Little escapades from city life

Inaugural shoot with folks @ Yodlee

2011-11-14T07:32:00.000-08:00

Photography and love for nature go hand in hand, we @ Yodlee decided we would have a photoshoot @ lalbagh to kickstart the meetups of shutterbugs and nature lovers.

Lalbagh is a unique place, right in the heart of the city and yet has varied and rich flora and fauna.

Meeting at 6:30AM on a cold Saturday morning probably offset some of the excitement resulting in just the three of us - Rajesh, Saurav and I meeting up. But hey! was a start nonetheless :)

Kicked-off the "click-a-thon" with the morning light off the lake providing for some nice silhouettes :)

Play of light

Moving around the periphery of the lake noticed a good number of Pond herons and cormorants.

This lesser cormorant drying off it's wings after a underwater dive

The greater cormorant

Diving!

The Indian cormorant with it's beautiful eyes

Moving on towards the lily pond we saw a lone pelican perched up and these ducks enjoying their morning bath. Made for some nice Photo ops

The male with the beautiful green sheen

A checkered keelback swimming back with it's tummy full (of fish!)
Rajeh's pic

Water sources always are a hub for bird and insect life. We got a few nice closeups of some willing models :)

The common myna - reminds me of the italians ;)

This lil' Ashy prinia

Purple moorhen

With a truckload of shots, time flew and we refueled with some water and fruits. It was then time to shift to the macro lens.

The kite spider

The yellows providing a nice background

Content and glad we kickstarted it, promised each other that we should do it with a regular frequency.

Rajesh's lovely set with the morning views and moods can be found @ Rajesh's flickr set

Adios till the next ride/shoot!

Cheers,
Hayath

The arrival of the bigmos

2011-04-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

There are some decisions, especially when it comes to gear/gadgets that happen in a jiffy. And so was the decision to pickup the Sigma 150-500 OS HSM A.K.A. Bigmos!

It wasn't a bolt from the blue, but was a sort of a culmination of having seen what the lens is capable of, and an opportunity that presented itself :)

It's been a "quarter" so to speak now, and quick recap of the images that the Bigmos made possible...enjoy the large(r) view! Will also put up a quick review towards the end.

The first "trip" the lens made was to Chennai in search of the flamingos of Pulicat lake, did not spot any, but was total fun!

The first few shots went down the drain..this lens surely does grow on you. A bit bulky but definitely hand-holdable!

Pelicans at Nelapattu, a very nicely maintained "paradise"

Oh, the extra reach of the 500mm was just exhilerating, not many pictures needed that "heavy crop" anymore ! :) Standing on this beast's "shoulders" so to speak I could see further :D
The lens fared pretty well in capturing in-flight shots...another reason why one should take everything put up on the internet w.r.t. reviews with a pinch of salt.

White Ibis

Open billed storks

Roosting Spot billed pelicans - taken safely from a distance from a watch tower. Strongly suggest one does not approach a bird's nest be it on foot or car. Some birds can abandon nests and will never return. Places like these where the birds are used to human presence and facilities provided to watch them from a distance is the only place one should even try taking shots like these :)

The extra reach also helped me "see" things closer and notice the smaller behavioral aspects, thus increasing the fascination

Also did allow me to get a decent "working distance" from the more skittish birds. And in cases of smaller birds which are a little more co-operative, did produce some decent bokeh even at f8! The closer the subject is to MFD, the better the bokeh gets esp @ longer focal ranges.

Stonechat

One of my most liked images from this lens, can't put a finger on it, but like it :)

Pied bushchat
http://www.indianaturewatch.net/images/album/photo/2894620554d69fcd1b1f93.jpg"/>

Paddyfield pipit

Ashy crowned lark

Yellow wagtail

Rose ringed parakeet

Plum headed parakeets

Brahminy starlings

Oh and the raptors too :)
Common kestrel

Tawny eagle

Indian spotted eagle

Oriental honey buzzard

Spotted owlet

Egyptian vulture

And lest I forget, the most shot bird with this bazooka - the green bee eater :)

It's only with this reach did I make some decent imaages of mammals - predominantly the Blackbucks. You can read more here

The Jayamangali pose ...lol

And a macaque family portrait to wrap things up

A bit about the lens from what I've understood this lens this far
* Shoot @ f8
* Turn OFF IS when shooting in good daylight, found the IQ improves
* Use IS for shots only below 1/320
* Avoid using it @ 500mm, use it more like a 450mm lens. If you *have* to use it @ 500, stop down to F11, makes the IQ much better
* Develop a good hand-holding technique (if you're planning on using this handheld)
* AF gets very tricky in low-light situations
* Can be trained well with the FTM ring even for Bird in flight shots. Always look for contrasts to help AF lock on easier
* As they say "good bang for the buck"
* Ensure you read this and avoid lenses with the "problematic" serial numbers
******** FROM THE SIGMA SITE *********
150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM with serial numbers between 10674301 and 1097200.
******** FROM THE SIGMA SITE *********

The year's been off to a great start and hope it gets better and better :)

Cheers,
Hayath

Black bucks @ Jayamangali

2011-03-04T22:51:00.000-08:00

Maidenahalli, Jayamangali are two of the names this black buck reserve is known as. Had been on my wishlist for quite sometime.

A weekday holiday in the form of Shivratri got us some time and a few calls later - Madan, Vimal and I decided on paying this black buck territory a visit.

Started early and stopped several times enroute with some good sightings.

Plum headed parakeets

Rose ringed parakeets

The Indian roller in the morning light - sorry about the un-natural perch of the electric line

After crossing the bumpy roads, reached Jayamangali black buck reserve with the bee eaters providing us some fantastic photo ops!

The female

Madan got this fantastic shot of the bee eater spitting out the pellet - which is an amazing way of getting rid of the tough exoskeletons of the insects the bird consumes, talk about packaging!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WLYlKpKKChQ/TXEEQQCwhII/AAAAAAAAAPc/jF3ZxabEZLs/s640/Regurg.jpg

The land's a lovely grassland, we were really hoping to spot some Indian coursers and maybe if lucky even a Fox.

Making our way into the reserve we saw a few juveniles running across the road (dirt-track)

A little distance inwards, we spotted this large male. And as it turns out these would be the only saving grace in terms of black buck shots.

The black bucks society is a harem - a dominant male with several females and other juveniles.

The female here seen with her lovely large and sparky eyes!

A young male, which most likely would have been driven out of the herd by the dominant male. Young males often form male only "groups"

Driving around we could not spot any more :( Madan told me last time they saw herds and herds. Well, that's how wildlife goes! It's a large reserve and they could have been anywhere.

The drive though did provide us some good birding ops.
The Ashy crowned lark male

A female lark

Crested lark

A pipit

Purple sunbird

Indian roller

A couple of bay backed and grey shrikes also spotted, sadly against the light.

We explored the surroudings a bit more and spotted another small herd and watched them from a distance.

The dominant male with a juvenile

A Montagu's harrier scouting around for prey providing some entertainment for both us and the blackbuck ;)

Stopped at a couple of water bodies on the way back, but did not spot much.
A shot of the cattle egret in flight

A Indian Spotted Eagle that was being chased by kites

Thanks to Madan for the drive, we know it was a tiring one!

All these with the Sigma 150-500, and almost full frame shots in most cases. Certainly enjoying the reach..

Adios till the next ride then ;)

Cheers,
Hayath

Hearing the jets roar

2011-02-13T05:23:00.000-08:00

Aero India has always been an event much awaited! By many aero, photo buffs for reasons all their own.

Some like the "technology", some the "aerobatics".
Hearing the jets roar does send the heart rate through the roof, the aerobatics and the photo-ops are just the "cherry on the cake" :)

When Aero India came back to the Yelahanka airforce base, the excitement was back and so was my eagerness to pay the metal birds a visit. But the schedule at work wasn't helping/conducive.

After much last minute planning we headed out for a half-day session to the airforce base. The planning/co-ordination there left much to be desired, causing us to lose some precious time of the few hours we had planned out.

The first sounds of the jets helped all that disappointment go to the "backburners" so to speak :D

The jets in the able hands of these daredevil pilots had all the people glued to the skies! The sounds of the jet exhaust and the crackling air made me scream out in excitement, much to the amusement of other spectators. The ones who shared my enthusiasm shared a smile :)

Had my Sigma 150-500 and was hoping to get some "up-close" shots. The light was plenty but the air had a lot of "haze" thanks to the exhaust and the smoke trails left behind by the flying metal birds.

Thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience (yet again!) - will let the pictures help experience some of the excitement :)

The jets

One of the most satisfying images of the day!

The Sigma certainly did help with the extra reach :)

The red bull flying team providing some awesome aerial control at close quarters

The sarang team pushing the ALH to it's performance edge

A face-to-face showdown

Some of the flying birds which flew on the day
1. LCA - Tejas
2. RAFALE
3. IJT - had seen this practise from our office premises too :)
4. F16 - Falcon
5. F18 - hornet
6. EUROFIGHTER - typhoon
7. SU-30 - Sukhoi

Missed watching the SAAB Gripen and the suryakirans.

The jetliner category was hotly contested with even Sukhoi entering the fray
Hope you enjoyed these. Thanks to the air force in bringing us these fabulous opportunities to the passionate civilians!

Security measures were taken care of well and so were the cleanup crew helping keep the premises free of debris and the resulting birds trying to scavenge on leftovers.

The next visit here definitely will have to be a full day affair, this time came back wanting so much more ;)

Till the next ride..

Cheers,
Hayath

The first year of the DSLR - year in review

2010-12-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

Had been using my trusty Sony H2 for quite sometime and was pretty happy with it, apart from the rare occasions where I'd think a manual focus would have helped so much!
Plus the friends telling me "you deserve a DSLR, you will see the results for yourself" got me thinking. Went about listing out the probable cameras which would fit my rugged style, and the pocket too :D
Which one would take my outdoor lifestyle, manage decent range without changing lenses too often, etc. Note here that I was "spoilt" by my H2 which would allow me to take macros as well as telephoto shots without having to change lenses.

Have had horrible experiences with the battery life/usage with a P&S where I've been left high and dry in places which provided many more frames.
The single most reason I went in for a DSLR was the ability to use strobes and play around with Off camera flash. Fish photography is what got me into this hobby, and am glad has remained at the top of my "Genres". The passion to show the fish of my land in their best sure did help seal the decision!

The Nikon D80 was top of the list, but with it being out of production - getting hold of it seemed very unlikely unless I looked around for a used body. And then happened to look at the Canon prices and the 450D seemed pretty much "in range" and also allowed me to invest on a telephoto lens too. To me the gear/make hardly matters, cameras are just "tools" which help capture what the eye perceives as a SHOT.

Went ahead and bought the Canon 450D and we were inseparable for the first few days, played around with the settings trying to get familiarized. And all the outdoor trips still took the trusty H2 along too, just in case there was a scene that was too complex to handle with a new camera :)

ISO Speeds seemed so much different, ISO 200 on the H2 and on the 450D were worlds apart! Aperture settings and the resulting DoF were as different as chalk and cheese. All the other concepts of metering, shutter speeds still helped (all the more reason one must have sound basics)

There are many places on earth which can be called "Heaven on earth" and one of those places has to be Yosemite national park. What a place to start the debut of the camera outdoors! A frame everywhere you turn or see, spoilt for choices got some decent ones (for that point in time).

And for a fully reflected frame

This from here will be a sort of a "year in review" :)

SFO and it's surrounding places provided enough opportunities

The first time I saw a full rainbow

The coastline of California presented some nice views too.

Down the line picked up the Canon 55-250mm f4/5.6 AKA Nifty two fifty to fill the telephoto void. Though it does not provide that great a reach, it more than makes up with the decent IQ And IS. The IS especially has helped me on many occassions in fading light and the wetlands around SFO.

Avocet

The dainty and super beautiful hummingbird

Burrowing Owl

Christmas weekend visited my cousin at San diego. Sea world had to be on my must-see list and I'm glad I went

Anemone

Slowly got accustomed to the 450D and the H2 got used sparingly.

Back home in Bangalore, it was finally time to put the Strobes to use in fish photography - thanks to my dear friend Vyas who let me use his Vivitar 2800 (I had not ordered a flash yet)
Light and proper use of it sure does help get the max out of lenses. The use of light sure did bring a smile and that new found sense of excitement. Flash photography does teach you a lot - and believe me each part/new technique does that. I call it expanding your envelope, pushing yourself from the comfort zone to just outside it and get comfortable there :)

A simple egg

By now I was beginning to see a good "progression" (thankfully) of images and their quality. Did give me the confidence to showcase the fish of India and created an album dedicated to them.

Etroplus canarensis

P. sucatio

Puntius denisoni

Puntius filamentosus male - with the tubercles showing in readiness to breed

Anyone for a kiss?

You can see the whole album here
http://picasaweb.google.com/hayath.m/NativeFishOfIndia

The Channa barca and their grace did provide a fresh bout of inspiration

And so did the interesting fish that came in.

Geophagus iporangensis

Allenbatrarchus grunniens

My "pet" Oscar

Now that's what you call a closeup :)

The bird shots came along, and some came off pretty decent I thought.

A long time dreamt shot of a bat in flight, too bad the sun was behind it

Banking Brahminy kite

On the lookout for easy prey

Purple heron

Roosting ring necked parakeets

The egrets

The thinker

And not to miss the beauties which cannot fly - the flowers. Call flower shots cliche, but they sure do have their place in photography and the eye of the beauty seeker

Even the weeds can have some interesting flowers

A few staged ones

Got to borrow Ajay's Tamron 90 macro (for an extended period) - thanks Ajay! And as they say once you've tasted it, you gotta have it and in came the my own Tamron 90 macro..yay! That opened up a whole new world alebit small yet very diverse. Started noticing bugs around the garden more closely and was rewarded with fabulous sights and previously overlooked details...making me fall in love with nature over again.

The mating dragonflies

They love it mid-air!

The hot seat

Ant mimicking spider

The mother Lynx spider guarding her nest

After the babies have left to fend for themselves

The little jumping spider with it's huge eyes

This is what a fly looks like :D :P

And this is how much it can turn it's head

The super odd looking caterpillar

Amazing handiwork of nature - the compound eyes of the dragonfly

The wings are no less intricate - the common picturewing

Wasps - large and small

The killer!

Long legged fly - super reactive to flash, tend to bounce when flashed

For once when it did not

Peacock pansy

Grey pansy

The delicate damselfly

Jewel bug

A few reptiles along the way, none exotic yet

The slithery skink

The scales of a road-killed green vine snake :(

Met some interesting people and made some "happy with" if not reasonable images.

