Spectacled Cobra ( juv.)

This beautiful juv. spectacled cobra was rescued near bannerghatta road.

rescued spectacled cobra 

Nothing much to say about the post folks, stay tuned to my blog for more updates.

Special thanks to Deepak Jayaprakash, the snake expert.

  © srivathsa.s
  The photographs that i publish in this blog are copyrighted.
  Contact me for full resolution pictures. srivathsaaa@gmail.com.
  Indian wildlife photography.

Birding at Hebbal lake,Bangalore

  Let me tell you about hebbal lake first. It was created by kempegowda way back in 1537. The park is maintained under public-private partnership and the management allows birdwatchers and photographers freely between 6.30 AM to 9.30 AM without any restrictions. So its a very good place for amateurs to learn.

 The habitat is favoured by many species of birds such as the Spot-billed Pelican, Eurasian Spoonbill, Shoveller, Pintail, Garganey, Little Grebe, Coot and Spot-billed Duck. We can also find sandpipers and other waders as well as Purple Moorhens, Purple Herons and Grey Herons in the shallow zone.

Ashy prinia

  Inside the park we can easily spot pale billed flower pecker, parakeets,ashy prinia, great-tit, white eye, kingfisher,tailor bird and all species of sun birds.With a standard zoom lens we can easily take good pictures. Birds inside the park are not at all shy, with little bit of patience we can get close up pictures, these pics are shot with sigma 70-300mm lens without any tripods.

female sun bird

 Make sure that you visit on weekdays to skip weekend photographer crowd, if you want to get suggestions from others, visit on weekends and feel free to talk to others, most of them are kind enough to help the beginners and they will share their tricks and techniques.

Male sun bird

After few visits you will get to know where to wait for, to spot particular species, there are many bird nests inside the park and if you are lucky enough to get the pictures of birds with hatchlings you can walk out of the park proudly with bunch of fabulous pictures. Hebbal lake is noteworthy for bird watchers.

pale billed flower pecker

  Stay tuned for my next post which includes water birds from hebbal lake.

  © srivathsa.s
  The photographs that i publish in this blog are copyrighted.
  Contact me for full resolution pictures. srivathsaaa@gmail.com.
  Indian wildlife photography.

Leopard

 This photo shoot was very special to me,it was my first DSLR camera and it was my first wild cat sighting in my life. I now own a canon 60d by the way.
It was a lucky day, perhaps a very lucky one. But i did not know how to operate my first DSLR camera properly! yes, believe me i wasted half of the time setting the exposures in the manual mode. Just try to imagine the situation,probably the leopard was irritated to see me struggling with my camera.
 Anyhow i had a fine 8-10 minutes to shoot this magnificent beast, till a group of  Langurs drove the leopard crazy and it just disappeared in to the woods.

  This is the very first photo that i took when the jeep driver spotted the leopard and stopped the vehicle close enough to get shot like these. Its a magical experience to see the beast in the wild with soothing silence around. According to forest guards this beauty is approx 2 years old.

 Leopard seemed surprisingly cool when we stopped our vehicle and i was the one to become all nervous. It was a very good experience.

leopard getting irritated by langurs

Soon a gang of langur monkeys arrived  towards us and made the situation worse, above pic was the moment when leopard spotted the langurs. I don't know why langurs do that, the leopard was just relaxing at that time and it had not intention of hunting i guess. Soon it got irritated and tried to change the spot and it did not help anything to stop langurs from screaming.

some of the pictures are cropped, as my lens was not reaching the leopard fully. you know as they say nothing is sufficient to shoot wildlife.

leopard

It disappeared into the forest, before that, it gave a glance towards us, like saying good bye. It was magical, blew my mind right away. My mind was like "oh man!! wonderful, this is my life i belong here, who cares about my engineering degree? ". Who would have thought such experience could happen by bunking the classes for a whole week! totally worth it.... 

A final good bye from the cat

 © srivathsa.s
 Wildlife and artistic photographs that i publish in this blog are copyrighted.
contact me for full resolution pictures. srivathsaaa@gmail.com.
Indian wildlife photography.

Malabar Pit Viper

 Malabar pit viper and My first experience with a venomous snake.

When i took my new canon s5is camera, i was 16. I had the craze to travel in search of nice shots. But i had never took a photo of snakes before this incident.

One day we planned a trekking from kemmangundi hill station to Hebbe falls which is scenic 7 km trekking route. After 3 hours we reached the falls which was amazing(see the last pic). Like most of us will do, i gave my camera to one of my friend and asked him to take a picture of me in front of the falls,and claimed on a rock. Few seconds later i noticed something odd and looked down, there it was, ready to strike my bare feet!!!

