise reduction tools can now eliminate all the noise, resulting in clean images that can even be printed in large sizes / Nikon D500 / Nikkor 500MM F/5.6E PF ED VR
Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in India is a great place to watch birds. The common redstarts along the main path are used to people and often perch nearby. But deeper in the park, along narrow trails, they flee as soon as they see humans. I have never been able to photograph them there, even though there are many. Magpie robins, the bird in the next photo, often perch close to people even deep in the park. I took both photos with a 300mm f/4 lens and did not crop them. This shows how close the birds let me get. The wide aperture also makes the background blurry.
Global warming and climate change are popular topics these days. It's important to use these terms correctly and not blame every unusual observation on climate change. However, this may be an example of climate change that made this picture of the pied bushchat, and the stonechat above it, more beautiful.
In November 2021, we had unseasonal rains in the Mumbai-Pune region. This caused fresh foliage to grow around the large lake at Kumbhargaon, a small fishing village on the Pune-Solapur highway. Usually, the monsoon ends by September, and much of the green foliage dries out in October's heat.
I have visited Kumbhargaon every month for many years, but I had never seen this type of foliage before or since. Perhaps it’s a rare plant species that grew because of the November rains? / Nikon D500 / Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 ED VR lens
While walking through Kumbhargaon, I spotted a Yellow-eyed Babbler perched on a thorn bush, looking straight at me through my lens. Initially, I thought the bird was simply happy to see me, but it was actually feasting on insect eggs hidden beneath a twig.
It wasn't until I viewed the photo on my computer that I realised what the bird was really doing / Canon EOS 7D Mark II / Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
Birdwatchers across India look forward to the Great White Pelican's arrival at Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary each year, typically dependent on temperature and water levels. Recently, these arrivals have been delayed to late January or early February.
In December 2020, just before the pandemic, I was at Sapan Mori in the sanctuary at sunrise with my cycle rickshaw rider, Bhupinder. We were the first to see a large flock of over seventy pelicans arriving in a V formation. Instead of taking photos, I chose to enjoy the moment. The light was very low, and I didn't see the point in snapping numerous high-ISO photos that would be unprintable due to the digital noise that DSLR cameras produce at high ISO settings.
Shortly after, another flock of similar size followed, making it the first sighting of over 150 pelicans together that season. They circled overhead for ten minutes, looking for a place to land, and finally settled on a water body near Jatoli Canal. Bhupinder captured this incredible scene on his smartphone / Canon EOS 7D Mark II / Canon EF 300mm f/4 L IS
