Tribute to Hodgson

[Harshad Barve]

Dear all
This is Hodgson's Bushchat

Hodgson’s Bushchat, also known as White-throated Bushchat is classified as vulnerable species by Birdlife International and is perhaps best seen in Corbett & Manas National Park in India. Very little is known of this rare bird which breeds in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russian Altai and winters in terai grasslands & riverside fields of northern India and Nepal. Fraught with rapid loss of habitat, this species can easily be overlooked amongst the Common Bushchat’s, however the all white throat and larger size is diagnostic....

The species is named after the famous naturalist ‘Brian Houghton Hodgson’ (1800-1894) whose contribution to Indian ornithology is highly respected. Not only did he discover & describe new species to the fauna of our region (39 species of mammals and 124 species of birds), but also trained Indian artists to paint birds with extreme accuracy from a scientific point of view, and under his careful supervision venerable large-scale illustrations were produced. His vast zoological collections of more than 10,000 specimens were donated to the British museum. Hodgson’s interests extended in many fields including plants, mammals & anthropology and several species are named after him…. Some of which are familiar to us like the Hodgson’s Frogmouth, Hodgson’s Redstart, Hodgson’s hawk-eagle, Hodgson’s hawk-cuckoo and the species affixed with “hodgsonii” (eg. Columba hodgsonii) ............... A small tribute to this Great Ornithologist.

D300, 600mm , F4 , ISO 200, 1/1600 , beanbag , 50 % of original
PP wise crop , levels , contrast ,sharpening and NR
All C & C are welcome and much appreciated

ps , Info Courtesy Adesh Shivkar

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful one Bhai, nice thought indeed.

Loved the Bg and Light here.. congrats..

[Matt Vosniak]

Very nice Harshad!! I like what you did with your composition and the bg and bird look great. Nice info on this rare species too. Thanks for sharing.

[Rohan Kamath]

this is such a rare species in India that I would not like to critique the image... this is unique stuff... i remember Adesh sir's image and write up of the same...very very informative indeed... Thank you for sharing this on an International forum.

[Mital Patel]

congratulations first of all to find such a rare beauty and capture in a beautiful way. i am not here to take you down by writing bellow but this is for your future reference and enhancement.

as always saying that your body is fair enough taking up its capability to go to ISO 400
here as you have 1/1600 speed with this perched bird and you choose to take f/4.
if this was mine i would have choosen at least f/7.1 or 8 to obtain nice focusing all over the bird and perch and still i may have 1/1600 with iso 400 with better focusing results.

i know sometimes its hard and we forget everything when we see a rare thing in excitement but set your camera fix on ISO 400 as your camera body is capable handling it very well with no noticable noise in 200 vs 400.

hope you dont mind this and try that out for yourself and grab richness of such beauty with little more better way.

[Clement Francis]

Never seen a better image than this ever for this species. The perch, the BG and the clarity all top notch.

[Randy Stout]

Harshad:

Lovely bird, well captured, nice info.

I do like the slightly lighter blacks of Mital's repost, but don't know the bird well enough to make a call on which is more accurate.

Nicely framed as is, a vertical comp. might have worked well also.

Randy

[Harshad Barve]

Mitalbhai , nice repost I had sighted this rare bird only for 4-5 secs in 7 days at Corbett and 3 frames so no chance of changing settings

Randy , avoided Vert crop to maintain max pixels , already 50% of original

Thanks everyone

[scott benson]

very nice image, well caught

[Brian Barcelos]

Harshad bhai, Very nice catch with a rare bird and I like the comp with extra room. Exposure looks spot on, BG and perch are very nice. Congrats

[Joe Senzatimore]

Great find and great story as well. Would love to see it as a vert. as well.

[James Salywoda]

Harshad this is an excellent shot I like the alert pose captured. Thanks for the info on the bird and getting the chance to shoot it. Well Done!

[Mital Patel]

very true harshad bhai as i already said that it may be a short time or excitement but the only point to suggest higher iso is that it always seen that performs very well without noticeable noise. so nothing to worry bout noise and get better aperture benefit to grab more DOF.

for the image it speech itself as for the rarity and the way you have grabbed it. so again a congrats on the rarity on your album and to share it with us.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Harshad...thx for sharing. loved the clean BG a lot.

KD

[Stu Bowie]

Harshad Bhai, thanks for all the info. Great sighting, and similar to our stonechat. Overall well exposed, with good colours and detail.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Mital's repost works great.

Thanks Harshad for the behind-the-scene story. Love the careful composition and BG in this one. I would be great if this species could recover.

[Michael Zajac]

Harshad, Nice BG and pose. The repost looks great. Thanks for the story.

[Declan Troy]

Great post with a combination of history, natural history, and an excellent image. Nice to get a multifaceted lesson.

[denise ippolito]

Harshad, Very nice capture and details. The repost adds to an already nice image. BG and perch are ideal. Well done.

[arash_hazeghi]

Beautiful shot Harshad, like Mital's repost better and agree with his advice on techs.