Walk in Nagla Block, SGNP, Thane

Saturday evening me and Advait decided to goto Nagla Block area of SGNP on Sunday Morning, this was to avoid Yevur where we heard Forest Dept peoples harassing visitors. We never have been to Nagla Block before so i mailed Girish and he provided us req information. We left from home @ 7:30 AM and reached about 8:00 to Sasupada. We started to walk when one more group joined us (rather we joined them). We meet Yuvraj Gurjar in this group.

From end of Sasupada there are two trails, One on right side and other straight with bit climb. We followed the climb one. The weather was totally cloudy and humid as one can expect in rainy season and it started heavily raining within 10mins we started. We took shelter of Big Tree, luckily it did not lasted long. We got back on trail. It was too cloudy yet and light was too less to get good shots. We saw some birds like White Chicked Bulbul, Jungle Babler, Purple Sunbird,Black-naped Monarch; heard calls of King Fisher, Peacock (from opposite bank of creek),Dove and Prinia, saw Asian Open bill Stork flying high. But nothing on Cam :(

We moved further...

While coming back I decided to concentrate on Flowers rather than birds, so i switched lens from my tele-zoom to Poor-Man's Macro !

My Macro lens is 180mm F/2.8 Chinon lens with Nikon mount which I fit on Canon Cam using Nikon > EOS adaptor and attatched to that Manual Extension Tubes 50mm. This combination dose not gives me autofocus, but I thought using tripod and Live-View Focusing I can get proper focus. This was my first time of using this lens setup. I was struggling using it on my flimsy tripod and live view, thought for a moment that this is not gona work... Then I tried it hand-hold without live-view and voila it worked much better than tripod and live view. Following are the Photos from the trip. The Macros are not upto standard, I need to learn more and improve my techniques.

All photos are Full-Frame (No Crop)- No Processing - Just RAW converted to JPEGs.

https://plus.google.com/photos/104629915531838918973/albums/5503027893451641393?banner=pwa

Purple Sunbird of Nashik

Hi Friends here are shots of Friendly Sunbird. Taken from friends place in Nashik.

All except last one are Full-Frame (No Crop).
Taken with Canon 7D + Canon 70-200 F/4 + Canon 1.4x











Comments and Critiques are welcome.

Cheers
Sameer

Birding at Chena Bridge

Sunday Morning me and Rajesh decided to go to Chena Village area for birding. After looking at wikimapia we thought this area can be good for birding.

We meet at 6:30 AM at Chena Bridge and then moved into chena village crossed the village and entered some privately owned land where there is lot of mango trees, we can listen to birds from everywhere but sighting was difficult.

The road was clinging to small river which joins creek next to China Bridge. We saw one White Breasted Kingfisher flying away not to return. after moving little more leaving caretakers hut we saw few birds chasing each other on one tree. Slowly we stand hidden near that tree and within some time we can see birds are comfortable and moving around that tree and returning regularly within few mins.

The first one to be seen nicely is "Blue-winged-Leafbird" male on left with black throat and female on right.

(Click on Photos for bigger views)











There were Sunbirds flying around just able to see female though..

Purple-rumped Sunbird (Female)


Then tree adjoining this tree is visited by "Coppersmith Barbet"


We also saw on bird which appeared to me (after checking reference from 'The Pocket Guide to the Birds of the INDIAN Subcontinent') "Chestnut-Shouldered Petronia" but i am not 100% sure of this. It was juvenile sitting calmly on one branch as its mother feeding it regularly by catching something


While looking for more birds we saw Two Green Bee-eaters restless and chasing something on ground, looking carefully we saw Bee-Eaters were chasing snake - One Big Snake, The snake ran into hiding before we can reach near enough to catch on camera.

We moved ahead and saw one "White Browed Wagtail" (I thinks so), while returning we saw again the Kingfisher which fly away while we were entering returned to his original place on river. Also saw one "Spotter Dove" and "Erasian Golden Oriole" also there were lot of "White Cheeked Bulbuls" around.

Around 9:00 AM we decided to move to Airoli Mud-Flats. While leaving saw some "Cattle Egrets"


Once we reached to Airoli we try to reach to creek by walking next to bridge but it was inaccessible. We reached on the bridge and saw hundreds of Flamingos in low tide creek. They were scattered almost to the point where we can see.




There were some waders which I could not identify as they were too far from bridge and due to their small sizes.


However we got some nice shots for "Greater Flamingos"




Returning back we stopped at Sector 15 in Airoli and again went to small creek area and saw some "Egrets", "Cormorants" and "Marsh Sandpiper" (I think so).



Also saw one "Little Heron" who was approaching to one rock near us and as soon as it landed, it spotted us and then took off to settle on opposite bank.




We also saw pair of "Bank Myna" (I guess so again) just fleeting glance as pair took off from our back.

One "Common Myna"


Also saw on "White Cheeked Bulbul" I thought it juvenile.


We returned by 11:00 AM for relaxed lunch at the comfort of home.

Overall its Good Sunday morning.

Happy Biridng
Sameer