Macro photography

With some nice sunny weather earlier in the week I spent a couple of hours mooching around the garden with the macro lens for the first time of the year.

Macro photography is a whole different ballgame compared to taking pics of wildlife with the long lens. Getting the right settings is far trickier although it is good to practice whenever possible.

The insects were buzzing around the garden lots but I did find a few specimens to have a go at. Taking a half decent photo is only half the battle, identifying the subject seems to be a whole lots harder!!

Here are a few of the best results from my session.

Hoverfly Eupeodes luniger

Hoverfly sp

Hoverfly Eupeodes luniger

7-spot ladybird

Mining bee Andrena minitula 

Mining bee sp

India 2019 - Up in the hills

February 7^th 2019

A long day but well worth it. Up at 04:30 and ready to leave at 05:00 as long as it wasn’t raining. Rain at Sat Tal would mean snow up at Pangot and we wouldn’t be able to get up there in our vehicle. Thankfully it was dry and we set off on the winding journey up to the cheer pheasant with the aim of arriving at dawn.

The weather was OK on our arrival although the low cloud was coming and going. Pretty much the first place we stopped I looked over the edge of the road from the car and spotted a pheasant moving about under the trees. Rachael then spotted a 2^nd and when JP got onto the he called CHEER!!! Amazingly they are normally incredibly hard to find on the steep grassy slopes and we had 3 birds on the road in front of us! Target bird seen before it had really got light at it was the first bird we’d actually seen that day. It was the best views that JP had ever had and they can often take hours of scanning the hillsides before seeing one. 

male cheer pheasant - pic taken from inside the car, very early in the morning, resting the camera on the headrest!

We drove further along the road in search of other species and had our breakfast on the edge of the forest where we managed to add Himalayan woodpecker to the list. The weather really wasn’t on our side with showers and low cloud making it not possible to get out and walk much so we had to make do with birding from the car. We did manage to add a few more high altitude species but it would have been better to have walked. Having said that, we did manage blue-capped redstart, rufous-bellied woodpecker, chestnut thrush and Altai accentor but dipped koklass pheasant.

We dropped down lower towards Nanital where the weather was better and it allowed us to walk the road. Birding conditions were still tricky and an increase in vehicle traffic made the birding hard with new species being added all the way back into town including black-headed jay, green backed tit, black-faced warbler and maroon oriole.

We decided to head back to Sat Tal for lunch and a quick session in the photographic hide before spending our last birding afternoon searching the rivers south of the town. We managed to do well for forktails (6 spotted & 1 little) but not slaty –backed that was a possibility in the area. 

Spotted forktails

A small diversion into a heavily vegetation valley near the hotel was excellent and we chanced upon a nice flock of birds. We followed them down into the valley and had good views of mainly white-eyes but the flock did include 2 tiny speckled piculet 

We did have decent views of a chestnut-headed tesia hoping around the dense riverside undergrowth and our last new bird was a brown dipper in the fading light at the end of the day.

female blue fronted redstart

Buff barred warbler

Grey hooded warbler

Streaked laughingthrush

India 2019 - Wonderful Vanghat

February 4^th 2019

The morning safari out into the forest before breakfast was only short but it still managed to add several new species to the list including buff barred warbler, Whistler’s warbler and a fine common green magpie. The Corbett part of the trip wasn’t over as we lucked in on four otters fishing in the river on the edge of the camp. Another 2 species were added along with 2 golden jackal before we left the park for Vanghat.

Two Asian barred owlets were on the roadside as we headed over the hills towards Vanghat. We met the Vanghat guides at the suspension bridge and walked into the camp with Anil. There is no vehicle access into the camp so our bags had to be carried to an old jeep which took them down to the river. From there they (along with us) went across the river on a bamboo raft before being carried (the bags not us) the rest of the way into the camp. We took the walk option which was good after having spent several days birding from a vehicle. The walk added a few new species including fire-tailed sunbird and red-billed blue magpie. We emptied our bags into our room and had a late lunch while watching the camp feeding station. There were plenty of birds about including grey treepie, red-billed leiothrix and rusty-cheeked scimitar-babbler amongst the hoardes of jungle babblers.

