Sometimes one can get amazing landscapes without having to travel far. Here I am sharing four images of the same viewpoint taken from the roof terrace of my apartment building. Each image is unique in its own way. Clouds add mood and interest to the image. Without the clouds, the same images would look less interesting or boring. The buildings in the foreground lead up to the horizon point with the mountains and clouds appearing in the background. This is what I feel makes the image quite interesting.
Preening behaviour of jungle babblers
Here I was able to capture the preening activity of jungle babblers, taken right from my apartment in Dehradun. Birds preen mainly to remove dust, parasites and also to straighthen their feathers to help in flight. These birds are quite commonly seen in private gardens and woodlands.
Shikhar falls during monsoon
Here one afternoon in August, me and a few friends had planned to visit Shikhar falls for a small trek. This was once the lockdown at been relaxed. With this in mind, I decided to go with my Canon camera gear to take some amazing landscapes. For these shots, I had used the Canon 5D Mark III and Canon 17-40mm f/4 L lens, Mefoto Globetrotter tripod, 10-stop ND filter and remote shutter release.
Photographing Hornbills
Grey hornbills are commonly seen in Dehradun but Oriental pied hornbills are very rarely seen within the main city of Dehradun. It was great seeing Oriental pied hornbills without having to travel far and this was the only occassion I had seen one and also was able to photograph it using my Canon gear.
Raven with kill
This is a series of images where one morning I had observed a raven feasting on probably the carcass of a pigeon. The raven with its kill landed on the branch of the tree and as soon as I observed this sight, I then rushed to get my camera and took this series of shots before it flew off. A raven can be distinguished from a crow in a number of ways as ravens are much larger and the beaks are bigger and curvier compared to the beak of a crow which are slimmer and straighter.
Photographing Indian Palm Squirrels
Same launch pad but different birds
Brown headed barbet nest building
Last month from my balcony, I had observed this brown headed barbet making its nest or home by creating a hollow within the tree. Birds mainly build nests for hatching of eggs and rasing the young but sometimes after making a nest, they simply abondon it. I find this surprising because I had observed the amount of hard work that is involved when creating a nest inside the tree. They are constantly at work everyday. Nests could be abandoned for two reasons. One is that the presence of a predator such a cat or it could have been a dummy nest.
What should be done?
On travelling from Dehradun to Noida, we had made a brief stop for some refreshments Garbage thrown in a ditch near the side of the road will attract feral dogs, rats, boars and monkeys and also becomes a breeding site for mosquitoes. And also this is not just in one location. There is a common site across various road side restuarants. I feel it should be responsibility of the restuarant owners to avoid creating such a mess and some action should be taken against them if they cannot keep the area clean.