There I was, exploring the the exciting backyard of the Deerpark Monastery, Himachal. Everything was new and unexplored, the environment, the people, and of-course- the birds!
The first thing I stumbled on, was not a bird, but a inconspicuous root of a tree, put in the worst place possible. My camera was safe, I had cradled it in my arms like a baby, and my body took most of the damage. Sluggishly getting back up, I continued walking forward.
As I climbed up the small hill, a sudden flash of white wavered into the forest, right in the corner of my eye. Was I being delusional? It looked like a flying ribbon through the air, but there was no one pulling it. “hmm, maybe I fell too hard.” I thought to myself.
Streaked Laughingthrush, Ashy Drongo & Jungle Babbler infiltrated the area and made their presence heard. I even saw a Common Hawk-Cuckoo, (which was a lifer for me at the time) but I still wasn’t very focused, but rather bemused by what I had seen earlier.
The enigma of the flying ribbon etched on my mind as I made the decision to walk back towards the place of sighting. I wasn’t expecting to find it again, well-mainly because I didn’t even know what it was, but also because I only saw a fragment of it that went into the forest. Some bare dirt among the grassy patches showed me there was a pathway that lead to where that ‘mystery thing’ was coming from, it took me deeper down into the more dense forest, and soon all I could see was green and the smell of fresh soil. I didn’t want to go too deep in the forest either, after all I was alone- in a new place for the first time.. getting lost wouldn’t be a great idea.
I stopped in what seemed like a large glade, and there was no visible pathway to continue further. I carefully scanned the indistinguishable leaves hoping to catch a glimpse of what I saw earlier. Just a bit of white is what I needed to look out for… a bit of white.. a bit of- Aha!
There it was again! It danced across the foliage until the white ribbon stopped and rested on a small branch. There was no mistaking it this time, I had just seen the Indian Paradise Flycatcher! (The Male white morph, to be specific. But of course I didn’t know that at the time.)
The Indian Paradise Flycatcher is a bird straight out of a fairytale… when you see it for the first time you can only stare in awe and wonder how amazing our world really is.
An Indian Paradise Flycatcher, Male, white morph.(Taken by me in Bangalore)
Recently a lot of storms have been happening in my area, and when there are storms, there is lightning. I was watching a video about street photography at night, and I was immediately fascinated . The problem was not being able to go outside thanks to COVID19. After I watched that video, another video came up on the recommended section, and it was about how to shoot lightning. At first I was confused, I thought that you had to be very lucky to shoot lightning as you have to capture it at the perfect time, and that you have to have insanely high shutter speeds. But little did I know that it was easier than I would have thought.
If you want to start photographing lightning, remember no photo is more important that your own safety. Lightning is very dangerous and if you are shooting it you should have some basic safety. If you think a storm is getting closer to you, you should take shelter in a house or your car. I am no expert on the topic in fact I am just a beginner. But someone who is not a beginner is Pecos Hank. I highly recommend you watch his video by on how to shoot lightning, he has been shooting thunderstorms for over 20 years, he has got some great shots of lightning and the cool thing is you can get them too!
The best part about shooting lightning is that you don’t need tons of expensive equipment, any camera with a manual mode. (DSLR’s work best.) is good for shooting lightning, you can use your Kit lens, or any lens with infinity focus. You can even use a wide angle lens and get great results. If you don’t know what is infinity focus here is the definition→https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_focus
To set Infinity focus is very simple, just rotate the manual focus ring until you see the infinity symbol, it should look something like this.
INFINITY FOCUS
Now some additional stuff that you will need to get started.
You will need a tripod, (the heavier the better.)
A remote shutter.
Now let’s suppose you are me, and have a tripod, but not a remote shutter. Don’t worry, I have a cool hack to show you that I think you will like.
Before we get to that though, lets talk about the most important thing, Settings.
I use a Nikon D7200 for my photography, and if you are using a Nikon then I will show you how to set your camera up to capture lightning, If you are a Canon user, well good luck.
There is not going to be a fixed setting which you will always use to capture lighting, they will vary depending on the situation. For example if it is pitch black, then you will have your shutter open for a longer time. And please, don’t shoot lightning with your phone, it will most likely be a waste of your time.
Shutter speed: If you are shooting at night, you can leave your shutter open for anywhere between 10-30 seconds. If the sun is about to set, you can leave it between 5-10 seconds, The longer you leave your shutter open, the more digital noise there will be. But I suggest you don’t put the shutter below 5 seconds since the lower the time the less chances you will have to capture lightning. So basically you have to balance it out. If you have a remote shutter then you can also try “Bulb Mode.” with bulb mode you can hold down the shutter for as long as you want, so you can control how long the shutter stays open. With this you can press the shutter button, wait for the lightning to strike- and close it immediately after. If you don’t have a remote shutter then don’t do this as the act of pressing the shutter will cause camera shake and can ruin the image. To get to the Bulb mode, keep turning your shutter speed command dial to the highest number and then you will see something that looks like this.