The smiling buddha :D

Landscapes are always catpivating and did delve into that a little bit more thanks to the "wider" reach of the 18-55 (I know people with a 10-22 will be laughing at this :P)

Sands on a beach

Lighthouse at Point reyes

Waiting for the rains

Summers in South India

Waiting for the tide to recede

And a few abstracts to add to the mix ;)

Precious drop

The running snail :P

Jellies

Fish arranged to catch attention @ Karwar

Playing with smoke

So, exactly a year ago the "kit" started with the 450D and a gifted kit lens (thanks Ishaq bhaya)

And now has the following -

L-R

* Canon 450D with the Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro - a super versatile lens (and SUPER macro capability). Generally has the CTR-301P radio trigger mounted.
* Canon 50mm f1.8 AKA nifty fifty - low light master
* Canon 18-55mm EF-S Kit lens - the workhorse
* Canon 55-250mm IS - THE walk around lens. Allows for some telephoto ops.
* YN-465 speedlite - When the sunlight isn't enough! Generally sits on the CTR-301P receiver

Though not a bike ride, but it's been a ride nonetheless making all these ;-)

In case there is no posting till the new year, wish you all a super new year ahead filled with joy and prosperity. May mother nature continue to shower us with the embarrassment of plenty and wonder!

This year has seen many lives come and go, I lost my very young cousin Sana and a great aquarist friend Trevor - whose photography inspired me in the nascent days of my fish photography. Dedicate this post as this year is all set to bid goodbye to you souls I'm happy to have met, thank you for everything :)

Stay delightful!

Cheers,
Hayath

Karwar for Diwali

2010-11-10T21:50:00.000-08:00

Imagine a whole year without a full weekend outdoors! And that's what this year's been for me. Been some good one day outings, but nothing that spanned a weekend. When Humaid told me he would be in Karwar for the long Diwali weekend, I jumped at it and almost invited myself over :D

Booked tickets almost a month in advance, put it down to enthusiasm as well as the trend of Bangalore to have a mass exodus on long weekends and the impending ticket crunmch.

Karwar's always been a magical place especially with the whole heady mix of herps, birds and fish! Booked a 400mm f5.6 prime from the fabulous guys over at toehold in anticipation of some good shorebirds at the beaches/estuaries.

All excited about the prospects of a weekend outdoors headed out on Nov 4th evening with an overcast sky, with the thought of the mad rains in the coastal belt somewhere in the background ;) Even if it rained, I'm sure I would have still enjoyed that! The wait for the Panaji bus was exctrutiating, the large mass of people at the bus stand did not help either. The much awaited bus which would take the holiday-ers to Goa arrived a full hour behind schedule. Then, it was Bangalore city's raods to show how choked they can be! The Metro work coupled with the drizzle and weekday traffic brought the bus' pace comparable to a snail's. An uneventful journey to Karwar and I see clear skies! A stark contrast from the last experience of "torrential" rains. With a smile on my face got a rick to Humaid's place where I was greeted by his dad and mom.

A quick break and we were off to the estuary nearby. Was high-tide, but the sights were amazing. Had been here during the earlier trip too, but the rains had severely limited visibility (read more here - http://iridealone.blogspot.com/2009/06/karwar-place-where-rain-gods-smile-all.html)

The vast magngrove system at one side of the bridge and the mountains on the other. For the sore eyes it sure was a treat :) Took in some of the atmosphere and clicked away looking for frames.

The other side of the bridge

Humaid tried out his luck with hook and line, and managed to get some catfish, an interesting goby (locally called "Kherchi"), Terapon jarbua and this very interesting black damsel-shaped fish.

Terapon jarbua

The goby

"Shengdi"

A moray eel swimming past

Schools of fish were found on the banks too. Estuaries provide perfect nurseries for fish

Changed over to the 400 prime with excitement and snapped a few again. The lens seems heavy but very much hand hold-able. The AF is one of the faster one's I've seen. The fixed focal did make composition a little tight, but was a nice first experience.

A parakeet couple nesting in this dead coconut tree.

A green barbet making it's nest

A couple of closeups of butterflies too :D

This nice field of flowers framing the backdrop nicely

With the clouds threatening to burst anytime soon, we reached home just in time to avoid the downpour (which went on for a couple of hours). Used this time to snap a skink which Humaid caught.

The neighbour's kids eager to show off their cute lil kittens to us

The play of light

A sumptuous lunch and a quick nap later, we were back at the estuary to explore it at low-tide. The exposed area of the estuary just bursts out with life. Tons of fiddler crabs out to feed, and never far away from their burrow/hole. Was quite amusing these little fiddlers (compared to the other larger crabs) show off their overgrown hands to the others.

This very different almost "ghost" like crab

Unknown blobs of jellies found on the exposed bed

The fiery red ball announcing it's retirement for the day.

With the sun setting quick, I almost forgot looking left towards the base of the hills. What a sigth to behold! The sky colored a slight blue, fishermen's canoes forming a strong silhouette, low lying clouds at the base of the mountains. Too bad had just taken the Tamron 90 with me and no wide(r) lens, but I guess some sights are to be experienced only (yeah yeah, the grapes are sour story :P)

With the light fading, fish began to tug at Humaid's line more. We caught the toadfish, locally called "Ukkeer"; something which got me excited. This species is a lot more different than the toadfish I have at home (Allenbatrarchus grunniens). A lot lesser "decoration" on the body and a nice horn like tuft above the eyes.

Content and happy, we returned home to plan for angling at the river side again ;) Used the line and hook after more than a decade. (As a kid, used to go out fishing once in a while in the Arkavathi river in Kanakapura)

We caught the same catfish species here (locally called Shengdi).

A good 4ft plus moray eel also took the bait.

Was lucky to reel in another toadfish.

There's a saying "Men go out fishing not realising it's not the fish that they are after" How true!, especially if it's as a leisure activity. The night sky littered with stars, waves splashing on the clamshell colonies, the dark waters, fishermen paddling their canoes all made it surreal. The serenity was captivating.

With dinner in our tummies and Anshi on our plans for the next day, we retired to bed.

Early next morning visited the old bridge on the estuary to view the sunrise. The large mountains on the left prevented any good early views of the rising sun, and when the sun started shining, so did the waters :)

Had some socializing with the local fisherfolk.

They even called out when they were about to use the cast net :D

Some even offered me some of their catch, which I turned down politely (did not want to take back the normal scats, monos).

On the bridge I saw lots of moray eels discarded. Apparently the locals prefer not to handle them since they have razor like sharp teeth. What a waste!

But they tell me these are more than abundant here...

The tide seems to determine the activity of this rustic town. During high tide everyone is busy fishing and enjoying the bounty of the estuaries.

These kids showing me a Barramundi which swims inland to hunt on the smaller fish here.

The morning light lending some nice light on this Brahminy kite looking for a meal.

Back for breakfast, we headed out towards Anshi national park on our bikes. Humaid's cousins - Imran and Rauf joined us.

The streams leading to Kadra are pretty untouched (and thankfully devoid of morning droppings from people).

This tiny well-camouflaged mantis preying on some bug

Can someone ID this for me please?

The lone reptile - a Calotes

Spotted the Puntius filamentosus and Puntius sarana subnasutus here along with the usual Rasbora daniconius.

Humaid and Rauf trying out their luck

Talk about camouflage!

Moved onto a large-ish stream which had this magical blue-green tint to the water - straight out of a postcard!

The normal killies, Rasboras and Puntius filamentosus were found here.

The rocky bottom would have been ideal for loaches. Did/could not spot any at all. Anyone have collected/documented loaches from here?

With our tummies calling out for attention (read hunger :P) we reached Kadra. Stopping over at Kadra dam, we spotted Puntius filamentosus and some juvenile mangrove jacks (apparently come here up river from the estuaries search of prey). Asking around for lunch, we reached a nice shack where we had "fish oota" (fish meals). The skies decided to open up again, and we used this time to get some rest and water proof our belongings.

All the snakes we saw till now were roadkills, and most of them were these beautiful and dainty green vine snake :( As they say "A crime shame!"

The amazing colors on this one, wish we had seen one live!

Rode out towards Anshi with some nice roads and greenery all around. This nice waterfall on the side of the road. Could not see any fish here.

That's L-R Humaid, Imran and Rauf

The possibility of a lot of snakes/herps in general got me excited. Plan was to reach Anshi by dark and look out on the roads. Sipping on tea at a road-side shack we tried out some smoke photography and long exposures.

With darkness set in, we started our journey down the ghats looking for activity on the road. All we spotted was a single frog and soon we were back at Kadra. All the low-gear riding used up more fuel than we thought and we were out of fuel. Thankfully we were past the ghats and we stopped right in frony of a lamp-post. "Transferred" some fuel from the other bike till we could locate petrol somewhere. And we found fuel in a "Grocery shop". Karwar has limited petrol bunks, so most of the shops here do stock up on Fuel, and how thankful we were for that now ;)

With a constant drizzle we reached Karwar sound and safe.
A few of the moths attracted to light

Fundoo hairdo :D

Post dinner, it was Diwali time. Burst some crackers and slow shutter fun exposures :D

Final day morning and we reached Devbagh beach early.

Was a nice walk on the shore, but the only birds we spotted were lone Ringed plover and a Common sandpiper. The Karwar beach did not yield anything either.

Some shots from the beach

The crabs which were found in plenty

Surprised with disbelief on two consecutive days of not having spotted anything, moved onto the fishing harbour called "Baithkol". Lots of boats coming in with their catch and people eagerly waiting to buy fish in "wholesale".

The social bonding time for the fisherfolk to mend their nets each day

Moved onto the breakwater area and the smell (or should I say the stench) was overpowering. My shoes did not touch the ground, all that was there below was layers of dried fish, mostly powdered and lots n lots of maggots! The dried fish supplies the poultry industry with feeds.

Got some nice close-ups of the common Cattle egrets and pond herons.

Reached Karwar back for a quick eat at the bakery and went out to explore the weekly Sunday fair. If one thing would denote Karwar - it's got to be fish!! And lots of it, in all forms - powdered, dried, cut; you name it.

And one thing not fish :D

Ventured into the overcrowded fish market to peek at the catch they were selling. Sharks, Rays, Skates and even this beautiful looking Angelfish.

Took a rick back to Humaid's place where he was packing up bags to head back to Pune. Bid our farewells and off Humaid went. The family though continued to shower their hospitality and had a sumptuous lunch and a quick nap.

Went back to the bridge for some last hour shots, and yet again greeted with the fiddlers. Taking some final shots, I explored the receding tide exposed waterbed seeing the hermit crabs forage around.

The clam colonies which are razor sharp, can hurt very bad

And this perfectly camouflaged Goby which was quite common here.

Even the dogs here seem to enjoy the low tide, frolicking around

A bunch of kids who had seen me here earlier here offered me a nice looking Butis and this damsel-like fish. Thankfully the hook had not peirced deep and these were in good condition to be brought back.

This grouper(?) wasn't as lucky

With one last parting shot which sort of befit the journey, headed back

Reached Humaid's place quick and packed up bags. Rauf dropped me off to the bus stand.

Cannot thank Humaid and his family enough for providing shelter and food. The hospitality cannot be thanked, only acknowledged :)

Would have wished this would have been a nice end to the journey, but far from it! The darn bus (Rajahamsa) from Karwar to Bangalore had all sorts of problems - headlight which kept falling off, problematic clutch, and I'm sure problematic brakes too! We lost a huge chunk of time trying to fix it, many pleas to have the bus changed fell on deaf ears.

Morning stop at Kamat near Tumkur was only a temporary respite, the mad Bangalore traffic awaited us. Stuck on the road for hours on end with the crazy traffic with rains n puddles and the bus driver trying hard to manage a jumpy clutch. Adding to everyone's woes was the Metro work near Yeshwantpur :(

All drained and with a sore back, landed home around lunch time with the gloomy weather. A nice nap followed :)

Adios till the next trip!

Cheers,
Hayath

The "macro" weekend

2010-10-18T00:13:00.000-07:00

The weekend was a nice one with most roads empty with people thronging temples and busy with the festivities of Dussehra.
Made me think about my shots and thought I would get some of them printed out. Somehow prints capture your attention a LOT more than just digital frames. In order to maximize the number of frames I was gonna print, I went about clicking a few "macros" which could be print worthy

And that brought about a whole lotta ops and photos from the weekend. Some here -

Lotsa critters

Water striders (taken with the Tamron 90, qualifies as a macro? ;) )

Damselfly

Love those eye spots on this beautiful one. Pretty awesome strategy confusin the predators on the attack!

Tiny grasshopper

Ants

Some unconventional perches ;)

Jewel bug

Flowers, no matter how cliched; retain their beauty and capturing that has always been a challenge all photogs strive for :)
Attempted some

And the parting shot

Intend to get some large prints done this weekend, and hopefully enthuse more!

Cheers,
Hayath

The sunday shoot with BTP

2010-09-21T01:28:00.001-07:00

Bangalore travel photographers...this was a group which I used to to shoot with. This had been pushed to the backburner with most of us being bogged down by work, though we had been shooting but not as a group.
A gtalk pings and a post on the group's page got some of us interested back again!

The plan was to head towards Kanakapura and explore the surrounding areas/villages. We caught up at Metro with the usual meet and greets - many new faces :)

First stop was a smallish lake to get everyone's feet wet :D

With the insect life around everyone got shooting quick

This Picture wing dragonfly

We were provided some action by the ever entertaining monkeys

The caterpillar who just shot to fame with a dozen photogs taking pictures from all possible angles ;) Poor thing must have started feeling like a celebrity

The slanting light of the morning made for some nice lighting

With Rajnish's lovely kid - Rashi, it was fun explaining the insects and the plant life. (who took some very nice shots with her own camera)

Moved on to Kanakapura's famous "Vasu hotel" for some tasty Masala dosa along with nice coffee to get people warmed up for the day. With bellies full we headed to a small lake which had a saw mill nearby.
Sunday being a holiday the machines and the whole feel of the mill was nice to shoot. Tried out some portraits and strobes.

An abstract take on the Spider web

Anand's wife being a sport volunteering for some poses

Anand just had to follow :P

And then caught Pramod :D

And Akshay

Lots of these Calotes in the piles of wood

The rings making some interesting patterns

Out the mill and into a paddy field

Shot some at the lake

The territorial Common coots

Lily leaves

Further on we met these group of villagers who culture silkworms and were very warm and welcoming. To me, this is the best part of being outdoors - meeting new people and getting to talk

The old women who work there

To me, this was THE takeaway shot from the day

Filling in the worms

The worms have a super appetite which needs constant attention in order to gain best growth

Getting ready to pupate

We then headed towards Muthathi (a plan which did not really go well), but then writeoffs are part of any plan.

Stopping to shoot the paddy field workers

They were all giggles having so many of us "city dwellers" shooting at them

Reached Muthathi with loads of people, most of them using the open area to cook their lunch

And also dry out clothes

Did I mention lots of monkeys too ?

And this one holding on and warning Sunil when he tried getting close for a shot

We decided to head back via different route and stopped a couple of times to shoot some birds and other interesting subjects that we saw

Stopped back for late evening lunch at Domino's

Was a very nice trip with fantastic company to go along with!

