DigitalFrescos – Blog

Before I could finish processing of the images from my Kutch I had to start for another trip, all of a sudden. My friend Sreeraj called me up one fine day and wanted to head somewhere for a photo shoot over the Christmas long weekend. I jumped in at the offer as my wife and the little one were heading to my parents place for the year end vacation. A quick call was made to Lingaraja S.S, DFO to see if he could help us with our objective of getting an image of Indian wolf. Lingaraja had a done an exhaustive study of an area called Basur Kaval in Chikamagalur district of Karnataka which is a small grassland hosting about 120+ species of birds and mammals. He was very helpful and arranged our stay and off we set to Basur kaval on the wee hours of 25th night around 12.00 am. The route we took was Bangalore –> Tumkur –> Tiptur –> Arsikere –> Kadur.

We reached Kadur around 5.30 am, checked in the hotel and quickly freshened up. Quick scan of the sky revealed that it was cloudy morning and the sky was not clear no sign of the moon or the stars. Lingaraja had provided us with the numbers of Harish and encouraged us to keep in touch with him as we travelled / arrived into Kadur. We set off on another 22 kilometer travel before reaching Basur Kaval accompanied by the forest guard to guide us. We were told that the sightings of the wolf has become less and the last sighting was about 25 days ago. We started scanning the area for the elusive and rare predators of the grass lands. Indian wolf is probably one of the most persecuted mammals in India; however one interesting fact about this mammal is that it has not cross bred with any other species of wolf for the last few thousands of years and is being considered as a separate species now instead of being considered as a sub species of Iranin wolf.

We saw a few Rollers, a few ground birds, larks, shrikes no sign of any mammals or raptors. Suddenly there flew across the path a male Montagu harrier which lifted our spirits. More search and 6 eyes scanning sides of the path, suddenly we saw a Black buck….Sree wanted to proceed further but I thought let’s make some images and whilst we were making some images the male of the gang made an alert posture and sree said sir see to your left what you have found….the guide confirmed yes it is a thola (Wolf in Kannada) there it was the first sighting of the male wolf. There were few shutter fired and then we slowly started approaching the wolf….stopping and taking images every few meters….it was very shy Had we not stopped for the black bucks we would have not seen this specimen at all. After making few more images it started running and moved into the thickets and no more sighting of it. We waited for a few minutes and continued on after not spotting it anymore, we roamed around the area further and arrived at a small lake where we saw some Dabchicks (little grebe) so we waited patiently in the banks to get some images of the grebe and call it off for the morning session. As we started our way back there was another wolf crossing the path and this one was shyer than the previous one and ran away immediately but we could see this one was in all its glory and the winter coat with the rufous coloration made it look gorgeous.

Evening session started at around 3.30 pm we could see the cattle’s grazing along in the grass land we scanned the area looking for wolf and foxes….no sighting for the first hour or so. Finally we managed to sight the same guy we spotted in the morning and more clicks followed. We moved further on to look for foxes, finally managed to sight a couple after the sun set even a high iso image did not ensure a good capture. We were happy with the sightings of the day and dropped our guide back in his village and started our way back to the hotel in Kadur. We were discussing the day and planning for the next day and were driving when I saw something by the road side some 40 meters away from us sitting like a house cat. I tapped sree on his shoulder and asked him to stop the vehicle. As the vehicle stopped the animal very alert sensed the vehicle stopping and lied down and in a split second turned back and ran to the “Chitutha betta” or the “Karadi Betta”. Yes indeed we spotted the spotted beauty – Leopard…what a pose it was sad that we had no images of it in the pose….Sree did make a record shot of the sighting from about 100+ meters. We hoped it would come out of the thickets and give us a darshan again but it was not the case to be. We left to get a small tweak in the vehicle fixed, had dinner and retired for the day after updating Mr. Lingaraja of our sightings. It started to rain whilst having dinner we kept our fingers crossed hoping for sunshine the following day.

Next day morning started with a mixed note no sign of stars we hoped that the sun will come out later and left for the field and to the spot where we had seen foxes the previous evening. We saw pair again but it was raining and showed no signs of stopping. After a patient wait for 30 odd minutes we bid adieu to this small but amazing piece of grassland that is home to 5 wolves and a bunch of foxes apart from rich avian life. We travelled back and en-route spent an hour and half with a pair of spotted owlets that were preening and drying up on top of a dead coconut tree. More images followed on the common stonechat male that posed pretty well and some montagu’s harrier male and female were flying low looking around for breakfast. We left the area headed back to Birur and Preeti Canteen for some Dosa, Vada, Chow Chow bath etc., it was a very tasty breakfast and one of the fine places to have thindi – like Vijay Cavale self also became an ardent fan of this small but lovely place for thindi J, would be glad to recommend Preeti canteen stop over for anyone crossing Birur. Post breakfast it was good journey back home after a stopover for lunch @ Kamat near Tumkur. Thanks to Sree for suggesting the trip and Lingaraja for all the help and guidance and all the support.

