Sandwell Valley Country Park is resident to a number of both water birds as well as woodland birds and small mammals. This park which is located in West Bromwich, England has a lot of birding activity and has a lot of open space from walking trails, open meadows, water bodies and areas of woodland. Here are some of my favourite captures over the past 8 years. I had used a number of different camera setups from starting with the Canon EOS 600D in 2014 to now using the Canon EOS R6.
Tag: bird photography
Day trip to Chilla zone
Few days back on a Sunday morning, me and a few others had decided to visit Chilla zone of Rajaji National Park. We left around 11:30 from Dehradun and arrived just within the hour. Gates did not open until 2:30pm so we had plenty of time. On this trip, we only opted to do the afternoon jeep safari. We did all the bookings on arrival. Jeep costs are Rs.2000 plus Rs.250 for vehicle road fee and an additional entrance fee of Rs.150 per person depending on the number of people there are for the safari.
Exploring Vagator
I had gone to the state of Goa back in February of this year. This was mainly for work as I was involved in creating behind the scenes content for the production company’s social media channels on Facebook and Instagram. The prime location was however in the Vagator area and this is where all the cast and crew were staying. After filming had commenced, I had decided to stay an additional 5 days before returning back to Dehradun. I had planned out which places I would visiting in the next 5 days so how of these 5 days, 4 days were spent in Vagator itself and on my last day, I had decided to go to Dudhsagar waterfalls and Panjim. Even in the month of February, the afternoons were quite hot and humid but by evening, the weather would become pleasant.
Birding at Assan Barrage
Assan Barrage is a small dam located around 40km from Dehradun. The dam is 287.5m long and has water all year round as it is fed water from the Asan river. This dam is responsible for creating of the Asan reservoir or also know as Dhalipur lake. This lake is a good location to view a number of water birds and migratory birds that arrive here in the winter months. The best time to visit between October and December as this attracts a lot of migratory birds to the lake.
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.
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.
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.
Birding at Danda Lakhond
Danda Lakhond is a locality within Dehradun and I had recently visited the place for some bird photography last Sunday morning. I had spent a few hours here exploring the area and I photographed a number of small birds. The area is surrounded by forest and there is a small temple nearby. Therefore here is a showcase of birds I was able to photograph on that morning. I had used the Canon 7D and Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L lens to photograph these birds.
Birding in Rajaji National Park
Rajaji National Park is not only a great place for mammals but also a great spot for birding. Here is a showcase of bird photographs taken at Rajaji National Park. These were taken in the summer.