A SNAKE!!! IT WAS MALABAR PIT VIPER!!!

Man! that was the longest 2 sec in my life, i experienced my heart pounding like crazy, my mouth was a dry desert, to save my very life i jumped into the water which was the right and only thing that i could have done to save myself. Medical help was/is a dream in such places.
Everyone rushed into that place, scared snake tried to escape like it didn't do anything to me. But it couldn't escape from my curiosity, i picked up a stick and picked it up on that and started to take photographs. This one is the first.

Malabar pit viper

 Though i did not know it was a venomous snake. I did not wanted to take risk and did not enrage the snake as the people in natgeo will do.So after few minutes it seemed like it was getting irritated so i let it go.

They are found exclusively in Western ghats, they are mostly inactive during day. Nocturnal and found on the rocks near streams. Malabar pit vipers have heat sensing organs(they are called heat sensing pits) in their head, which helps them to hunt the prey even in the dark. They are slow moving snakes but strikes very quickly (tested!).Amazing creature and one of the gem of the Western ghat's crown.

Here is another picture of malabar pit viper that i took in Agumbe.

malabar pit viper

 This is the falls where i had a wonderful opportunity to take these pictures.Unforgettable moment in my life.

hebbe falls

 The snake was on a rock, somewhere situated in the bottom right in the above pic 
After searching the snake in the web i got to know it was venomous(was feeling very proud) and since then am very interested to take photos of these beautiful creatures.

 They are dangerous creatures to play with, in some places of India u couldn't get treatment if u got bitten by a venomous snake,so know your limits and be responsible when you have a chance like this.


 © srivathsa.s
 Wildlife and artistic photographs that i publish in this blog are copyrighted.
contact me for full resolution pictures. srivathsaaa@gmail.com.
Indian wildlife photography.

yellow footed green pigeons

  Yellow footed green pigeons or yellow legged green pigeons are found all over the subcontinent, mostly in thick forests. These green pigeons feed on many kinds of fruit, i would say they are mostly dependent on ficus or fig trees.
  One day i found a fig tree full of ripen fruits near a village and decided to wait there to take photos of birds which comes from the forest areas near by. Few hours later i saw two green birds feeding on the tree and that was the very first time i saw a green pigeon! I was stunned with its beauty , its purple eye was amazing.

female yellow footed green pigeon

  On the very next day i visited the same tree and found them again,they were regular to that tree in the morning time. In the early morning, green pigeons are often seen sunning on the tops of emergent trees in forest areas so finding them is very easy if u have keen observation.They build delicate nests in the thick trees for reproduction.

male yellow footed

  Massive destruction of fig trees for widening of road or for other development purposes leads to the loss of habitat for these kind of birds. Even though they are widely spread across india, am quite uncomfortable saying they are "least concerned"  rather i would say they are "nearly threatened". Saving fig trees benefit many such birds including hornbills and other threatened species.

 © srivathsa.s
 Wildlife and artistic photographs that i publish in this blog are copyrighted.
contact me for full resolution pictures. srivathsaaa@gmail.com
Indian wildlife photography. 
  Return to home here, Indian wildlife photography.

GREEN VINE

    Green vine, the most beautiful snake i have ever seen. Green vines are mildly venomous and active during day. It highly depends on the camouflage,as they uses it as transport medium. The snake stretches its whole body to reach the highest point and it can almost stretch up straight without any support. The snake is least seen on the ground which makes very difficult to find out.

One day we were out in the jungle searching for birds, we noticed some unusual moments in a low level tree and we kept observing it for a while ( its really hard to find out) and we noticed something moving around  and we went there to check in. We saw a beautiful snake which was stretching its whole body to move around.

                                                               green vine

They are very thin and it can grow upto 1.5 to 2 meters. The body is aerodynamic. The snake feeds on Frogs,lizards and even birds sometimes. It goes to the highest point and uses its binocular vision to hunt. And almost i cannot forget this one because that was a first snake bite in my life. My friend told its not venomous( actually he meant slightly venomous), I was like too much excited about it.  I took some photos for a while. And i wanted to take some macro shots, so i leaned towards it and started to take snaps, suddenly it got annoyed and gave a nasty bite. and then it started itching, we went back to see doctor, that was another story to remember.

There is a stupid myth in parts of southern India, that the species uses its pointed head to blind its human victims. Actually its behaviour towards humans are neutral. I got to say it can surely scare you by opening the mouth as widely as possible.
More story about green vine in next post.
© srivathsa.s

These wildlife photos that i publish in this blog are copyrighted.
contact me for full resolution pictures. srivathsaaa@gmail.com