A group shot at Domino's

Looking forward to the next one ;)

Cheers,
Hayath

PS: The link to the group is http://www.flickr.com/groups/bangaloretravelphotographers/ and we're on Facebook too
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=141445719231726

The "tiny" world

2010-08-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

The world is a very big place with lots to see...lots of sights to take in, wonder at. Landscapes provide the vast views, wildlife provides unpredictability and beauty.

The world as a fact is ruled by bugs (some men think otherwise!) There are many more bugs to each square mile than any other life form. Have always been fascinated by bugs (including the ones in software :D :P ) and a borrowed macro lens from Ajay a friend of mine helped me peep into their world a little more.

And having a garden helped a great deal. Following are some of the bugs found in my garden. Enjoy!

They say having a sense of wonder is one magical capability we humans possess. How often does one wonder how the eyes of a common fly look like!

Why do flies manage to avoid potentially fatal swipes?

The compound eyes plus the "hair" that act as sensors :)

Spiders, have seen atleast 6 varieties (yet to ID many)

Lynx spider guarding it's nest on the underside of a leaf

The tiny jumping spider

Yet to ID

The "victim" of a spider - sucked out dry!

This lovely ant-mimicking spider

Caterpillars of all shapes n hues

This super tiny one

Ants of all sizes

This one laying eggs and guarding it ferociously

This is how ants rest

Red ant black ant

Bothering the pair that were ready to lay eggs

Beetles

Flexing before take off

This first-timer for me, has an almost unicorn-like hard "crown"

Mosquitoes..we all love to hate 'em, and in fact only the females need blood; the males get by on fuilds from plants

Miscellaneous ones which I could not categorise :D

Reminds me of a hermit crab that "adds adornments" to it's mobile home

The honey bee with the pollen all over it

The macro lens provides a fantastic means of watching them up close through the view finder. Shooting these is super tough with a macro lens, this is how "thin" the plane of focus is at f10!

A special word of gratitude to Ajay who allowed me to play around with the lens. and as always bow down to mother nature for the lovely sights.

The saying "god is in the details" sure holds good when you take time to notice and appreciate the smaller things which often can give you/rekindle that much needed sense of wonder. Stay wonderful!

Cheers,
Hayath

The breakaway weekend!

2010-04-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

That's exactly what the weekend that passed was. Crazy, hectic and outrageous are a few words that could remotely describe the work pressure at office having me work 15-17 hours a day, for more than a month!
Being so outdoor inclined, staying indoors without a good "breather" does make me cranky and slightly disoriented, plus down goes the productivity.

Took a couple of days off from work to "get the sanity back". And what better way than a lone ride...the open roads, wind in your hair, birds in the trees.......
Woke up a little late, but yet managed to make some good ground and reached Kanakapura for breakfast with some lip smacking Masala dosa. Moved on to explore the areas around the small town which boasts of some nice landscapes and decent amount of wildlife.

Quite a good number of lakes exist around and went about lake-hopping. Water is always and amazing element, offers good photo ops, both with respect to birding as well as people.
Where there is water, there is fishing!

And good amount of birds

Lesser cormorants

With a grey heron

Pied wagtail

Some kind of a pipit(?)

The brahminy kite

Probably one of the better shots I ever got of this species

The dry climate lending some nice earthy colors

The baked lake bed and the newly sprouting grass does evoke emotions! Talk about hope, making way for the new, etc.

Insects, amphibians and reptiles

Dragonflies in good numbers :D

These mating dragonflies which I captured earlier

Signature spider

Oh and did I mention people too :D

Lillies filled the small lake

Also saw some Ottelia sp ih the corners/edges of the lake

Some vals

Ambulia (?)

Egeria densa

The nice landscapes as I rode around

The yellow flowers of this tree making it stand out in the landscape

Spotted some Oryzias dancena with their "light-like" eyes glowing in the sun on the surface

Just as I was shooting these, happened to miss the low flying raptor (could anyone ID it please?)

And then some nice greens

Mangoes...the summer speciality

A few shepherds made for some good subjects

Call this the true art of "chilling", blazing hot sun, lie down under your umbrella with a nice breeze sweeping across

My bike facing some traffic problems :D

The sheep with some attitude!

The blazing hot sun failed to dampen the "riding" spirit on the day and I completed a good 300+ Kms on my bike. Lots of tender coconut helped matters too!

Felt REAL good, the screaming winds at speed I think take out all the clutter from the head :) :D
Returned home in the evening with a super tan, but a refreshed mind. A shower and a quick nap, and was all set to plan for the next day.

Headed out to Mysore with family (had not spent anywhere close to enough time with them for the last month or more!) and checked into a resort, spending the rest of the day in the pool cooling off. Lying around in the pool doing nothin else sure is some definition of a holiday ;)
Next day morning was set for Ranganathittu bird sanctuary...THE place for nesting birds. The little islets there become a beehive of breeding activity with every little available space heavily competed for.

This time round saw lots of Painted storks, Openbills, Spoonbills. Missing in action were the River terns and the stone plovers.

Pond heron in breeding plumage

Juvenile

Cattle egret

Great egret

The breeding dress was the fashion of the season

Tons of shots of the painted storks

Sparring for nesting material

Openbilled storks

Juvenile

The gang rock

White ibis

Had wanted to shoot a flying bat for a long time, and it happened this time :)

Too bad the sun was behind the bat :(

And a healthy number of crocs

Returned home by nightfall totally refreshed and happy that I did spend some time with the much ignored camera, and spent some good time outdoors.

Adios till the next ride :)

Note: Remember to take time off to refresh and rejuvenate!!

Cheers,
Hayath

Taking the new lens for a ride

2010-01-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

Picked up a Canon 55-250mm f4-5.6 IS on Saturday. Having had the 18-55mm "gifted" (read stolen) from my brother-in-law, this fulfilled the telephoto range.

Saturday late evening in the park of Stanford is where the new lens was taken through it's paces.
This one's not going to be too many "words", pictures might outnumber the characters in this post :D :D

The squirrel watching me

The IS on this lens "does work", shot this at 1/20, past sunset with barely available light.

Testing out the "macro" closeup distance n performance

Observation : Does pretty well in terms of "focussing fast" and "shooting in low light"!

Next day morning it was onto the tidelands of Coyote point, near San mateo. It is open vast lands of bay shore with tons of waders. We reached at the right time with the water levels still up. We found ourselves not too far from the feeding birds.

The female of the same species

With the occassional territorial fights

The concentration and focus of these birds when hunting is fabulous

The rocks covered with algae n some plant growth

Enjoyed the fresh air and walked around the "bunds" often sitting at long stretches to enjoy the place and the birds.
some "fun" group shots

The bunch of three watching the fourth "fly"

Watching people enjoy the outdoors, irrespective of age groups was nice.

We reached the boat park section - the Coyote recreation area.

Found more ducks here

The lone pigeon

Moved further to shoot a few passing birds.

Some "metal" ones too :D

Talk about heavy volumes in air space, these two did an almost sychronised landing

Took a few closeups/macros when I was there

Returning from the jetty, this little humming bird not more than 2" (excluding the beak) allowed us to get close and gets some gorgeous closeups. The colors and hues on this little one were mindblowing.

Inched closer n closer one step at a time

I think god decided to spend a little more time creating these lil winged wonders :)

With the light diminishing, we visited the Coyote point animal Rehab center, time for some "practice shots"

Not a "real" Coral snake, but this one imitates it to "fool" predators.

The Colored bottles lit up nice

Then it was outdoors again with very little light when we shot this Turkey vulture.

The mushrooms also caught our notice

The "cat", lovd his/her stare

Some shots of the smaller birds

A few monotones

Walking back captured a few views of Dusk.

Took the SamTrans and then the Caltrain to reach back.
A fulfilling and tiring day (we walked the whole day!!)

Adios till the next ride/visit.

Cheers,
Hayath

A fishy weekend

2010-01-04T16:35:00.001-08:00

San francisco lies on the coast and is surrounded by the Ocean and bay. With me being the "aquatic" kind, decided to explore the fishy places and headed out to the "Aquarium of the bay" on Pier 39.

We took the combo of the Golden gate "cruise" and the aquarium visit.
The exhibits are pretty decent with it more inclined towards showing the inhabitants of the immediate surroundings, with coldwater fish dominating. What was also nice was the underwater viewing area with the "false" bay simulated.

There were also other tropical displays with the mini-reef systems.

Talk about gaudy colors!

The Pipefish were awesome to watch.

The "tree frogs on a frog tree" was fun to see, all of them almost using the "level parking".

Jellies with their jumpy movements!

Mr. Crabby threatening...

Then the shrimp with the killer looks

Done with the aquarium visit, headed outdoors again with a slight drizzle picking up. The winds got pretty chilly as we took the ferry to go around the Alcatraz island and the Golden gate bridge. The heavy weather hindered viewing the Golden gate in all it's beauty. Having seen it earlier, did not hurt that much.

Back ashore, the little droplets of rain provided some interesting subjects.

And also this amusing sight of nickels on the pillars.

Pier 39 is pretty lively and it being New year's day, people were thronging that place.
The docks wore a deserted look though.

Also took a few night shots of the streets

Later that evening, Rahul pointed me to the Steinhart aquarium (Thanks mate!) which is part of the California academy of Life Sciences.
so it was the next "target".

Waited in the long serpentine queues for tickets and entry.

A look inside and it was all worth the wait :)
A Jurrasic fossil greets visitors to two levels of displays.

First went into the "Rainforest" display - a dome which is temperature and humidity controlled. Which is what our camera lens' found out with condensation! The temperature outside was "pretty" cold.

Enormous lights coupled with a series of designed ducts which maximise light and help in ventilation. While a giant mister generates mist to keep the humidity

Outside view

Inside view.

The display in itself was very nicely done!

Birds of various colors n shapes...

The reptiles Horned frogs, lizards and the orchids were nice to see.

Talk about a crooked look ;) !!

Hissssss

A "flooded forest" with the Amazon giants like RTCs, TSNs, Pacus, Arapima and the Arowana.

Then it was all systems GO! Entered the "aquatic" section and maximised all of my time there (much to the angst of my friend :D )

Freshwater displays, salty ones, wow!

some freshwater ones

The angelfish setup was nicely done

A beautifully done planted tank with Cardinals

The "african" tank in the african hall

Both the tropical as well as the Bay setups were pretty huge, with tons of color :)

The "Odd" creatures provided some lovely sights

Diving beetle

Holding his fort, the knoght with Armor!

The "Garden of eels"

Scorpionfish with it's ever so intricate design

Frogfish

The corals and anemones magical as always.

Ended the day with a 3-D Bugs movie and an awesome Stellar ride in the planetarium.

Adios till the next visit/ride!

Have a super new year ahead :)

PS: A small video of the schooling fish from within the tunnel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Afi-g0u3lI

Cheers,
Hayath

The aquatic connection - restored

2009-12-29T19:24:00.000-08:00

Had been a month or so since I started my travel, and since havent done anything aquatic. Sure did have the beaches of Santa cruz and the small tide pools with not much aquatic life. But being surrounded by fish and anything that's aquatic is where I feel my "calm sanctuary".

The Christmas long weekend landed me at San Diego after long queues at the airport. A couple of days it was family time with me spending time with my cousin and brother-in-law and the kids.

Sea world, San Diego had been on my list of must-see for a while. Checked out their website for park timings, and on Saturday morning landed sharp @ 9AM with crowds already beginning to build up. With it being the day after Christmas, had expected large crowds, but more to come later.

Started off with the Dolphin viewing area. Viewing them is such a calming experience.

Spoke to the Staff about them, this park has bred numerous Dolphins and Pilot whales in captivity, which is nice!
Spent a few minutes there and moved onto the "Shamu stadium" where the Killer whales and Dolphins perform.

They (the creatures and their handlers) were busy practising.

Was fascinating watching the trust they have on each other.

The dolphins simply are such enthusiastic creatures, they have tons of energy and joy.

Watching me admire the dolphins, one of the handlers invited me over to interact with the Dolphins. Petted them on their foreheads. One of the Dolphins (I forget her name now) took an instant liking for me and kept returning to me. Would take strong circles and come back to me, and nudge water towards me while making happy clicks...truly a magical experience. The handler was herself surprised that she connected so well. That one moment just filled me with so much joy. No wonder Dolphins are used in many therapies (speech and movement impairment)

Moved back out of the pool area into the spectator's arena while the crowds began "pouring in".

Soon it was time for the aquatic acrobats to enthrall the audience. Somersaults, well directed splashes towards the public...they had it all.

The Orca doing a roll :D

Talk about flying!

BTW, the first 20 rows are labeled "Soak zone" :D

Kids and adults both thoroughly enjoyed the show. What it also did was send out the "Believe" message and I'm sure that's quite a big thing for young minds, many of whom I'm sure would have been touched deep.

Awed by their performance, moved on to the next destination.
The maps provided are well marked and I knew where I was headed next...the AQUARIUM :) !!

Being around Fish felt great. Had taken both my Sony H2 as well as the new Canon 450D and just let them loose :D Felt great getting back into my "zone"

Clicking in a public aquarium is kinda tricky
1. They generally have Fiber glass instead of glass which means using Flash becomes painful.
2. The HUGE crowd, everytime I turned I bumped someone!

Some shots of the salty kind.

The inquisitive one :)

The lionfish is always a treat to click!

The cuttlefish are captivating with their movement and the way they "Watch" you.

The moon jellies and their dreamy moves

Also had a few coldwater fish on show.

Some large ones

Next on was the Freshwater aquarium. Most of the large fish there were rescues.

The africans

Then spotted our own Puntius denisonii, the kerala beauty and I sorta swelled with pride a bit :P
The brackish system had the archers and also the "four eyed" fish.

A few assorted ones and then the nicely lit Rainbow tank

The Piranha tank

Tried a macro with the kit lens

Also had some HUGE Arapima gigas with the regular tank busters.

The Large Datnoid was a treat :)

The electric eel

Wanted to explore more, and went to the Dolphin interaction area....the trained dolphins would go around the pool playing with the kids. Everyone truly enjoyed splashing water towards them to which they would open their mouths.

Then it was Sea lion time, they had the normal as well as the leopard seals housed.

Watched the "show", was nice fun with them dancing to the tunes. The sea otter was way too cute! The albino Walrus was a treat :)

A small video I recorded, Hilarious!!

The arctic connection was nice with the Penguins and other creatures. This is one of the few parks to have the Emperor penguins.

The Polar bear and the Beluga whale displays were next. The way the Beluga moves is spell binding. Almost like a mermaid forgotten in time.

Moved on to the Shark connection with the Hammerheads, leopard sharks and a few others.

Then it was back out in the open towards the Flamingos. Like them a lot, pity that I could not get to them in daylight (yeah had spent almost the whole day with the fishy ones :D ). Plus it gets dark by 4:45PM :(

The ducks do come in for a free snack

Almost fell over into the pond trying to take this closeup with a 18-55mm lens.