Click here to see all the photos from Basur Kaval Trip.

Looking forward to seeing your comments here and see you soon in the next post.

Cheers

Alwan.S

Hello all, just back from a birding / photography trip to the paradise called the Greater Rann of Kutch. It was a trip of 4 days and with some lovely sightings ….a few key summary and highlights.

· Got to see the Ghost lights of Banni – Char Bathi as the locals call it

· A Macqueens bustard sighting

· A Juvenile barbaric falcon sighting and images

· A late evening / night sighting of two pallid scops owl

· A male Stoliczka’s Bushchat displaying and puff dancing

· A desert cat seen again – seeing this in the second visit to this part of the world. Spotted and photographed this last year too.

Click here to see all the photos from Kutch Trip -Dec 2009.

Day 1 (Dec 7^th 2009):

I started from namma Bengaluru on the 7^th morning and arrived into Bhuj by the Kingfisher airlines. Vaibhav was there in the airport to pick me up. After having some tea (a shop recommended by Vaibhav bhai) enroute headed straight to CEDO left my bags, quickly assembled my tripod and set off to Banni accompanied by Vaibhav bhai. En-route stopped at a spot for the Buntings and after one hour found / clicked none then proceeded further to stop at a small pond. We scanned the pond and found a pair of Hoopoe, black winged stilt and parakeet. Made a few images of these and there was about 5 shovellers attempting to land in the pond….quickly ran for some cover and waited behind an acacia but every time the group would come close to the pond for landing abort and fly away, finally one landed but the other end of the pond….sun had already set by now and we went to Banni, we scanned the area for some owl and reached Khiero where we waited for a few minutes and we then saw the char bathi’s appearing around the horizon. These are small balls of fire that keep burning and are clearly distinguishable from beams of light. The beam has its light spread but this did not. There were atleast three different colors of these glowing objects – sometimes red, sometimes blue and sometimes white.

After wondering and admiring how / why this happens we left the area to return home. Just as we were planning to return to CEDO we saw one ghost light appear fairly close to us at about 300 meters and was clearly visible. It was fairly bright ball of light that moved from right to left of us and was visible for over 4 minutes before disappearing. It did not rise above beyond a height and at the same time it was not at the same height – it would gain and drop height but very little. We saw some vehicles too at the same time that were in Banni but clearly on comparison there was no vehicular sound around the ghost light when it appeared near us. If someone was running with a torch a bright light then there would be dispersal of beams of light but this was not seen by us. This gave a lot of thoughts and points to ponder over on and we moved ahead to return back to CEDO had dinner and then discussed the occurrence with Jugal who has seen this many times and have written about this in various forums and media.

Day 2 (Dec 8^th 2009):

Post lunch went back to the bunting spot waited to see a few of them – had some decent images of the bunting (House and the Grey-necked), sparrow (migratory sub species – Parkini), silver bill, white cheeked bulbul and started off to Banni to look out for Short eared owl. We scanned the area for other raptors too but both were not lucky to find any. We did not want to miss the excellent light so proceeded to click some images of the common shelduck but the luck had not changed. They kept a cool 1km + distance. There was a greater spotted eagle perched on the ground so decided to approach it even that fella was very shy and flew away. The light was dipping away and we could not get close enough to flamingos also….finally made some compressed landscape images of the flamingos and common shelducks @ 600mm J. The sun set by then so against a very colorful sky tried some images of the common cranes returning back to roost and then started on the way back to CEDO to retire for the day.

Day 3 (Dec 9^th 2009)

We headed for the coast to capture some waders. I had only one in mind – Crab plover. En-route we had to take a deviation from the road due to a construction and in that muddy road was able to click some images of the wood shrike on a lovely cactus perch and totally out in the open. We proceeded towards a small pond where Brown headed gulls were seen to watch and see them and then finally reached coast which was a neat 100+ kilometers. Whilst the breakfast was being set made some images of the western reef egret. Whilst having breakfast a peregrine falcon dived in all its glory to catch something and flew away – what a sight it was! Armed with my equipments and Vaibhav with the spotting scope and binocs we then walked around the coast to make images of the coast birds including Crab plover. We saw a group of Eurasian Oyster catchers and started to approach them – a cool 1.5 hours it took for us as we walked slowly, crawling many times but these birds were shy they kept a minimum of 80 – 90 feet+ . It after all this did we realize that we were well past 4 PM and thought of lunch…we headed our way back and checked different restaurants with none having any food. Finally had some ice cream and snacks to shore up our energy levels. We headed to a spot where we had seen a lot of demoiselle crane but we could see any…after searching the space for some sandgrouses and owls headed back to CEDO.