Bulb mode
ISO: In most DSLR’s the minimum ISO is 100, and that is a good setting to begin with. Depending on the situation of course, but your ISO shouldn’t go beyond 600 as the more ISO means the more digital noise. It is recommended to use an ISO between 100-400.
Aperture: Start with an Aperture of f.8, If the lightning shows too dim, open it up more to f5.6. If the strike is still not showing at the lowest number, then it’s a sign you should increase the ISO.
Another important thing which I forgot to mention is “Manual Focus.” Your Autofocus is not good in the dark and manually focusing is a much better option. To change your manual focus on a Nikon camera, flick the switch on the left side from “AF” to “M”, (auto and manual focus.) you may need to do this on the lens as well.
AF & M focus switch on the camera.
And this is what the other switch looks like on the lens, switch both of them to manual.
If you don’t have a remote shutter, what should you do?
First let’s talk about the benefits of having a remote shutter, the idea is when a remote shutter is plugged in, when you click a picture there will be no camera shake. When you are shooting at very low shutter speeds like 20-30 seconds, even the slightest touch can cause camera shake. Using a remote is very useful for slow shutter speed photography.
But let’s say you don’t have all that, what should you do? do you just lightly press the shutter and hope for the best? There is actually a pretty cool solution, turn on your camera and press the menu button. Then go to Timers/AE lock, then Self timer, and set it to 2 seconds or less. What this does is when you press the shutter button there will be a 2 second timer before the camera takes the picture. Pretty cool, right? Now here is an even cooler step to make the shooting process fully automatic. You will notice below the Self-timer Delay option there is a setting that says, “Number of shots”. You can set that for the maximum number if you want it to go for a longer time. Let’s suppose we have set it to 9 shots. What happens here is that when your camera finishes clicking a photo of lets say 25 seconds, it will wait for 2 seconds and repeat it 8 more times! So 25✖️9 =225 seconds, and that means your camera is doing all the work for around 4 minutes! After the camera is done you can check what you have gotten and click the shutter again.
( All the steps in order )
I just started getting into lightning photography and hope you will too!
Here is a shot I got a couple days ago, this was my first attempt on shooting lightning.
Thank you for reading my post! I want to thank Pecos Hank, for inspiring me to do this, and all the other videos I watched on the topic on youtube.
These gentle giants once roamed the earth in millions,
today there are barely any and all we can see are bigger buildings.
350 species of them and now there are only two,
I think it’s safe to say something seriously went wrong, do you?
I’m talking about the Elephants, who we need to protect,
and educate the ones around us, to treat them with some respect.
They play a crucial role in the ecosystem and the environment,
soon we observe the jungles, only to find everything has gone silent.
when are we going to realize that it is us that is causing the violence?
a short poem by Rahul.
Please share this to raise awareness for these amazing creatures.
I would like to thank KCRE, (Kalinga Centre For Rainforest Ecology) Sanjeeta Pokharel, and Nachiketh Sharma, For giving me this assignment and inspiring me to write the poem.
Going out and looking for birds is not always easy and can be quite frustrating from time to time. However, whats even more frustrating is to not be able to go outside at all. Getting unbelievably bored and not knowing what to do. Trust me on this one, I’m an unschooled 13 year old. Getting bored is like my profession. There are solutions to boredom, but they, as most other things are temporary. Including birding. Don’t get me wrong I love birds, but they are not such predictable animals. You can’t guarantee to see a particular bird at a particular time, and even when you do, it may just be a glimpse. My point is you see, i’m extremely bored and sometimes I have no idea of what I should do next. For most school children the lockdown had affected them and their families a-lot, but for us… i’d say its pretty much the same. Other than a few restrictions such as avoiding contact with other people, (we live in a secluded place anyway) and not being able to get groceries as often, thing haven’t changed much. Thats why I created a small challenge for myself, Lockdown birding. How many birds can I see, ( and photograph. ) only from my terrace.
White-Throated Kingfisher, taken in Dhanauri wetlands.
I currently have about 36 species of birds that I have seen from my terrace, and its day 5 of my challenge. Please try this challenge too, I would love to hear about all the birds you see.
