Rarely Shown Bird Photos

-->Some friends have been rather unhappy with me for not posting photos of my birds. Well, here are six of them. These are some of my best bird photos that have never before been shown. I am finally posting these to pacify those friends who seem to have missed seeing my birds.

Please click on the image to see all six in a slideshow.

Ejoy!

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The first image is that of a Scarlet Finch. Actually I had been chasing a pair of Gold-napped Finch - for two hours - without any success. Then, all of a sudden, this stunning bird appeared on the scene and captivated me. For the next one hour or so, I chased it around the forest. It moves fast but once it perches on its feed, it didn’t seem to care that I had a bazooka trained at it, allowing me to shoot at a leisurely pace. I must have shot over 300 frames - this bird is so beautiful, you want to keep shooting even when you know that you got the best shot you are ever likely to get.

 

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The second bird is called Crested Bunting, a cute little bird mostly confined to warmer places. Many a times I tried to photograph it in Wangdue area but the cheeky fellow always managed to give me the slip. But I finally nailed it in Lemithang, Mongar. It likes to strike quite a pose and sings a nice song too.

 

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The bird below took me by surprise. It is so small - only 10CM - and it was fleeting around with a bunch of Warblers. I have had enough with Warblers - they are such great teasers and I am so angry with them. I will not shoot them unless there are no birds left to shoot. But the little fellow below somehow caught my eyes because of its straightforward black and white markings. And, it did not behave like a Warbler - so I decided to take a closer look. Lo and behold, it was a Little Pied Flycatcher. I had never seen it before, let alone photograph it. This was a real find.

 

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One time I was parked by the roadside in Yongkala in the hope of seeing one of my most favorite birds - the Sultan Tit. The yellow-turbaned black Wazir never showed up. However, in its place, I landed myself another of my life birds - the sly looking Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher shown below.

 

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There are two birds that I particularly loath photographing - the Verditer Flycatcher and the White-throated Kingfisher. I have never been able to reproduce their colors accurately - it always comes out yucky - I think it is their shade of green. However, I finally managed to get it right in my following photo of the White-throated Kingfisher. As you can see, I managed to get the details quite well and the sharpness is darn good too. And, I dare say, the exposure is near perfect too!

 

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And finally, Bhutan’s MUST SEE bird: the Satyr Tragopan. Some believe that this bird is Bhutan’s most beautiful bird. But photographing it is not easy - particularly in Sengore where you can see these birds. The area is always wet and, even worst, it is foggy most of the time. This makes it extremely difficult for photography. I must have exposed a few thousand frames shooting this bird but I have barely 4-5 images of the bird that are, what I consider, keepers.