Oh and when I was there also took a few "flower" shots :P

Surprisingly was not tired even though I'd been on my feet for close to 8 hours. Guess the excitement and contentment maybe drowned it out somewhere :)

Thus ended the fulfilling day where I felt the "aquatic touch" back again.
Made me miss my fishies back home all the more :|

Well...if I have "missed out" any of the shots :P you can see them at -

Adios till the next ride!

Happy holidays and have a great new year :)

Cheers,
Hayath

Enchanting Wayanad

2009-11-18T22:32:00.000-08:00

Had been to Wayanad with the whole family...uncles, aunts, cousins, all of them. A few snapshots from there.
It rained quite a bit both the days, and we were on the road for quite a bit.

En route Wayanad, somewhere along the Mysore-Gundlupet road

Entering the Kerala border proved a big pain with the Check post having a massive traffic jam. Gave me time to explore the fields around

Viewpoint at Vythiri, this is the stretch that connects Kalpetta to Kozhikode

The hair pin bends seen from the view point, called "Churam" in the local language

Visited poookot lake too, sadly they do not open the gates until 9AM, so we waking up early and making a dash did not help us much.

Pedal-boated a bit with family, and also netted a couple of P. fasciatus with some nice earthen base color as stripes

Also seen were tons of tadpoles, have seen similar looking ones in the streams of the western ghats

There was tons of fern growth...they tend to grow nicely in moist areas.

And where there is moisture, there are leeches too. Thankfully caught one on my leg before it could latch on. Showed my cousins the way the leech "tracks" heat movement, almost like a snake.

Spotted some nice spiders too, a tiny red one which hopped onto my hand. Jumped off before I could transfer my camera from th e other hand.

Managed to click this HUGE Giant wood spider, a good 4"+

We moved on towards "Soochipara" falls amidst tea/coffee plantations. Though these are not really "natural" scapes, the green sure does soothe the eyes. It was heavily overcast and the humidity levels rose. Plus, without a particular light direction, metering enough from a moving bus to expose enough details on the landscape was getting tough!

Made use of every pothole where the bus slowed down to help compose the shot a bit

Even managed a macro, although a crappy one :P

The walk/trek to the Soochipara falls took a toll on some of the family. The walking distance is 1KM+
The falls itself is pretty tall, and the sound of the water thundering down on the rocks helped us reach faster :)
It was just filled with college folks and a few "Revellers", thankfully in about 15 minutes the crowd cleared out

Even with so much greenery around, the landscapes and sights enticed me into clicking a few B&W shots. Landscapes for some inexplicable reason just feel "Stronger"

There's so much more to explore, surely will be going back again to explore more of this captivating district of Kerala.

Adios till the next ride/trip :)

Cheers,
Hayath

A casual Saturday outing exploring rural Bangalore

2009-08-05T03:34:00.000-07:00

A weekend with some time to spare, and friend of mine and yours truly headed out to visit a friend's farm.
The roads were nice and we made some good time initially, the early start ensured there wasn't any heavy traffic.

A quick coffee break and we took a deviation from the main road towards the farm. The early morning freshness and the passing rural scenes made us feel good.

We reached the farm after seeking directions for sometime. Our friend welcomed us and we explored his farm, and had a few cement tanks (which were in the process of being setup).
His dog was quite adorable too!

We heard the calls of peacocks, ran across the field to spot a few.

Unfortunately, my P&S wasnt enough to capture these huge males flying across to the surrounding trees. What a sight it was!

We moved on to a small hamlet, soaking in the rural scene. Sipping on some nice tea, we walked around.

The Pace of life seems so different to ours, everything's got it's own time. Everyone in the village knows everyone else (How often do we know who our neighbours are in the city!)

We also saw a cow getting it's "cowshoes", seemed quite bad, but much needed to ensure the hooves do not get hurt when they walk on roads.

The lake near the village had good amount of water thanks to the rain lately. A group of Black Ibis were spotted too.

The shore had a good number of Baya weavers going about they're daily noisy chores

Next, we decided to see if we could catch some fish and collect a few rocks when we were there. The road to the water body

The water body itself

We caught quite a good amount of Puntius vittatus, A.panchax, G. giuris and lone Notopterus notopterus juvenile. Sadly all the vittatus had bad fungal growth on their bodies (my friend told me this was due to the fertilizers entering the water bodies from the irrigation fields). Saddened we moved on since we had accounted only half a day for this outing and could not explore further. We got back only a couple of Killies and the lone juvie knifefish (which was sadly killed during the journey after a road bump caused the rocks to land on one of the fish covers :( )

En route stopped at a small stream (could not spot any fish here)

The route back was much better and more scenic,

While at the farm, picked up a couple of Golden tree frogs, which are now housed in a temporary tank before they go into a vivarium of their own.

A few clicks of these lovely creatures :)

The larger of the two

The whole underside is so supremely adapted to an arboreal life

First he said "No photographs please"

And then the smaller of the two gave a willing pose

These are quite curious about their surroundings and hope they make for a great pet :D

Would be definitely visit the farm and it's surrounding for more exploration with more time on our hands :)

Cheers,
Hayath

Exploring the blazing city of Salem

2009-07-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

Had been looking out for some good Suratensis for some time now. Madhu called me to inform that he'd spotted some good ones in a LFS (Local fish shop) he knew.
During the call he happened to mention "Mettur dam" and how the backwaters had low levels and some parts of the submerged city were visible. That only added to the idea of visiting Salem and the surrounding places.

A couple of calls and bus ticket later landed in Salem where Madhu picked me up. Was greeted warmly by his family who hosted (read put up) with me for the next two days :-)

Settled in and after a good dinner of Dosas and Idlis, we went to the roof top and talked a lot with topics varying from bikes to fish to snakes to photography and locations. Madhu had really developed a liking to photography and had made some good progress in very little time, and that lent a whole new dimension to our plans for the next two days.

We decided to visit Mettur dam and the backwaters (Stanley reservoir) and click anything that catches our attention :D

Setting the alarm to 5:30, we retired to bed. Woke up bang on time and by 6 we were on our way. Open roads and Madhu's riding ensured we were reached half way in good time. First stop was beside a small field where we clicked a few. Sharing talks on the shots as we took them was nice.

I would smile to myself everytime I saw Madhu smile looking at the picture in his camera's screen (which meant he shot something which he liked).

We reached Mettur dam after a couple of stop overs to click. The water levels were pretty low thanks to the bad monsoons this time. A couple of interesting shots and we moved on towards the backwaters.

We spotted some E. maculatus and some awesome colored P. Conchonius here.

I almost nonchalantly asked Madhu "Macha pass the net here" to which he replied "What net ?? We did not carry anything!!". Just imagine two hardcore aquarists visiting water bodies and not carrying even a net :D

He went on to explain why he did not carry nets as the waters we were visiting were either too deep or too open to corner fish. We just smiled to each other knowing well that this would be a "view only" trip :)

Somehow seeing someone getting to be more of a photog was quite something. We really did not feel that we were missing out. (Part of it knowing well that I would take back the Suratensis from the LFS the next day :D )

We explored the backwaters of the Stanley reservoir, and went in search of the part where we could see some remnants of a submerged city (during the creation of the dam). We were able to catch a glimpse of a church, though the rest of the city was still submerged.

Watching the Indian roller in flight is quite a sight with the stunning amount of blues.

The sun was beating down now and was getting increasingly tough to not wet the camera's viewfinder with one's sweat. Sipping on some cold Sprite felt great! In fact Sprite was to be our saviour on both the days, helping us keep cool :D

We moved back to Mettur dam and enjoyed some nice freshly fried fish (with me having a difficult time with a fish bone stuck in my throat for some uneasy time!).
Done with lunch, we headed back to Salem with a few photo shoots along the way :)

Spotted some E. maculatus with fry and a tilapia mouth brooding.

the small black dots that you see are fry

And where there's water, there ought to be insects :)

A quick shower and some fishy talks later, we headed out for some snacks and to visit John's aquarium. Madhu treated me to some lip-smacking garlic snack, the taste was simply electric.

Retired to bed early all set to explore Yercaud the next day.

Another early rise and we were out on the curves of Yercaud (with it being a mere 30 Kms from Salem). The morning chill and the sights were lovely.

Tried clicking Madhu coming out of an Apex with some panning tries, and then moved onto some landscape shots.

Going further, we could feel the moisture in the air breathing deep felt very very nice. Clicked a few mosses and ferns growing on the roadside.

The sun peeping through the thick foliage made for some interesting photo-ops :)

Enjoying the landscapes of Yercaud with the cool breeze was soothing.

We moved on to a lesser known seasonal waterfall after some grub to help soothe the grumbling tummy (leaving early, the tummy demands breakfast early too!)

Madhu trying to pose :P

Clicked some nice ones here and then....the damn batteries exhausted..again !! Felt miserable there with the batteries gone (had been through the same feeling earlier during the Kannur trip to Kasargod too). Promised myself to buy some good set of batteries plus backup soon :)

It was nice n serene, explored the area for a bit and headed back to some "touristy spots", the Gents seat and the Ladies seat enjoying some raw mangoes and peanuts. We could see the mined hillocks of Dalmia magnasite from here along with most of Salem city.

Returned to Salem for some lip-smacking mouth-watering chicken to go with boiled rice. Gorged myself and waited for Gokul to arrive. A short talk later, picked up some fish from John's shop and Madhu dropped me off to the railway station.

Enjoyed traveling through the lush fields and hillocks, and reached back home by dinner time.

Thanks macha Madhu for the gorgeous hospitality and taking me around with a smile :)
A pat on the back for your bike too ;)

Adios till the next ride/trip.

Cheers,
Hayath

Note: Delayed report after a looong time :)

Fish habitats of south india

2009-06-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Common fish of south India :)

This is just a rough dump, will be adding structure and information soon!

Kerala -
Mostly the Thalassery and Kochi region

Habitat - Dense in underwater vegetation
-> Irrigation canals.
-> Marshlands

Fish found -
FW:
Etroplus maculatus
Xenentodon cancila
Puntius vittatus
Horadandia atukorali
Macropodus cupanus
Rasbora daniconius
M. armatus
Channa marulius
Macrobachium sp.

Brackish:
Lutjanus sp.
Scatophagus argus
Etroplus suratensis
Channa diplogramme
A. lineatus

The Chalakudy river

Varied from fast flowing water over scaped rock surfaces to rocky bottom, thick in vegetation

Fish found -
UnIDed Channa sp. (mostly a gachua variant)
Pristolepis marginata
Mystus sp.
Tetraodon travancoricus
M. armatus
Danio aequipinnatus
Rasbora daniconius
Puntius filamentosus
Xenentodon cancila

Western ghats -
Collected only in and around Sakleshpur, Gundia

Habitat - rocky bottom, heavily tannin leached waters.

Tons of tadpoles everywhere!

Fish found-
Etroplus canarensis
Bhavania sp.
Pristolepis marginata
Mystus malabaricus
Tetraodon travancoricus
M. armatus
Danio aequipinnatus
Rasbora daniconius
Puntius setnai
Puntius ticto
Puntius assimilis
Garra mullya
Xenentodon cancila
Parambassis sp.

Irrigation canals,lakes and rivers around Bangalore -
Sandy bottom with heavy vegetation towards the banks.

Fish found -
Puntius bimaculatus
Puntius conchonius
Puntius sophore
Etroplus suratensis
Danio aequipinnatus
Rasbora daniconius
L. thermalis
Channa punctata
A. panchax
G. giuris
Puntius vittatus

Karwar - the place where the rain gods smile all the time

2009-06-09T03:32:00.000-07:00

There are some trips where there is no planning at all. This was one such.
Had Karwar on my must-visit list for a very long time, but had not got the opportunity to visit this lovely coastal town. Humaid (my friend from Pune) called me up and told me that his Uncle was looking at starting an aquaculture farm there would be in Karwar for the weekend.

A few calls and a night later, I was at Karwar with no prior planning at all.
Having traveled 11 hours my hopes of collecting and exploring the estuaries around Karwar seemed to be getting dashed. From maybe Sirsi, all we saw was pouring rain. It was all the more worse in Karwar with the rain droplets all the more thicker. Not even the strongest rains in Bangalore could come close. The whole sky was white which did not augur too well for the day(s) lying ahead.

Got down at the bus stand and caught a rick and reached Humaid's uncle's place. Humaid joined us an hour or so later (he reached Karwar after a full 15 hour journey from Pune)

The house had a nice rustic feel to it. The rain was enjoyable, sitting in the Verandah and watching school kids rush to schools with the rain-jackets on...quite a sight!

Yet, deep inside was an odd feeling of collecting and exploring fishy places being hampered by the rains and the ensuing risen water levels. Had not gone there with any expectation really, but this did not help enthuse any excitement.
Humaid's uncle is a treasure trove, picked his brains a lot on Ichthyology while we got ready for the cab to arrive.

Before the cab came, we decided to have a look at a bridge which is over an estuary not far away from the house. Packed all around with Rain jackets and rain pants with rain belting down, we netted a HUGE eel, but it managed to slither out without even entering the fish bag. We were looking around and saw a mudskipper on the lower branches of a shrub. Tried netting it only for it to jump out and enter the water. Chased it down and did catch it. Was awesome to have seen the mudskippers in their natural habitat and caught one myself :D

Rain managed to get to our clothes even with the rain jackets on. Calling it heavy rain would be an understatement. People here accept rain as a part of their lives and just move on with it. That is the amount of rain this region gets.

We took the cab and drove towards Anshi national park which was about 80Kms. The lush forests were pretty much untouched. Beautiful to the core with tall trees lining the road. Unfortunately we could not find/spot any mammals here.

We crossed Anshi and reached this place called "Hanumangudi" looking for places around the "supa dam" which could provide ideal land to start an aquaculture field. In our quest and search we came across this beautifully located farm on the banks of the river. The owner invited us inside for a cup of tea. The view from the balcony was breathaking to say the least. How I wished I could own a house like that in such a location.

We had to reach Kadra dam before nightfall but the curving roads and heavy rains kept our pace low. We had plans of fishing in/around Kadra dam, but we reached around 8PM. Dinner was prime on our minds now and got something to eat. Retired to bed setting our alarms early next morning. We slept hoping that the rains would relent atleast in the morning.

Early next morning, the scene had not changed much...rain n more rain. Had already been more than 30 hours since the rain started!

Donning our rain jackets again, we moved on to the paddy fields. We dipped out nets and found lots of shrimps. Then i saw something in the net that was jumping around. Did not look like a shrimp and it definitely was not water trailing off. Closer inspection revealed a completely transparent fish. Moved it to the fish bag and saw how transparent this actually was! We could make out the fish only by the two black eyes at the front and the mud particles still lining the fish.
The body was tapered and the tail was almost scissor-like.

From here we reached the waters of Kadra dam. We could not find much here...maybe rain was keeping them from showing up in the shallow waters.

The backwaters of the dam proved better hunting ground.