Asian barred owlet

After lunch we headed down to the river for a couple of hours. Pretty much the first bird we saw was a wallcreeper that flew by and started feeding on the riverbed! I then spotted a little forktail standing on the rocks in the rapids on the edge of the river. Always great birds to see and a strange combination of dipper and wagtail. We walked upstream and Rachael spotted another forktail on the far bank, this time a spotted forktail! Good views were had as a pair fed along the shoreline on the far side. All of a sudden two great hornbills flew over the canopy and landed in the trees. They were very hard to see perched up but superbly massive birds. A blue rock thrush on the riverbank was an unexpected bonus. Two goral, a small goat-like mammal were found by Anil on the hillside opposite the camp. In the late afternoon light and against the vegetation they were pretty hard to see when they were not moving. Although not rare, they are normally pretty elusive.

We ended the afternoon by adding small niltava and grey headed woodpecker, both around the camp, to the list.

Little forktail

Spotted forktail

Great hornbill

Wallcreeper

February 5^th 2019

We were up before it got light for our morning walking safari. The walk started with an ‘interesting’ safety briefing on what to do if we encountered big cats or elephants! If it was a big cat we had to make as much noise as possible while waving our arms about in the hope we’d scare it off but on no account run. On the other hand, if it was an elephant, run and try and discard an item of clothing to draw its attention!!!!! This wasn’t quite what we were expecting to hear and to be honest a little disconcerting as we headed across the river and into the forest. It was rather unnerving then when Anil said that the goats alarm calling in the steep river valley next to us were probably doing that because there was a leopard in the area! To say is was slightly distracted from the birding was an understatement and thankfully we didn’t come across anything to warrant our new training although we did find a couple of old tiger scats.

The walk was good if a little quiet. The birds were again in mixed flocks and the trick was finding them. When we did they were big and had a nice selection of species. The bulk were oriental white-eye but the mixed flocks also included bar-tailed treecreeper, lemon-rumped warbler, long-tailed minivet, black throated and black lored tits. No brown fishowls were in the usual roost locations but we did see both forktail species at the waterfall before we headed back to camp.

We had a couple of hours to relax and bird within the camp fence. Great hornbills and griffon vultures were over the valley and there was time to photograph the birds coming to feeding station.

Black bulbul

Blue whistling-thrush

Fulvous breasted woodpecker

Grey treepie

Grey winged blackbird

Afternoon walk behind the camp through some fields that were really good. The plantation felt really birdy and held some quality species including a male Himalayan bluetail, rufous gorgeted flycatcher and a smart male grey-winged blackbird. We headed further up the hill to a flowering cotton tree that had been attracting large numbers of birds but it was a bit late in the afternoon and there were no birds. We did add black-chinned yhunia to the list and I found some grey-headed woodpecker feathers for my collection.

The last couple of hours were spent sat by the river attempting to photograph the two species of water-redstart. The light wasn’t great but I managed a few shots.

Plumbeous water-redstart

February 6^th 2019

A final pre-breakfast walk around the camp and down to the river. A couple of female samba deer crossed the river before we spooked a male that we hadn’t seen. His alarm calls echoed around the valley and it legged it across the river into the forest. The little forktail showed well again but it was still too dark for any photos. We added great barbet to the list and Anil saw his 400spp, a rather skulking aberrant bush warbler. 

Nice views of collared falconet in the camp before we left sat in the top of the large cotton tree. It was amazing how small they were and in flight they reminded me of a weird cross between a beeeater and a martin…! Breakfast added greater yellownape to the list and then white capped bunting (3) near the bridge as we said goodbye to the excellent Vanghat team and met up again with JP for the journey to Sat Tal.

A couple of stops on the way produced Nepal wren babbler and long billed thrush but we dipped on ibisbill for a 2^nd time.

We had a long and winding journey up to Sat Tal where we arrived in the late afternoon but despite this there was still some time to do some birding. The excellent photography hide added 4 new species while a walk around the hotel surrounds with JP produced a few more. The last new species of the day were a couple of rufous chinned laughingthrush at the feeding station; the 300^th species of the trip.

Rufous chinned laughingthrush

Small niltava