CRESTED TREESWIFT l Male
Equipment used: Canon 40D, Canon 300mm f/4 L IS USM Lens + Canon 1.4x Extender
Have cloned out a distracting twig
This is 90 % of the frame. This is not an nesting image, I spent half day photographing this one and will let know hw I got it close. This image wouldn’t have been possible without my good friend and Guru Sivalingan. An expert at bird watching, he had been observing this species for 2 weeks around a particular area in a tea estate. Forget photographing I thought would be happy to just see the species. Once I was in that area, I could see the bird in flight high up above and was waiting to come down and perch . After waiting patiently the female came and landed first in one of the three dead trees which it chooses to perch placed quiet far from each other , I looked through the Binocs and ahh what a bird was the first thing I said and decided this has to be the most beautiful looking Swift species. By now I was close to one of the trees which it would perch and kept waiting for it and just when I lost all hopes of it coming close it came and perched. By now he was at decent distance for my focal length, but the angle , bg and lighting were all bad, that’s when I saw another dead tree opposite which was almost 25ft + and decided to get on top of it so that I could get the bird in good level and lighting angle was good too and ahh the Bg. Myself and Sivalingan went in search of a ladder to get on top of that tree and we reached a tribal settlement close by to get some help there. Finally we got a Ladder a very natural one, it’s a single Bamboo pole with small branches on either sides and tall enough to get on to the tree, with great difficulty I got on top of the tree by now the bird had gone . All I have to do is sit and wait and just hope the bird to come and perch. Trust me 25ft above the ground on a tree, it’s pretty scary and the world looks different, it’s not a very big tree and the branches were not that wide enough to sit comfortably and yes the tree was shaking. One fall from top on the uneven ground below would have been bad. Here’s a picture of me on top of the tree http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/333...edtreeswif.jpg Anyone who wishes to try something like this, make sure you are not alone doing something like this, at least take ones person along so if something goes wrong there will be someone to carry u .After close to half an hour the bird came and perched . I went shooting , then for my luck the female took off and the male came and perched right there and this guy was really handsome. Yes , I burnt abt 10Gb on this species. Made multiple images to get the sharpest image with the shaking tree and me in a weird position. I was on the tree top for close to 4 hrs. Getting down the tree was not that easy too. Results were I was happy with the shots, some bruises on my legs and twist in the ankle joint. To start with here is the male of the species, more to come. This was one of the greatest experience in photography for me. Thank you all for your C & C.
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Originally Posted by Varun Bellie