Spotted some P. filamentosus swimming around. Netted a couple of juveniles and Humaid got a E. suratensis on hook. Thankfully the hook had not pierced too deep and the fish was good to be taken back to Bangalore :)

We drove back to Karwar stopping over at a tiger prawn hatchery (something the whole coastal belt from Mangalore to Karwar is known for)

Humaid had a bus back to Pune @ 2PM and I spent the rest of the time with Humaid's uncle and family who were warm and very hospitable :)

Tried my hand at a few macros too ;)

Finishing lunch, we headed out to the Sunday bazaar. Thankfully the rains relented after almost a full 40 hours of non-stop rain !!

It was a riot of colours with the spices around.

Also for sale were salted dried fish everywhere. The konkan belt sure does love fish and anything that is aquatic.

Dried mussels, clams, skates and even Sharks split open.

Finishing the bazaar and seeing the weather liven up, we went to the Kali bridge which is a huge estuary with it meeting the Arabian sea.
Overlooking this fusion of fresh and saltwater is the Devbagh resort. Unique and quite exotic.

Also visited the Karwar beach, quite a nice coastline, but littered quite a bit.

This brave little crab giving me the "look" :D

Soon it was dark and headed back to pack my bags and fish to Bangalore. But not before having a quick bite of Mutton Biryani at Humaid's Aunt's house.

Thanks Humaid for inviting me over and his whole family for being such warm hosts :)

A few firsts for me -
1. Did not take my Sony H2 out of the bag while on a trip !
2. Seeing rain pummel down for 40 hours at a stretch.
3. Cribbed about the rain (I generally never crib over a trip)
4. Clicked very few images :D
5. Used Vyas' P&S Sony W-5 and my Nokia N72 for all the above shots :)

Till the next ride.

Cheers,
Hayath

Trip to Coimbatore and Chalakudy

2009-05-04T23:59:00.000-07:00

My itinerary for the long may day weekend had Coimbatore in it. Thought I would catch up with the CBE (Coimbatore) folks while I was there.

The CBE aquarists met up at Suraj's place. Had not met most of them from CBE, was nice getting to know them and talk what we do best - talk fish :) !! Shreyas had come in from Bangalore to the meet and the next day visit to the Chalakudy river.

Suraj had a nice "tank with plants" with some P. fasciatus from the Annamalais at the entrance. We met at his terrace with some neatly arranged fish tanks on racks giving us company. Had some nice looking Koi angels. Especially loved the Bolivian rams and the fry.

Also an archer fish completely acclimatised to freshwater.

Sipping on some juice in the sweltering heat, we were joined by Kiran - the Tetra man of CBE. Was nice talking to him about Tetras and making aquariums with neat finishes. Much later in the day (read almost afternoon), after several calls/SMSes from Suraj, Nitin joined us.

Kiran and Nitin

Vignesh (bmvbab), Niranjan and Deepak(raindeepak4u)

Vignesh

Shreyas

It was lunch time and we feasted on some lip smacking delicious food served in traditional style on a banana leaf.
We chalked out a plan for the next day to a visit to the Chalakudy river (around Athirapally falls) and headed out for some LFS hopping. Found nothing of real interest though. One LFS has some awesome looking RTCs, TSNs and a couple of Florida gars. there's something about large fish that's captivating.
Had to get back to my friend's place quick, so sadly had to skip visiting Kiran's house.

Vignesh said he would pick me up from the hotel room for the trip next day.

Had not slept for the whole of last night, so tried catching up on some lost sleep. 12:45AM and I get a call from Vignesh that we were leaving at 3 AM and he would come pick me up in another 45 mins.

Droopy eyed, we - Vignesh (bmvbab), Ravi (sgravi2k) and I reached Suraj's place. Gokul (mcgokul) had come over during the evening.

Suraj and his family had made elaborate preparations for the trip with water, food, fish packets and nets. At 3AM, two cars headed out to Chalakudy.
Car 1 -
Suraj (Driving), Mrs. Suraj, Varun (Jr. Suraj), Pandian, Niranjan and Deepak (raindeepak4u)

Car 2 -
Vignesh (Driving), Ravi, Shreyas, Gokul and I.

First stop was for a quick morning tea. We bought some Banana chips and a few cakes to help us snacking thru the day.

Shreyas took over the wheel from Vignesh here and was closely following Suraj's car.
Then something happened that had more than just our hearts in our mouths for a moment! Suraj had to brake hard to avoid a swerving lorry ahead. Shreyas was too close and to avoid Suraj's car swerved to the left....and on the left was a stationary lorry with not enough gap for us to pass through. Thankfully and luckily we made it past with another swerve to the right, talk about thanking our lucky stars!

The ride after this was uneventful (phew...) and we drove through the lush forests was quite refreshing (even though it was summer).

We stopped over at a bridge for a group shoot and some nice sights of the rising sun (which we could not see enough of with the clouds hampering our view).

Drove further to a view-point enjoying the Athirapally falls (some call it the Indian Niagara). It is located in the most beautiful location! A treat to the eyes :)

Spotted a pair of Grey hornbills on the treetop and a racket-tailed drongo which flew past.

We drove down the slope to the water's edge and started looking for fish.

Ravi (sgravi2k)

We saw plenty of P. fasciatus and P. filamentosus complex swimming around. The rocky terrain proved to be tough with these ducking for cover under the rocks when we dipped our nets into water.

But the first fish is the toughest to catch, and once we had that we did start catching quite a few.

We netted a good number of A. lineatus, juvenile P. filamentosus, a couple of X. cancila and some Etroplus maculatus juveniles.
We also caught a good number of the Macrobachium sp. shrimps with their "red claws". Among a fallen coconut frond, we caught some shrimps with some truly giant claws and these were quite larger than the others.
A few eels (mostly the M. armatus) were also among the catch. Suraj had brought a good photography tank where a few of them were clicked.

For me, the most exciting was the single Channa that someone had netted from a clump of weeds. It looked definitely like the Channa gachua, but also had the "spots" very characteristic of the Channa from the Himalayan plains. Would love to get a positive ID on this. The rounded face of a Channa gachua, spots of maybe a Channa stewartii, patterns of a Channa punctata...all in one fish!!

Almost wrapping up on location, Vignesh netted a nice 4" Channa (maybe the same species), but it jumped out when transferring it to the fish cover :(

We moved on to the next location where we had the yummy breakfast prepared by Mrs. Suraj.

With the bellies full, most of the aquarists decided to swim across the river to the bank on the other side and look for fish.

They caught the first of the dwarf puffers (C. travancoricus), a few P. fasciatus and a lone H. fossilis. They also managed to net a Pristolepis marginata AKA Indian sunfish

Dried up and raring to go for more, we reached the bridge which we had visited earlier during the day. We spotted many E. maculatus with fry, but here again the rocky bottom provided plenty of cover. We were able to net a few here only within the reeds. Shreyas, Pandian and Niranjan caught quite a good number of the dwarf puffers.

The rocky bottom proved quite slippery with most of us struggling to get by :D :P

Onto to the next location under a small road bridge, we saw loads of plants. Will let the plant experts ID these.

I had been a while since we started catching fish and they needed a water change quick. We stopped over a small stream and changed water, re-packing them too.
It was lunch time now, and yet again Suraj had brought over lunch. Man! can't thank Mr. and Mrs.Suraj enough for the trouble of having stayed up the night before preparing and packing food for us, paper plates, drinking water, etc.

We decided we'd start heading back to CBE and stop at waterbodies on the way back. The traffic was beginning to get heavy and driving on Kerala roads with lane discpline thrown out the window was quite frustrating (with us having two close shaves). Stopping over for a quick tea/juice break, we entered CBE with horrible amounts of traffic.

Reached Suraj's place and we split the booty amongst us. Ravi helped me out to a Call taxi for me to head back to my friend's place :)

This was a lovely trip that I'm glad we made, sharing and learning as we went.
Thanks to all the CBE guys who made this happen (both the trip and the meet). Thanks to Vignesh too for picking me up from the hotel and driving us around :) Hoping for a lot more in the future :)

The rest of the pictures from the trip can be seen here - http://picasaweb.google.com/hayath.m/ChalakudyCoimbatoreAquaristMeet

Adios till the next ride.

Cheers,
Hayath

Summer calling...Kannur, Kerala

2009-03-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

James (one of my very close friend) had some work in Kannur, Kerala and invited me to join him for a trip over the weekend. He had already done the booking for a to-n-fro

Starting off from Bangalore was quite frustrating with the bus delayed by one and a half hours. But once the wheels started rolling all that was forgotten. We had got the tickets only for the last row...and what a ride it turned out to be!! We felt each and every bump on the road, with us being thrown up in the air in cases where the driver missed seeing a speedbreaker. James did manage to catch up some sleep, but I just could not. Stayed awake for most of the journey.

Reached Calicut around 8 AM and immediately took a bus towards Kannur which was a couple of hours more. The drive was pretty good with the coast overlooking the Arabian sea providing some nice sights. We reached Kannur pretty soon, thanks to the dare-devil brand of driving of the bus drivers. In kerala, bus drivers rule...rash n fast. In streets just narrow for a bus to pass through, they would rip at speeds of upto 50-60 Kmph.

Refreshed ourselves in the hotel room and headed out to finish the work James had come here for, to ensure we had as much time as possible free to ourselves ;)
The work was done by lunch time, and we proceeded to have some sumptuous Veg. food.

From here the plan was to visit the snake park and then the beach. We took the local bus here towards the snake park. In fact, the whole is this trip we would use only public transport. The auto drivers here are a blessing. They would not charge extra, everything paid based on the meter...wow!

Reached the snake park quickly (remember, the bus drivers here are real FAST ) to see some nice specimens including the Russell's Viper, Indian cobra, Common krait, Rat snake, the green vine snake, rock python and a few others.

The real awesome sight was seeing the King cobra in flesh. Had dreamt of seeing this wonderful creation...the true king of snakes. It feasts on other smaller snakes for a meal !! They were maintained in Air-controlled rooms with glass windows for viewing.

Sort of satisfied that we got some decent shots, we headed towards the Kannur beach with the sun beginning to set. The beach is pretty scenic and had a few people already. Also saw some jellyfish washed up in the sandy shore.

James had an allergy to salt water and avoided entering the water.

On the other hand, I could not wait to enter the water as it had been a very long time since I played in a beach. Just waited for the sun to set completely (to finish shooting the sunset), and then jumped in

The water was nice n warm. The waves pounding your body is quite a feeling, something inexplicable and is best experienced. Went in a little deep and then waited for the BIG wave to come. And when it comes, it comes with quite a force taking me high on it, with me being swept off my feet. Once that was over, the rush was so much, I wanted more n more. I think I got flipped in the water a couple of times, but that was quite worth it's salt (quite literally )
Spent a good half n hour or so among the strong waves, and came off refreshed! I can only imagine the kind of feeling surfers might have when riding the waves.

James n I made a small sand castle, that was loads of fun :)

Dried myself quite quick with the strong winds blowing and went on to gulp loads of sprite with some Shawarma roll.

Tired after a long day and not having slept the last night, we planned to sleep early.

Next morning was an early start with the alarm going off at 5 AM. Got ready and headed to the train station for a train to Kasargod (to reach Bekal fort early). A couple of hours and a local bus ride later, we reached Bekal fort (which we had heard a lot about)

Saw the fort from a distance and the first thing that crossed my mind was "If only some planted aqurist saw this!!!"
The whole fort was made from bricks of Laterite (which is the case with most of Kerala's buildings). The beauty of bare laterite bricks is the way they change color, from Black when they are cool to the Medium orange/red when they heat up.

The fort is extremely well maintained and is a treat to the eyes. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time/season to see this fort with summer browns everywhere (in/post monsoons, the whole place is colored various hues of green!). The fort is beautifully located on the coast of the Arabian sea.

The rocks form a nice surface for the clams to colonise and grow, they were found in plenty. We also saw a lot of fiddler crabs.

A few schoold kids were there for a day's outing too

As the sun rose further, so did the temperature and the humidity. But the serenity and beauty of the place kept us going.

Plus, there came a point where the body wanted to give up, and at this point is when the mind takes the decision of going on or giving in. (It is this feel that I like about being outdoors and the capability to instigate the character)

Was lucky to see the sea eagle for the first time in my life with it's HUGE wings.

We carried on along the fort's periphery exploring the many rock formations. Some of them formed small tide-pools, housing a few fish and crab.
Done, tired and very exhausted, we refuelled with some milkshakes. Next stop was "Kanjangad" to catch the train at 2:30 PM to head back towards Kannur/Thalassery.
Finishing lunch fast, we reached the station in-time, but only to find a huge rush with what seemed like the whole town trying to catch that same train. The train came and left, we just could not find any space to even stand in the bogies :(

We let it go since we had seen a train next @ 2:40 PM on the schedule-boards.
James and I kept the cell phone and the battery charger for charging at a power point. 2:40 became 3:00 PM and no sign of a train. We went to ask and turns out the 2:40 PM train ran only on Fridays.

So here we were looking at each other's face what do we do for another hour. (waiting an hour would also mean losing out on an hour of the time we have to explore Thalassery)

We decided we would catch a bus instead and proceeded to the bus-stand. Almost at the bus stand I see a mobile phone Ad and

Me: Jamie, your cellphone and my charger (we forgot to take them from the power point)
James: WTF !!!

And we both start running back to the train station in the hot sun. James ran faster than me and thankfully found the cellphone and the battery charger intact
Looks like there was some other guy near the power point talking on a phone (that probably acted as a deterrent for anyone to try flicking the valuables).
Ever thanked someone for just being there ?? This was one such moment,
James thanked that person and that guy had the look of "What are you talking about?". James smiled and moved on.

We both had a hearty laugh, and decided we would rather wait for the train now (tired after the sprint in the hot sun)
The train came at 3:45 PM jam-packed and having equal number of people wanting to get in! We muscled our way in not wanting to be left out.

We stood all the way to Thalassery, a good 2+ hours journey. At every stop, more number of people would board than the number of people who boarded-off it. Our calves were aching like crazy and we took turns sitting on the boarding platform.

An interesting name for a stop

Reached Thalassery with the light diminishing, and we made a quick run to the beach. Wanted to go to a beach which I had seen earlier and we failed to explain the way it is to the Auto driver :( (James is fluent in Tamil and can somehow manage with Malayalam, and I'm as good as a NO with it )

The auto driver dropped us off to a park over-looking a rocky sea-shore.

But this wasnt what we wanted and wanted to get out of there FAST. On the main road, we did not get an auto for a very long time, and we were getting tensed about it (as the sun was going down very fast)
Finally we got an Auto and he dropped us off at the "Meen market" (Local fish market) on the shore of the fishing beach. We ran through the market to try and get some clicks of the setting sun.
Reached the beach...but...the sun had set already :(
We tried clicking a few shots here.

We got back to the Fish market where Vyas had told us they have Hammerhead sharks, Octopus, Manta rays and others for sale sometimes.
There weren't any giants though, just the normal ones you see.
Saw good amounts of Etroplus suratensis, some mangrove snappers, tiger prawns amongst others.