I now realized how sad it is not being able to go for birding trips around the area, I really miss that. But this has made me discover how nice it is just outside my home as well, just yesterday I saw a Golden Oriole perched on a faraway tree. Ive tried to make it a practice to wake up at 5 am every morning and sit outside. My mom is an early riser, so she joins me as well. We have tea when it is piping hot and still dark outside. Eventually, the sun begins to rise and the birds along with it. The first to start singing is the Bulbul, its melodious call, begins to call its other feathery friends out. I have an hour before the sun rises till the heat becomes unbearable for the birds. It’s so confusing to me how everything goes from a choir of chirps to absolute silence in just a matter of seconds. I heard a coppersmith barbet in the distance, and tried calling it with a recorded call. It didn’t really work, I don’t think it heard it.
Oriole from a year back, in the park in front of my home.
Above are all the birds I have seen so far, most of them are common, but I say it’s a good start considering they are from the balcony only.
A few days ago I had a funny encounter with an Indian Palm Squirrel. I had made a bird feeder out of two plastic bottles and hung it from a tree in my garden, I was really exited about it and I was checking the feeder very often, nothing really came to the feeder, but once a Cinereous Tit landed on it for a second only to fly away the next. Days passed and I didn’t check the feeder as often. Then one day I was sitting in the living room talking to my dad when from the corner of my eye I saw a squirrel, It appeared it wanted to get to the seeds but it didn’t really know how to. You see, I had attached a plate to the bottom of the feeder for the birds to perch on while they eat, but it heavily rained one day and the plate broke off, leaving just a hanging bottle with seeds in it. This was a tricky problem for the squirrel, It was as if I could see the cogs in its head turn rapidly while it tried to figure out a solution.
A hopeless squirrel and my bird feeder“You still there?”
Anyways I just wanted to share my experience in the lockdown, and the things I did to survive it! hope all of you are doing fine and I will see you in the next blog! Thanks for making to the end 🙂
In the last post we looked at the Indian Paradise Flycatcher and the Asian Barred Owlet. Today we will see the Himalayan Bulbul and Red and Yellow Billed Blue Magpies. Let’s start with the Himalayan Bulbul, it has a white cheek and a yellow vent. In pairs or in small parties, pretty noisy. Common and endemic to the Himalayas.
Himalayan Bulbul
Similar appearance to the Red-Whiskered Bulbul except for the white cheek and the yellow vent. Attracts attention with their pleasant calls.
The Red, and Yellow-Billed Blue Magpie are stunning birds with flamboyant tails that fan out when in flight. The Red-Billed is slightly larger than the Yellow. The two are very similar except for a few things. The Red-Billed’s white-patch on its nape is larger than the Yellow’s. Obviously the main difference is the bill color, (hence, the name.)
Identifying Raptors in general is quite a task, but the Oriental Honey Buzzard (Aka: Crested Honey Buzzard), is highly variable and can be difficult to distinguish. Here are some tips to identify them. (all photos by me unless stated otherwise.)
Fun fact! Despite its name, the species is not related to buzzards and is closer to the kites.
Tip 1: One of the key features of this raptor is its prominent pigeon-like head, giving it a very unlike-raptor look.
Tip 2: It is a large bird with a size ranging from 52-68 cm, and it has a streaked belly extending to the neck. Female OHB’s are larger and darker than males. Males have a black tail with a white band and the female’s do not.
Another Female, this time with a yellow eye.male (notice white band on tail)female?
Tip 3: if you don’t have the the privilege to see one sitting down, here’s how you can identify them in flight. In flight, they have a streaked and dotted pattern below their wings, and an outward bend on the outside of the secondary coverts. Here is an example below.
overall, if you have the right information (and some practice) you will be quick in identifying OHB’s. Or any raptor for that matter. If you are starting birding in India then i highly recommend this field guide. (link to buy below) https://www.amazon.in/Birds-India-Bikram-Grewal/dp/9380070225/
I myself am no expert just an amateur, I like to take photographs and share my ideas/photos with others. anyway, I hope you found this helpful, if you want to see my photography here is a link to my twitter account. https://twitter.com/racbaard
I will start off by saying that the Himalaya region is simply a birders paradise, there is no other way to say it. Speaking of paradise, here is one right now.
The Indian Paradise-Flycatcher is a stunning bird with two morphs in males, a rufous morph and a complete-white morph. The males have a stunning 30cm tail that is longer than their actual body. The females lack the long tail and have the rufous morph only.
Indian Paradise-Flycatcher (male white morph)
Below you can see the tail more clearly to give you an idea of how long it really is.
The next bird we will be looking at is “Asian Barred Owlet”. It is a medium sized Owlet with lemon yellow eyes and white eyebrows.
The interesting thing about this owlet, unlike many other owls, is that it hunts during the day (hence the photo.) Both the male and female look similar with white streaks on the belly extending to the neck.
Asian Barred Owlet
Below is a better view of the white barred belly.
These two birds are all that I will be posting for today but I will continue this series in the next post.
Rahul's Birding and Nature Blog 