Day 4 (Dec 10^th 2009)

The day was dedicated to the Nalliya grassland. The day began really well with me spotting a really rare Homosapien – Addie the birdie J after a quick exchange of pleasantries and wishes we decided to proceed further. We entered the grass land area and were greeted by a black francolin walking towards us. No images though as it was always in the clutter. We then had some good sighting and a few images of the Eurasion Griffon. After this we went around the grassland at a particular spot saw an Indian Eagle Owl  in the open on a rock but it did not pose long it took off immediately and flew away. It was actually a pair of these that flew away – the reason was it was being mobbed was a falcon . There was frenzy immed as both Vaibhav and my shutters fired continuously at the falcon initial impression was this could be a laggar Juvenile but later got confirmed that it was a red naped saheeen falcon juvenile. The falcon would tease both the owls and will fly away, soar again turn around come back and tease the owl again – was this showing the huge owls whose territory this was? After this amazing experience we quickly had lunch made a few clicks of the pallid harriers in golden light and returned back to CEDO. We witnessed about 1000+ harriers making their way back to nalliya to roost and what a sight it was to see the flocks of harriers return back to their bases for roosting.

Day 5 (Dec 11 2009)

Banni again. Banni in kanada means come – welcome. It’s a desert land full of surprises. We quickly made images of the grey hypocolius and then proceeded to the area of where red tailed wheatear is found post all this we set out looking for raptors – main goal of the day. This whole trip the number of raptors I sighted or clicked was way lesser than my previous visit here in Banni. Probably good rains and availability of food dispersed the steppes and long legged buzzards wider?  No luck on other raptors or the short eared owl, so went around the parched desert land with the sun beating down – suddenly we got excited at seeing some activity what did we see – a desert cat again thrice in two years? Last year twice I saw it and this year too saw it. With the excitement of seen the desert cat again made a quick trip back for lunch and quick rest and came back to Banni again. Afternoon started well with a Montagu’s harrier posing well and then a female kestrel (BTW, I have not clicked the kestrel this year although seen around quite a few times). We headed back to the area where we had seen greater spotted eagle – no luck on clicks was very shy. Tried for short eared owl – no luck with that either. The sun was dipping and I was nearing the time when I had to bid adieu to Banni, so tried to head to the spot where we saw the desert cat. We waited patiently and well past sunset the cat popped out its head for a minute, I clicked a few images and it vanished into thin air. We headed back to CEDO and suddenly there was bird that was sitting in the road side and in the vehicles light it immed caught our attention. It was a pallid scops owl, a few images were clicked in a frenzy using the spot light as a help. We started to move on when another bird flew down it was the other pallid scops owl, much close. More clicks and finally bid amigos to Banni for this visit.

Proceeded to a thorny scrub forest looking for white naped tit and Marshalls iora saw both but no clicks. Returned back to CEDO by 11 am to get ready and catch the kingfisher flight back to Bengaluru via Mumbai.

Had a very pleasant trip and thanks to all staff at CEDO and especially Jugal bhai and Vaibhav bhai, Thanks for reading this long post, see you all soon in another post till then adios amigos. The list of birds seen and photographed is in another post and is available here.

Please note both the Red Naped Saheen falcon and the Pallid scops owl were not in the list but were pleasant surprises to find.

Hi! Warm welcome to Digital Frescos. Thanks for stopping by.

dig⋅it⋅al – adjective (Source dictionary.com)

• Computers. Involving or using numerical digits expressed in a scale of notation to represent discretely all variables occurring in a problem.
• available in electronic form; readable and manipulable by computer.

The term Fresco refers to a form of art. Frescos is the plural form of fresco. The origin of fresco is from the Italian word affresco. Fresco in its pure form is the art of painting upon damp, fresh, lime plaster typically on walls and ceilings during the renaissance and other early time periods. Fresco painting technique was used in Ajanta caves which were between c. 200 BCE and 600 (Source: Wikipedia). Another prominent example of using fresco form of painting in the Indian context is the Brihadiswara temple in Thanjavur, Tamilnadu.

Digital frescos is an attempt to showcase nature as we see and share the frescos created whilst traversing the sunlit path. The left corner of the banner in this website – Red Green and Blue squares represents the digital frescos. Just as the yogi seeks light, which is the guiding force for his aspirations, we photographers also seek and use light to capture as frescos the beauty and bounty which “The Mother” nature has offered. The right corner of the banner represents the traversal on the Sunlit Path.

Based in Bengaluru, I am a weekend photography warrior attempting to spend time with nature and in the process making frescos which I will share through this web site. Making digital frescos of birds interest me the most and Raptors (Birds of Prey) are of special interest. Every attempt is made to ensure that the subjects are treated ethically, after all if there are no subjects then were is the photographer? My heartfelt thanks to my wife for the support and encouragement on the frequent expeditions I take and also the help in designing and customizing this website.

I will be making updates to the site frequently adding more Frescos, do bookmark this site and check out later. Your comments, suggestions and critique are much appreciated and You could reach me thru email at alwansATdigitalfrescos.com or can use the contact form in the web site.

Cheers

Alwan.S