Sunday, May 23, 2010

Gir Part II : More than Lions

Peacock RoadShow
Keshav's gorgeous photo of Gir's gem.


In all national parks that have big cats, they tend to attain super star status. They dominate the conversation between guides, trackers, tourists and hotel staff. Be it tigers, lions or leopards.

When your jeep drops you off at your hotel, the hotel staff greets you with a drink, cold towels and the question " How many lions did you see? ". It is easy to get carried away by all the cat mania and count the day as lost if a feline was not glimpsed.

Gir is a birders paradise, and particularly so in summers. The brush is tinder dry and so drab, the more brightly coloured birds stick out like sore thumbs. Ive seen a lot of peacocks, but never have they looked more beautiful than in Gir. Take my word for it, my photos probably do not do them justice, but they are simply breathtaking.

During the evening, large numbers of them like to sit high up on electric pylons - the light is too poor to take pictures, but the unmistakable silhouettes look beautiful against the evening sky.

Peacock


As the jeep drives through the forest, the sound of multitudes of chirping birds rents the air. This can be experienced in most forests, but what really pleased me was that you can actually see little birds going about their activities even as you drive past, they are so easy to spot among the bare branches! Minivets, tickels blue fly catchers, bee eaters, magpie robins are present by the thousands. They are no longer nameless chirps in a sea of leaves.

Oriental White Eye


Of course, being able to see and being able to photograph are two completely different things. We saw a lot of dancing peacocks thanks to a heavy down pour on our first day at Gir. Unfortunately, peacocks dance for peahens; not for tourists. So most of the time, we get a back stage view of the performance. Thanks to K for lending me his peacock photo that Ive featured at the top of this blog.

TickelsBlue Fly Catcher Male


The birds were great, but the real bonus was yet to come.
As we tore through the forest in the quest for lions, our hawk eyed guide abruptly pointed out a movement in a tree. We backed up and stared in the direction he pointed and saw nothing.

A closer look revealed a large monitor lizard that was pretending to be a gnarled branch.

Monitor Lizard First Look


Fortunately it moved and gave a better pose, allowing us to see it better.
I'm glad that I was able to capture the leathery quality of its skin thanks to the sunlight and the new camera. It was a first for all of us, apparently they are not easily spotted.

Monitor_Lizard 2
Monitor Lizard


When not looking at lions, we saw :



Birds :

Black Ibis
Darter
Purple Heron
Painted stork
Wooly necked stork
Koucal
Red Wattled lapwings at nest
Brahminy starlings
Small green bee eater
Plum Headed parakeets at nest
Eurasian thickknees at nest
Changeable Hawk Eagle at Nest
Honey Buzzard pair



More Birds

White eyes
Great tits
Small grey un-identified woodpecker
Tailor birds
Babblers
Paradise Fly catcher ( Male, female, juvenile male )
Tickels blue fly catchers
Magpie Robin pairs
Sunbirds
Red vented bulbuls
White Breasted KingFisher
Small blue kingfisher
Pied Kingfisher
Yellow footed green pigeon
Minivets
Rose Ringed parakeet
Spotted Owlets at nest


Non-Birds:

Monitor lizards
Mongoose
Sambar Deer
Spotted Dear
Neelgai herd
Langoors
Crocodiles
Wild boar



I embed my Flickr photos in my blog, I do this because I have a Flickr pro account that gives me unlimited storage, and Flickr has some magic that makes my photos look some how better, no matter what the size.

I recently learnt that Flickr is still not visible in CamelCentral ( it is banned by UAE, Orkut is also banned )

So I thought I'd upload the gir photos of the previous blog to picasa ( not full size ), here is a shot slideshow of those, more will be added as I shake off laziness. :)




This post was delayed by too much work and too little electricity. The electricity part has been dealt with by investing in an inverter, photos can now be processed fearlessly. God bless Sukam and Exide!

10 comments:

Santosh Bs said...

Wow.. terrific Rohini!
the national bird has been truly amazing! Kudos to your partner!
The narration is as always lovely. Thanks!

Trails of a Traveler said...

Brilliant collections Rohini. The photos are just tack sharp!

Ram

Unknown said...

Thanks Ram and Santosh for your lovely comments.. I intended to post my final series on Gir this weekend but was held up by work :(
More soon.

I have enabled comment moderation to deal with the inordinate number of spam comments and advertizement for inappropriate sites. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Trails of a Traveler said...

Rohini, comment moderation is absolutely necessary these days due to number of spam entries we get. So nothing to worry about that!
I request you to check my latest blog here when you find time...

http://www.photography-travel.com/2010/06/kolli-hills-total-recall-part-1.html

Ram

Arun said...

Good show Rohini!....it is always great to surf a blog of someone who along with being a nature lover also takes great pics!! Keep it up

Nagesh Kamath said...

Nice. A very well written writeup and some fab photos :) Your Gir series has been a pleasure to read and watch!

Aruna said...

Beautiful photos. :) Which camera do you use by the way? :)

Unknown said...

Thanks Aruna.
I've just started using Canon 350D. ( I used it for the Gir Trip ) Prior to that I used Canon s3 with a teleconverter. ( All older pictures / posts are the result of that )

jimm007 said...

thanks for sharing your experience..its a great help..

Sumeet said...

I understand when you say, watching and clicking are two different things, however I was fortunate on this aspect. I almost (just almost) clicked all that i saw, except of course the Asian Paradise Flycatcher (Male)
It was such a beauty - could see it but couldn't click it.

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