James picked up a small amount of dried salted shark meat. (There are stalls where they sell only dried, salted fish)

Had a chilled 500 ml Sprite (as I had for all of the trip due to the searing heat). Maybe I had finished a couple of litres of cool drinks over two days.
It was 7:15 PM now, and we had a bus back to Bangalore from Kannur at 8:30 PM. It was a mad rush back to the hotel room at Kannur.
We picked up our luggage in time and got to the main road.

One, two, three and a lot more other autos just pass all full. 8:15 PM and were still at the main road, no idea knowing how far the bus station was !!
Finally some kind soul auto driver stopped and we asked him to rush rush to the bus station. A quick drive and we were there in time....phew.

Having made the day and reached the bus-stop in time, James n I had a Hi-five
A cold water bottle in hand, we boarded the bus and reached Bangalore the next day at 7:30 AM. (The bad stretch of road had the bus take a 150KM detour)

Our own Bangalore auto driver dropped us back to our houses.

All in all.
LOVED -
1. The fabulous company of James.
2. The excellent public transport in Kerala (the trains touch almost every district, the buses are good, the auto drivers prompt and honest)
3. Playing in the sea after a long time (getting washed out many times)
4. Bekal fort for the fabulous balance of architecture and the aqua-life on the rocks

HATED-
1. The sapping heat and humidity
2. Sitting in the last row of a bus with not so good suspension (but Hey! that sure was fun in hindsight)

Adios till the next trip/ride.

Yours truly

Cheers,
Hayath

Back on the road, biking again...

2009-03-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

It had been a very long time since I've been on the road with my bike. There's something about a ride, and more so a lone ride that gives you the "space" your mind needs.

Work, and more importantly a sense of lethargy and laziness kept me putting any bike ride off. The mind knew it needed a break...a lone ride.
Maybe I was just looking for an excuse... a way to get out of the "lazy" frame of mind.
This time the excuse was my colleague's wedding at Kanakapura, about 50 Kms from Bangalore.

Started around 9:30AM and went straight to the wedding hall without any stops. The road's neat with some nice curves n bends to swoop around.

The wedding was nice with my friend all smiles (he was getting married ), had sumptuous vegetarian food.

Other colleagues of mine headed back to Bangalore, and I continued on towards Talakadu. The roads were decent most of the time with the occasional real bad patch.
The heat was already unbearable, but somehow it did not affect me too much...maybe it was the feeling of being free, having space around me...open air :)

Reached a small bridge over the Arkavati river near a village called Halagur.
The typical river side... kids playing in the water, women washing clothes, cattle being given their bath

Saw this fisherman who had caught some eels, and seeing a aquarium fish net in my hand..almost made fun of me (you're going to catch fish with that )

Looked more of the M.armatus

Where there is water, there are bound to be dragonflies, and this one allowed me to click a nice closeup.

Was seeing a lot of Garra Sp., Rosy barbs and Rasbora daniconius swimming the shallow waters. Tried clicking a few too.

The rosy barbs found my feet interesting and were pecking at them (first time I saw Rosy barbs do this, have seen Garra sp. do this very often)

The kids and a few girls there got interested and joined me in trying to net a few of the fish. The rosy barb males were stunning with the reds and the black tipped fins.

We caught a few Rosy barbs only to photograph them...after which they were released back.

Went further downstream and found some Aplocheilus panchax swimming around. Brought back a few juveniles.

The kiddos went all bananas seeing their pic after posing for this shot

The weather was getting better now...with the clouds giving some form of shade.
Stopped again at a lake with a few hillocks forming a nice backdrop.

Spotted lots of birds here... (excuse the quality of these, taken from my Sony H2 and heavily cropped!)

The Indian open-bill stork

Black Ibis

Intermediate egrets, Sandpipers, little cormorants.

The spot-bill pelicans giving us a lane-discipline lesson ;)

Sat there at the lake bed for some time enjoying the serene, calm and very quiet place.
It was 3 now and started the ride back home...stopping once in a while to take a few clicks of the terrain. The terrain was showing the effects of summer..all brown n rugged.

Talked to a few locals and got to see the silkworm culturing unit...fascinating is the word.

Half way back to bangalore..stopped over at a turn and tried to take a few panning shots.

The other side..

Refreshed and very tired (yes one can be both at the same time ), reached home at 5 PM, and then the evening showers brought down the temperature. A small nap and the energy levels were back again

Clicked a few of my fish while snacking on some munchies... and what a Sunday it was !

Till the next ride...
Adios.

Cheers,
Hayath

A colorful journey - culture, monuments and people

2009-01-06T23:28:00.000-08:00

Rajasthan to me as a photographer and an avid art-admirer has always been special. Been fascinated by the colors, the culture, the feel of the whole thing. Had never been there and was quite high on my list of places to visit once.

This post is my little effort to "try" and put the experience in words and I know that words cane never come close to defining the experience of the week-long travails through the beautiful land of Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra.

Have also made a video slideshow at the end of the post...do see it!

Initial plans were for a split tour
Phase A - Do Rajasthan + Delhi with everyone and then send mom n sis back home
Phase B - From Delhi head out towards Leh+Ladakh.

Phase B was squashed soon as we got to know that the roads in Leh would be closed due to heavy snowfall and we would be limiting ourselves pretty much to the City of Leh.

So there it was, switching over to an alternate plan - Rajasthan + Delhi + Agra
Without much ado, we booked the return tickets from Delhi to Bangalore for Dec 26th.

More than a couple of weeks of planning, the excitement levels were way too high. And then something that happened that made me feel bad even before the tour had started
James had to drop out due to some personal family commitments. And there went my very close buddy who would have been with me during the tour, one who I enjoy spending time with, share the same kind of frequency, enjoy shooting with. Plus the fact that he had very recently purchased a 10-12mm wide angle lens in anticipation of this tour made my heart wrench.

Mom and Sis too shared the same sentiment, but we had made the plans and had made several plans. As they say "the show must go on" and with some egging from James we booked the flight tickets of Air Indigo from Bangalore to Jaipur for Dec 18th, 2008.

A lot of planned packing for the anticipated cold weather up north and a couple of suitcases, we were all set. A quick ride to the Bangalore Airport with the Volvo service, we helped ourselves to some sandwiches and cold coffee.

The flight was uneventful (thankfully ;-) )and we landed in Jaipur @ 10:45 PM. One of my friends had arranged for a cab pick-up. On the way to the hotel, we enjoyed some sumptuous dinner with the famous Rajasthani "Daal-baati-Churma".

The late timing and the sparse traffic led to a smooth ride, very very different than the madness we call "Bangalore Traffic"

Retired to bed soon after freshening up for the next day's Jaipur round-up.

The next day started with a drive by the famous "Hawa Mahal", the symmetry and the colors of the building are quite remarkable.

Driving on the roads it was pretty much evident why this was called the "Pink city". It was a nice mix of people going about their normal lives living in old (antique) fortresses which now make for some market places.
Next on was "Amer fort" which is surrounded by a couple of other forts. Must say it is quite grand and the scale and architecture left me in awe.

Photography was one of the primary intentions of this trip, and here I was not knowing which direction to point my lens at :D
Everywhere I saw, I saw color, saw intricate designs, beautiful examples of architecture. Plus hearing about the fort and the tales behind each place was like walking through some surreal setting for me.

Amer fort was so lovely that we lost track of time and had to now rush towards City palace thanks to the early setting winter sun. Stopped over at "Jal Mahal" which is a retiring palace built in the midst of a lake.

At the entrance of City palace were tons of pigeons who would rush towards willing tourists who would feed them.

City palace was quite enchanting with it's collection of weapons, armour and various royal clothing.

Soon it was dark, and although tired, we drove towards "Choki Dhani", a Rajasthani style village resort that was recommended by a lot of my friends. It was quite lovely with good attention to detail, with us being welcomed with drums in the true Rajasthani style.
Folk dances, magic shows, classic music made for a lovely atmosphere. We spent a lot of time resting on the diwans there relishing the music and the occasional "Namkeen".

Tried my hand at archery and darts, striking a few bulls-eye and getting a concession of Rs.5 for every bulls-eye hit.

And then it was time for dinner and the part I had been waiting for - DINNER :D
Here again it was "Daal-baati-churma" time, with some delicious Ghee-dipped rotis.

Filled tummies and tired legs...we settled in for the day.

Next day morning was an early start towards Ajmer. Had some lip-smacking Paranthas and Channa masala. Soon we were in Ajmer to pay a visit to the shrine. The belief system of the people there was quite barrier-shattering. People from all walks of life, of all caste n creed, putting aside any differences of color, stature, religion asking for their prayers to answered by “Khwaja”.

We managed to navigate out of the very congested streets of Ajmer and headed towards Pushkar. Unfortunately the cattle fair had just concluded a week or so earlier. Visited the temple lake and got some black-winged stilts in close range.

A few shots later, we took a small snack-break and checked into a small hotel as our bus to Jaisalmer was at 10 PM later that night. Enjoyed a nice veggie meal with some Shahi Khurma and got into the overnight bus to Jaisalmer. The roads were smooth and we made good ground. But soon we were literally “crawling” as the visibility on the road had dropped quite dramatically!
It was the first time I was seeing fog on such a scale and intensity. To take in more of it, sat in the driver’s cabin We were not able to see any vehicles on the road, leave alone people. The driver was avoiding any parked trucks in the last 10 metres!!

Reached Jaisalmer with some solid cold amidst high security (due to the proximity to the Pakistan border). The temperature was at 4-5 degrees and the fog was so thick we could barely see peoples face(s) across the road on the silhouetted figurines.
Arvind from DesertBoys was there to welcome us and took us to our room. It was inside the fort and was quite a sight.

Entering the sandstone fort and all the people still living within it was exciting.
Soon we checked into the room which was very tastefully decorated to keep with the royal feel of it. Once we freshened up, we treated ourselves to some hot Alu-parathas and headed out to explore the fort area. Visted the “Raja ka mahal” and enjoyed the stories behind each of the areas inside. Made for some good photo opportunities.

Evening time….we headed towards “Birla Mandir” with it’s unique architecture and then to the Cenotaphs. Seeing this one has to believe that people here just do not use anything other than stone. Not even bricks!! Instead they prefer sandstone cut to the required size(s).

With chilly winds and a setting sun, travelling on well-laid roads, we reached “Sam”, a popular desert section. We reached the desert dunes on Camel back. Was enjoying the ride and talking to the guys. They depend completely on tourism for their survival. Reaching the dunes was both exciting and letting down. Excited…to see the desert and rolling in the sand. Let down…to see the number of tourists around.
The setting sun and the desert gave me an opportunity to take some photographs which I had long dreamt of.

Next on the “menu” was a musical show with folk-artists performing. Was nice to sit under the stars, a bonfire going and listening to some authentic Rajasthani music.

Returned back to the room, freshened up and tucked into bed. Kept waking up to the sound of jets taking off for their sorties (Jaisalmer is a IAF base).

Next day morning woke up real late thanks to the cold and tired bodies. Did some more sight-seeing with “Patwon ki Haveli” and some shopping.

We had our train to Delhi @ 3 PM. Reached the station only to find that the train was running late by 3 hours. Waiting in the cold..took some candid shots. The sunset hues did color the sky in a riot of colors.

The train arrived full 5 hours late, which meant we would reach Delhi delayed. Most of the train journey went sleeping. Reached Delhi next day afternoon and settled in the room @ Karol Bagh.

The main item in Delhi was shopping..and off we went to Gaffar market for some shopping. Had some sumptuous Kulfi and some Chaat for a break. Had been more than a week since I had some non-veg and was longing for it. Searched and found a good restaurant for dinner.

We booked a cab for Agra and back. Started at 6:30 AM for Agra. Stopped over at a Dhaba for some breakfast and relished the food. The driver took us to a place called “Sikandra” where most of the royal family is laid to rest. The gardens here were lush n green and had some good amount of spotted deer and peacocks. Also spotted a few black bucks which was a first for me.

Soon we were stuck in heavy Agra traffic and made our way to the mighty Taj. Entry of fuel-driven vehicles is banned for a radius of 1KM around the Taj. Battery-driven auto-rickshaws have a field day here with the huge number of tourists.
The security at the entrance was pretty tight with not even a bottle of water or any food items being allowed inside. This is a wise move since plastic bottles and food items are the most common sources of waste in public places.

Seeing the Taj for the first time was simply breath-taking!! The scale, the magnificence of the monument is something that words cannot describe and is best experienced. Had to literally force my jaw shut (it was gape open  ).
Took in the aura and then took a lot of shots of this truly amazing symbol of love.

Shopped a bit for some leather bags/shoes and moved onto Fatehpur-Sikri. Fatehpur is said to have been constructed when Akbar was blessed with a baby boy. Sikri was the royal palace.

The architecture here was a remarkable fusion of Moghul style with little modifications to depict love towards other religions. Akbar is said to have had 3 wives…one of each religion.

The next 2 days in Delhi was spent in Shopping around in Chandni chowk and other places. Visited a few of my aquarist friends (Tarun, Tirth and Arnav) and had an opportunity to visit their houses and see their tanks.

At Tirth's place with Tarun (with the camera in hand) -

Arnav's very beautiful tank with brilliant fish in awesome health!
Never seen rainbows that size :)

Cannot thank Tarun enough for booking the hotel and taking me around Delhi, thanks mate :)

It was Dec 26th…the day we were to start our journey back to homebase (Bangalore). But there was a small twist in the tale….the railway tickets we had booked were not confirmed yet. The tickets had reached one RAC and two waiting list (WL-1 and WL-2). Running around a bit, we managed to make the other Waiting list tickets to RAC. Thankfully the long-journey ensured we had berths and speaking to the TT, we got our berths confirmed.

The train journey was nice with the train passing through some beautiful country-side. A full 42 hours later, we arrived at Bangalore Cantonment, took the cab back home. And that concluded a wonderful and memorable trip that was so filled with new experiences almost everyday.

Had taken a LOT of photographs which had to be sorted and re-sorted. You can have a look at some of the uploaded photographs here - http://picasaweb.google.com/hayath.m/RajasthanDelhiAgraDec2008

Also made a small slideshow of a few shots with some music to go along

Do not miss this :)

Till the next ride…..
Adios.

Cheers,
Hayath

Gone fishing - Kerala :)

2008-09-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

It had been quite a while since we had been anywhere outside collecting Indian native fish. Vyas, Ajay and I had planned for an outing in the last week of August since that would be past the monsoons enough, and would be the last weekend before Ramzan starts for me(which essentially rules out overnight collection trips).

So we did finalize on the dates and also informed Tarun so that he could make arrangements to take part.
We had initial plans for Chikmaglur and we three had met n chalked out plans ranging from routemaps to fish that we would like to collect. Unfortunately (or fortunately) Vyas' colleague told him that the rivers were in spate and the roads were in pathetic condition, and off went that plan.

We had discussed Kerala as an alternative earlier, so we fell back on that plan. And all this change of plans happened the night before our trip!

A few calls and then Vyas and Tarun dropped in at home for some final discussions, decided we would leave Bangalore @ 4:30AM the next day.

I had a horrible case of food poisoning and kept throwing up most of the time and made me apprehensive about making the trip. The whole night went without sleep
I had waited to be getting out for real long and there was noway I was going to miss out on this.

Day 1 - 30/08/2008

3:40AM alarm goes off and I was wide awake much before that. Made a few calls to Ajay n Vyas. Around 4:30AM Ajay in his Honda city, along with Vyas and Tarun picked me up.
Started the journey with a good beaming smily photo

That is L-R
Yours truly, Vyas, Tarun and Ajay.

With an early start, the roads were pretty much empty and we made good time and reached Mysore.
Plus the real yummy cake (I can't testify as I could not eat, but the sounds n expressions on the others' face said it all) that Ajay's wife had made for us helped keep the energy levels lively.
Navigating around Mysore to reach the Gundulpet route was fun. We stopped over at a small bridge, saw lots of land snails about 4" long and collected a couple of Aplochelius Lineatus from the waters.

Moved on and crossed Bandipur and into Kerala. There was a minor traffic jam that greeted us. The sudden increase in intensity of "greens" was a godsent for our sore eyes. Nicely laid roads and greenery around, we enjoyed the drive through.

We stopped for a quick check at a streamlet in spate, though we knew we may not find much here.

Certainly did not stop Ajay from dipping the net

Was beginning to feel quite queasy with the twists n turns, but did settle down pretty quick.

Reached the Wayanad region with some breathtaking sights.

The next rivulet we tried was pretty slippery on the banks, here we did "feel" a lot of fish gnawing at our feet, but remained elusive to our nets.

Moving on we explored quite a few places, but most of them were hard-to-reach and also had fast flowing muddy waters due to the monsoons.

We decided we would head straight to Calicut where Vyas' friend Ajay (jeeyejee on IAH) had planned something for us.

Reached Calicut and synced up with Ajay. He had arranged for a local guide to help us. We picked him up too and went to this place called "Mavur". It's a lovely place with lots of marshlands.

This looked like perfect Channa habitat and that really got all of us excited

In no time we had generated a lot of interest in the locals and a media person even helped us out by talking to a few local fishermen.
We took our nets and started the long hunt.

Found a lot of Horadandia atukorali, looked very beautiful in their dainty self with the golden tinge. Spotted a few barbs . Then suddenly the guide helping us called out that he had caught a snakehead, rushed to him and found a nice 6" Channa Marulius. Unfortunately it seemed like it had been in a fight of some kind and had a horrible infection on half of it's body due to which it could swim right. We asked him to release it back into the waters.

Some nice solid sized Aplochelius Lineatus were netted with a few A.Panchax too

We spent the rest of the evening in the same area where we collected M.Cupanus, Etroplus maculatus, xenentodon cancila and few more barbs.

We did have some casualties, a few specimens I photographed

The quite amazing teeth

Towards the later part of the day, exhaustion had taken hold of me and I preferred to sleep in the car.

Having collected the E.maculatus I was very happy. The little nap did help quite a bit.

It began to rain on the way back to Calicut, turned out to be quite a harrowing experience with the heavy condensation due to the humidity and rains. Reached Calicut in "one-piece"
Got accomodation in one of the hotels with some help from Vyas and Ajay. We all needed a hot shower real bad. Once done with the showers, we headed down to the bar for some talks. Came back to a delicious dinner cooked from home (I had some Appam as I was supposed to be on bland foods )

Everyone hit the sack soon after.

Day 2 - 31/08/2008

Started early with showers and checked out by 7:30. Ajay and Vyas kindly took up the task of cleaning the car from the previous day's mess

We headed towards Thalassery and stopped over at a place where Vyas' uncle would help us with the fish. We picked him up and headed to a known spot.
Was nice to see some lush plant growth and the surroundings were beautiful!

Some crypts

Tarun eyeing them

In no time we had lots of curious onlookers , Kerala folks sure do have high levels of of curiosity (as we had seen the previous day in Mavur). Was heartening to have Vyas' Uncle and his friend giving us company, and they also took care of the crowd.

Imagine answering so many people

Here we collected some E.Maculatus, xenentodon cancila, Rabora Daniconius(which we let go), a nice tire track eel, Puntius Mahecola.

Was a nice drive and passed by Pondicherry, a quick stop @ the Mahe fish market.

I stayed on the bridge while Vyas, Ajay and Tarun went in and reported seeing hammerheads being sold!

From there we reached Thalassery. Vyas' cousin helped us finding a good LFS who did the re-packing with some O2.
With the fish bagged securely, we moved to Vyas' estate which has a slightly brackish water system.

The environs

Here we employed a few fisherboys to do the catching for us.

The technique they used was very interesting - they would make sounds and splash around. Then observe bubbles, place their foot, bend down and come up with a fish in hand !!!

Had heard from Vyas that the E.Suratensis employ this method of hiding by digging into the substrate. Was quite a sight seeing it in person.

Here they caught a lot of different type of fish using the same technique though, including Scats, Snappers, E.Maculatus, Mullets and crayfish

Also spotted Channa Micropeltes fry in the midst of the floating coconut leaves

We scooped up a few

This got satiated Ajay's thirst for snakeheads a bit :)
Satisfied that we were enjoying each other's company and had a good amount of collecting we decided to head back.

We had a good amount of bags in our hand, so took a different route. We had to cross over a coconut tree acting as a bridge, was fun doing this bit

A quick group photo with Vyas' cousin and a few others there

A quick dip into the beach of Thalassery and we headed back to Bangalore. The route through Bandipur was closed due to nightfall and we came back through the Virajpet->Hunsur->Mysore route.

Unpacked the fish, had quite a few casualties with the large E.Suratensis.
Bid goodbyes to each other and shook hands for a wonderful trip that was

All in all, in a summary -

Loved -
1. The great company and mood of camaraderie
2. The variety of fish and waterways
3. The drive and Ajay's car It's quite a lovely machine

Hated -
1. My food poisoning
2. The humidity at times

Adios till the next ride

Cheers,
Hayath

Long time no see !

2008-05-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

That is what most of you would be thinking :-) "IF" you still happen to remember me ;-)

Been about 6 months now since I changed jobs and that has a lot to do with me having very minimal time online. Flickr has been reduced to just uploading pictures taken and viewing comments !

Has been a very long time, so the report would be really "looooooooooooooooong" :-)

New place.... new responsibilities... was getting used to it when Dad fell ill around new years time and ushered in the new year @ hospital by dad's side.

Have tons of work at my new workplace (Yodlee) which leaves me with very limited time to network with by buddies I share my hobbies with - Fishkeeping and Photography.
Plus with the net connection @ home gone, there was no way I could really catch up.

Have been riding out on my bike a LOT, which for me "puts back the sanity my work week takes away" :)

Now that the connection @ home is back, BSNL's broadband, intend to get back to interacting with people I learn and share my work with.

So here's what I've been doing or has been happening -

October/November 2007 -
Left my previous company (Verisign), and to celebrate headed out to Sangam for some biking and shooting. Tons of fun, lovely Masal Dosas, lots of rain and riding.

Then it was Bandipur/Mysore with my friends on Rajyotsava day-

Got to shoot the Mysore palace all decked up with a handheld shot :D

Found a Turkey which I could piss-off :)

During the boat ride, a group of larger cormorants accompanied us. Was nice to see just the heads above water. They really are supremely well designed for the wet life.

Saw this little one clinging onto it's mom.

December 2007 -
Went out with Bangalore Travel Photographers to Bangalore University

The block where my Mom did her M.A. in psychology

Next on was a lone ride to Manchinabele, with decent roads and tons of birdlife around (I mean the avian kind ;-) )

Then the Christmas day ride along NICE road sprung me a nice marshy place

Loved the way this little plant had the interleaved leaves

After Dad returned back home from the hospital, wanted to take a break, which translates to a ride and a shoot for me. This time I took TG Halli as I had been wanting to go there for quite a while.

Then a couple of weekend later it was Hebbal and a ride towards Devanahalli

Republic day and this time had flower show in mind, but not before I headed out on Kanakapura road for a few shots of the lakes with the morning mist

Then came all the macros I could shoot

With people and the heat piling on, moved outdoors

February 2008 -
Another mysore trip, this time covering Ranganathittu and Kokkarebellur

March 2008 -
Rode to Kanakapura again for some Masala dosas.

Some weekends later, went to Lalbagh to shoot some Pelicans (with the camera)

April 2008 -
Started with a trip to Coorg. Did not spot much wildlife, enjoyed the trip to the core. Awesome sunrise, lovely drive, great company which I would never forget and a trip that I'm glad I made.

Reached this place called Kakkabe estate with a lovely view at the base of Thadiyendamol peak

Fish and Aquariums -
On the fishy front, lots been happening. Got lots of new fish, have been planning to take the count of 14 tanks higher, haven't got the time to sit down and make my tanks :-(

Caught a Channa Striata with my almost bare hands

Got my friend's Nikon D40 to take some of my fishy shots

My Paradise fish bred, a shot of the babies hanging with their tail out from the bubble nest

To really enjoy watching the development of life, one can see this video hosted on PhotoBucket which shows the fish fry developing thru their first 21 days of life as an egg :)
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/Deerhunter444/Moba/Video/?action=view¤t=7e9b9e04.flv

Personal side -
Have been way too caught up with work. Which means I enjoy and value my free time all the more.

Have been immensely touched by "Winged Migration" and "Baraka".
Fell in love with Nick Cave's To be by your side with visuals from the movie.

Have been religiously following this series Caught in the moment on Animal planet

Hope you all are doing well too, would love to hear from you all :)

Cheers,
Hayath

RAPTORs and PELICANS !!!

2007-11-30T01:25:00.000-08:00

For most of the weekend was unable to get out for birding or photography. Was feeling a little different not having "gone anywhere". I really have become a "habitual clicker" on the weekends atleast. I guess it's my version of spending some time with myself and nature. I simply have to do it on the weekend to have a complete weekend !

Done with most of the home chores, was past noon and had some time on my hands!
Was then that I thought I'd go somewhere nearby to shoot raptors.

Thought of a small dam on Kanakapura road that I know boasts of a good number of kites. But then going there in the mad noon traffic and the hot sun, I trashed the destination.

Mom hinted Madivala lake with the hordes of pelicans that had made the news in the papers. But on INW (indianaturewatch.com), there were a few people who were troubled by the staff @ the lake for photographing. Did not want to run into trouble as I usually shoot alone. So this also was dropped.

And the next spot was right in the midst of Bangalore and always provides me something everytime I go there. And did not involve a lot of travelling either. A nice sized water body and lots of greenery around... Lalbagh it would be for the next couple of hours or so.

I had shooting raptors in mind and with the sun almost on it's horizon, I could get light on the flying machines only in some angles... but then again something's better than nothing (had I just stayed back home).

There were a lot of kites around... the Pariah kite and the very beautiful Brahminy fishing kite. With the lovely golden brown wings and a nice white head, it's our own very version of the Bald Eagle.
These are supposed to have evolved from the sea eagles and to this day retain some of the features.... excellent fish hunting skills, strong flyers, well suited tallons for grabbing onto prey !

Got some shots of the kites gliding around.

The brahminy kite for all this while way out of reach for the camera's reach. But when it did start gliding it got so near above me that I almost fell off behind trying to keep it within the viewfinder. The effort paid off with this shot of this lovely flying machine that is called the Brahminy kite

Was already feeling content having got atleast one decent shot. And it started getting better.

Watching the kites soar, I saw something which simply did not look like a kite. Looking closely I was thrilled to recognise it as a gliding pelican.

One, then two, then three of them descended down to the Lalbagh lake.

With their huge wingspan, they look marvellous in the sky.

And with their grace in the water, look fabulous swimming too !

Watched them hunt down a few fish and gulp them down with their pouch-like lower beak. They do like the company of each other and swim around in groups.

Content having seen our own raptors and the pelicans, came back home for a nice lunch.
And then it was siesta time with a very rare afternoon nap.

Adios till the next ride :)

Cheers,
Hayath

Mysore n Bandipur Gig

2007-11-22T21:28:00.000-08:00

I'd left my previous company and had extra time on my hands :D
Had initially planned of Nagarahole all on my own. But with my friend also wanting to join in, we decided to a mysore-Bandipur gig.

Googled up for accomodation @ Bandipur, and found this neat place called "MC resorts", which I made a booking for one day.
My friend Mayur managed to get us accomodation at the "Cosmopolitan club" as his dad was a member there.

With accomodation done, was time to think of transportation. With my car having some problems, had to look for other alternatives. Somehow managed to get hold of my friend's Indigo (Petrol). Prepared the car by getting it checked by a mechanic. charged up the camera batteries. I almost could not sleep half the night thinking of the days to come.

Left bangalore on Nov. 1st morning and stopped over @ Kamat Lokaruchi for breakfast. With that done, stepped on the accelerator and reached Srirangapatna in no time. Was nice to see the Dariya daulat and sit on the banks of the cauvery. Got to bounce a few flat rocks on the water's surface.

Drove around a bit to see some places and decided we would take Ranganthittu on the way back to Bangalore.

Reached mysore a short while later and checked-in to our room. A nice shower and a change later, we were itching to go out. Had lunch @ a hotel and went to the Mysore zoo. Was visiting this place after a very long time. It's really been developed well and looks after it's animals well.

Although it's sad to see wild animals caged in, they are a sort of a necessary evil. "Evil" for keeping them captive, and "Necessary" to help spread awareness and the need for conservation.

Got some nice shots of a few animals.

Having walked a long long way in the zoo, our legs were beginning to ache. Took rest sipping sprite for a while. Was almost evening, and we were planning to visit the Mysore Dasara exhibition.

There was a huge rush at the place and parking was a pain! But sort of worked out for the better. Got to shoot the Mysore palace all decked up with a handheld shot :D

Managed to find a parking spot and went in. Was sort of okayish, bought a couple of bedspreads for home. Snacked a bit on "bajjis" and cotton candy.
Did not spend too much time in there. Went on to a hotel, had a light dinner and crashed onto the beds.

Woke up early next day morning for a visit to the Karanji lake. Is very well maintained and boasts of a good collection of aquatic birds. Has a nice Aviary with some nice to see birds.

During the boat ride, a group of larger cormorants accompanied us. Was nice to see just the heads above water. They really are supremely well designed for the wet life.

Spotted the "Little grebe" and a darter up on the branches.

With the Karanji lake visit done, we went back and had a sumptuous breakfast. Done with it, had our showers and started off towards Bandipur. Checked out of the club. The route is dotted with loads of water bodies and am sure supports good bird-life. But we did not have too much time on our hands and had to reach Bandipur, check in to the hotel and then be there before the Safari started.

Reached Bandipur at 3pm, having driven for 1.5 hrs. MC resorts is pretty decent. Freshened up, went to Pugmarks for lunch. Had some lovely fried rice and chicken. Reached Bandipur visitor's lounge by 4:15pm only to find that the Safari for the evening had been cancelled due to rains the previous day :(

Was quite a let down, having really anticipated a long while for it. nevertheless, drove on towards the tamilnadu border. Spotted a few wild peafowl in the evening light. Seeing a peacock is in itself an awesome sight, and one in the wild quite something else.

Driving on, we saw an elephant grazing.

And this HUGE male with just one tusk !

Nearby in the trees were the black-faced Langurs. The evening light lending a nice backlight.

Saw this little one clinging onto it's mom.

There were hordes of spotted deer on the plains.

Even if not the Safari, was a solace nonetheless to have spotted something.

Stopped a little while to take in the atmosphere. Nice n foggy, taking a deep breath would liven up the lungs which were used to the polluted city air.

Watched the sunset beyond the hills with it's different hues.
Soon, darkness set in. And then magic happened !
We saw the whole sky with thousands of stars. It's a feeling which is hard to describe in words.

Reached the resort with a bunch of wild boars greeting us at the entrance. Settled into the room, chatted up for a while.
Dinner at the resort was almost home-like. Light and very very delicious.

Setting the alarm early for next day (for the Safari), we crashed.
Was woken up a while later when I heard some commotion. It was a small herd of elephants which had entered the resort. They passed by without any incident.

Next morning, we rushed to the Safari and boarded the forest department's van. We could not spot anything :(
With each turn, the excitement of seeing something would soon turn to disappointment.
All we saw were a few blackfaced Langurs on a tree.

Dejected, we started our journey back to Bangalore. Reached mysore to bangalore in 1hour 45 minutes, thanks to the awesome roads and the very solid car that the indigo is. Completely forgot about Ranganthittu as we pushed the accelerator.

Past NICE Road, was greeted to bangalore with a huge traffic jam.

A nice trip which could have been better in terms of spotting wildlife. But the awesome company I had more than compensated for that.

Adios !

Cheers,
Hayath

Sangam !

2007-11-22T21:15:00.000-08:00

Had been quite a while since I'd really "been out". with James also hinting for an exotic n wild location, going out on the weekend was almost inevitable. Plus, James had just got his Nikon D-80 and was very very eager to try out his new gear. After a bit of discussion, we decided it would be Sangam (Mekedatu).

P.S - The images all are links to my flickr page. If you do like any image, would love to get comments from you :)

We started off on a very very cold saturday morning, all batteries charged, fuel tank full !
Being close to Kanakapura road, did not take long to hit the road. With the sun still yet to rise, had to ride a wee bit carefully, as the twilight at morning aint the best for riding. The headlights aren't strong enough and the sunlight's not enough either.

With not enough light, stopping @ lakes on the sides of the road did not make sense. About 50 minutes into the trip, we reached Kanakapura. There was this one little bridge which I remember which ran over the Arkavati river. So there we were on the bridge with our cameras in hand shooting. The amused villagers were at their wit's end trying to figure out what on earth were we trying to capture :D

Saw these dudes who were mining sand from the middle of the river. Made for a nice shot.

On the downside, sand mining's killing the rivers :( I remember seeing so many types of fish as a kid here, but with sand mining, the flow of the river's reduced and there's lots of silt around.

By now, we were hungry, and having known kanakapura, I suggested an awesome place which serves fantastic Masala dosas. I dont remember the name, but locals call it "Vasu's hotel". Got in by about 7:15am, but were let down. they did not serve their famous "Masala Dosas" before 8am :(
Anyway we made do with idly sambar and vada. James enjoyed the strong coffee.

With our bellies full, we moved on towards Sangam. The route was pretty scenic with small little villages and lovely lush fields dotting the roads. on the way spotted a group of cattle egrets.

Also saw this lovely little cobweb with the morning dew.

Moving on, we stopped for a little birding. Spotted "Indian roller", "Black drongo", "Little green bee eaters" and for the very first time for me the "European bee eater". The european bee eater's larger in size, has a different coloration and lacks the characteristic "thread" on the tail of a green bee eater.

A few mushrooms gave more photo opportunities. The morning dew on them added zing.

The european bee eater -

Along the way saw lots more lovely landscapes. With the fields having various produce, the hues and colors added lots of vibe.

We were really beginning to enjoy all of it. The serenity, the views, the atmosphere, all to be taken in.

Arrived at Sangam, the point where the two rivers - Arkavati and Cauvery meet (hence the name). The place was full of water and the views nice n green, with the rainy season at it's fag end.

We had to take a coracle ride to reach the other side of the banks, which leads to Mekedatu. A rickety old bus greeted us for the 4 or so Kilometres. Wonder how it still runs !
With loads of bumps, reached mekedatu. There used to be a rock ledge that was so narrow that a goat could leap it to reach the other side of the gushing river. Provides for quite a terrific view of the valley and the gushing waters.

with some photographs taken, was time to move on to some "real action". Took the bus back towards Sangam and got down in the midst of nowhere. Trekked for about 45 minutes on rocky terrain to reach a spot with 4-5 mini-cascades.

Felt awesome being in the middle of nowhere with no one around for miles together. No sound other than the flowing water and birds chirping, with occasional winds whistling. You really begin to see the real beauty of nature in all it's entirity. Sat there for quite sometime. A couple of dragonflies were mating in a nearby puddle with sudden dips into the puddle to drop the eggs, where the young would develop into awesome underwater hunters.

In the blazing sun, had to navigate real tough terrain to move ahead. We were aptly rewarded for all our efforts. We reached a spot in the corner of the river which formed a slope with fine sand in the shadows of trees. Little waves splashing against little rocks.... bliss !!

Had a relaxed dip which helped bring back some life into our now battered strength. With the sun bang on our heads, it really was getting HOT. Quenched our thirst with the cool flowing waters of the Cauvery.

We did not want to leave that place, but had to as we did not want to stay there for too long (it's still a wild place).
started our trek back to the banks if Sangam. Going was really tough now, with the sun beating down and the uneven surface of the rocky terrain making it tough, had to take numerous breaks to let our fatigued muscles recuperate.

In a largish puddle, saw a croc basking on a rock. Before I could take my camera out, it dove into the water (I'd been spotted! ). Also saw a couple of mongooses. We decided that the plain surface of the dirt track would be better to get back than the rocky banks. After a bit of a mini-climb, reached the dirt track that connects Sangam to Mekedatu. A short while into the walk, saw some movement on the edge of the track. Tracked it closely to find a juvenile snake (some kind of a boa) with a frog in it's mouth. Pulled it out of the bush, knowing that the snake would not be able to bite with it's mouth full and snakes generally do not let go of their prey easily. Was about to take the camera out and click when James said he wanted a clearer shot. So pulled it out on the track, but alas ! the snake spit the frog out and slithered into the bushes :( An awesome photo opportunity missed :(

Ruing the missed shot, trudged back to the banks. Took the same coracle back to the banks. Thirsty and tired, we gulped down a couple of litres of water and sprite. With the rainy clouds threatening to break, wanted to get back to Bangalore at the earliest. stopped over on the way before Kanakapura for some landscape shots.

Reached Kanakapura pretty early. This time there was no way we were missing the masala dosas. Hungry, we ordered for 4 dosas for the two of us, not before the waiter confirming that we really were eating two dosas each :D
Devoured the dosas eagerly, they were simply delicious and cost just Rs.10/- anyone passing by Kanapura during the day/evening must stop over at "Vasu's hotel"

With darkness set in, the rain clouds opened. But with us being tired we were in no mood to stop. Drove on in the rain and reached bangalore by 8pm, dropped James to the bus stand where he took the bus to viveknagar.

A trip which worked out very very well, with some awesome shots. Had the opportunity to view nature's beauty in all it's splendour, the unforgiving wrath of the sun and the tough rocky terrain.

See you all till the next ride :D

Cheers,
Hayath

Of fish fry and a nice evening

2007-10-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday came by and with nothing to do, was wondering which place to head to for a shoot.

Had spoken to Sunil earlier in the week about heading out towards TG Halli and Ramanagaram for a shoot. Sunil called up and said he'd pick me up and we'd head off by 2PM.

A little while later Sunil told me that Danny would be joining us.
Met them at the NICE road intersection. Had got my bike, so parked it at a petrol bunk and hopped into Sunil's car.
With rainy clouds glooming large, it would be a dicey trip. And this being solely for photography, light means everything.
We discussed TG Halli, Danny said they wouldnt allow us anywhere near the dam, so dropped it. Then Danny suggested a lovely place which both Sunil and I nodded to. (will not disclose the location :D)

Drove past lovely lush greeb fields with little hillocks dotting the landscape.
Reached the location with just enough light (with the setting sun and loads of clouds) to get a few shots.

Truly captivating, with the gushing water, the little alleys formed by the water, the green surrounding. Really cant describe it in words.

Stayed back beyond sunset, caught up with some photography talk.

There was a nice stall frying some fresh fish. With fish fry and omlettes, Danny got an idea for some long exposure fire tricks. Sunil got some lovely shots of the same.

With the clouds threatening to open up any moment, headed back towards bangalore. Got a drop to the Petrol bunk, took my bike in the rain. Reached home drenched to the bone.

All in all, a nice little trip. Will definitely go back with more time on my hands.
Adios till the next trip.

Cheers,
Hayath

Biking in the Bannerghatta area

2007-10-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

With Eid being pushed by a day and aving woken up at 5 AM, had the leisure to get out early enough.

Decided on a lone ride towards Bannerghatta. Left home @ 5:45 AM with the daylight just breaking.

Zoomed out on Bannerghatta road with the first stop being a small lake with the sun just beginning to rise.

Took a few shots here, moved on and reached the bannerghatta circle. Had always taken the route towards Anekal, this time wanted to explore the other side, so took a turn to the right. Roads were pathetic right from the start, but the views were quite nice too.

Watched the red fiery ball rise into the sky filling in light.

There was a small stretch of road which showed some semblance of a road

With some light in now, the birdies started showing up, trying to soak in the early morning light

Now came the best or shall I say the worst roads (???) I've ever rode on

Being all alone with no one around, the thought of a puncture here did cross my mind, but I rode my luck :)
Was greeted by some lovely sights and smell of fresh misty morning smells

Got on to a good vantage point, could spot wild elephants in the distance and their droppings huge dropping on the road

Further on, reached a remote lake still lingering with the early morning mist

From here, reached a small village called "Hosakerehalli" with some nice lush fields

A small little flowing streamlet

The awesome ROADS I encountered on the way :D

With some good early morning light, got some neat shots of some birds.

The Female red-ringed parrot

A couple of brown owls on the branch of the same tree

Also spotted two green bee eaters on the powerlines, these dudes always give some interesting shots, highly energetic. Took a LOT of shots of these in different positions

With some decent shots taken, wanted to get back home before the sun starts burning down. Needless to say with many many stops on the way :)

Saw this little cutie running down the road crying with her elder sister trying to console her

This little house in the midst of a farm caught my eye, laid back and so very beautiful :)

Adios till the next weekend ;-)

Cheers,
Hayath

Birding !!

2007-10-15T03:12:00.001-07:00

Well I mean it in the "wild" sense and not the "urban" sense ;-)

With photography and bike trips, came a lot of seeing colorful birds on trees. Always used to watch these little winged beauties, but never had the equipment to capture them on film :(
Watching their preening, beahviour and hunting skills, I would always imagine myself capturing crucial moments on camera.
And when it was time to upgrade from my 3.3MP 3x optical zoom cybershot, I looked at a lot of options. Settled in with the Sony H2, with it's 12x optical zoom, 6.2 MP.

The increased focal range gave me an opportunity to capture birds too, along with my usual landscape and macro shots.

Living close to Kanakapura road, I most of the time head on towards Kanakapura riding. Lots of shrubby little jungles, lone roads... all perfectly set for watching birds in action.
Had seen a lot of bird shots from Sudhir Shivaram and Kalyan Varma
they provided me with lots of inspiration and techniques to shoot birds (with the camera :D )

Here are a few shots from my "birding" trips lately :)

Called a "laughing dove"(Streptopelia chinensis), one of the most beautiful plumages with the loads of pink

The "Green bee eater" (Merops orientalis), a sparrow sized highly energetic insect hunter, hangs out in groups on fences and lines.

The "purple moorhen"(Porphyrio porphyrio) can be seen in most water bodies, nests in the reeds.

"Indian pond heron"(Ardeola grayii) stays still in one position for a long time, waiting for the right time to strike at unsuspecting fish

"Blue throat kingfisher"(Alcedo atthis), as the name suggests a wonderful hunter of fish, flies low on the water surface and snaps them. This one's a juvenile, hasnt got the very vibrant colors of an adult.

"The common coot" (Fulica atra)

Kites n eagles, still havent found out how to differentiate between them :(

"Indian robin"

"Little egret"(Egretta garzetta)

Some unknown type of swan, shot in Boston's frozen rivers :)

More posts to come soon :-)

Photography and how it's changed me

2007-10-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

Being a software engineer by profession, the week goes pretty much monotone with a hectic schedule to keep up at office.
Office politics, inefficient project management, long hours of toil and many many more things do push you sometimes to the brink of insanity.

You do need to break out of it sometimes, and for me every weekend provides me with just that opportunity to keep my sanity intact for a week more :D

About a year back, my uncle who was visiting me from the states, gifted me a point&shoot sony cybershot DSC-S75 3.3MP
That was as they say "the license (to shoot)". Digital gave me to the license to shoot anything and everything that I saw. That gave me a whole new perspective of looking at things, looking at details, looking for finer things. Have always had an artistic inclination, but never looked at a canvas to put it onto.

Started of initially with photographing fish (my other passion)

My office-mates call me very very "fast-paced" and highly energetic. Someone who likes living life very fast, and to an extent they are correct. I love riding fast (on roads which permit me to), design-develop and test software very fast, impatient in some aspects... so on and so forth.

With photography, began to take my camera on my weekend bike rides. Helped me capture the sights n feel of the ride. Started to focus a bit more on the finer details of photography (which is basically all of optical physics and their governing laws). This somehow instilled a very important quality in me PATIENCE.

It also helped me look at things in a whole new light, how the same "eye" can look at things so differently. If an "eye" could be so different, imagine "opinions" and "views" :)

Began to appreciate people's views more (not that I didnt earlier, but a lot more now). The shots that I would get back from the ride would serve as a "pseudo-sanctuary" for me as in it would help me go back to that place just by looking at them. Reliving the solitude of the place, the feel.

Some of the macro shots would involve a lot of effort in terms of patience and the number of clicks to get that "right one", but when they come off I feel GREAT !
My colleagues and friends would always utter "you and having so much patience to get these kind of shots, 'impossible' and I would smile to myself and tell myself 'exactly :)'"

I still ride fast, still develop fast, believe in living life to the fullest...

........but now also switch into reverse gear on the weekends, letting life pass me by, stopping to smell the rose, watch the dragonflies fly, watching the birds play out their daily rituals on a tree branch.

You can watch many many more shots on my flickr photostream here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/hayath/