First shots this Vasant

Winter here usually comes with few installments of cold spells broken by few sunny days. Not this time. This year it was one single long spell of cold days. It however broke the pattern that was going for almost one and half year now of reality not matching with season. Say, last winter was more like monsoon, Summer had lacked the usual heat and Monsoon the rains. So hopefully this winter being like winter will restore the order. and now, abundant Sunshine has returned and so the colours. Best season for photography starts now and I hope to do better compared to last few months.

I was thinking about not seeing the roller for quite some time and one morning see him. I quickly got home, picked up camera and returned. He however had left by then. Its disappointing that unlike in past, when he or even the pair was seen quite regularly, is seen less and less now. Last time I spent good time watching it was actually nearly three years back. a  shot from archives for now.

I did not find the roller but still it was worth spending some time there - a black hooded Oriole was calling happily and not many things can match the experience of listening to one. While coming back saw this hoope sitting on the ground. I went and sat at some distance. then at somewhat lesser distance and then even lesser. It didnt mind my company even at some 15 feet or so.

Meanwhile, keeping up with the season, my favourite tiny weed flowers are back.

okay, I know it doesnt make a sensible post to repeat all those weed flowers every year no matter how much I like them so rest assured I wont repeat my last February post. I however found one beautiful addition this year that wasnt there before. It should be around 4mm in size.

Insects too have started appearing and first of them to appear everywhere is.. well, what might sound very uninteresting subject to most - a mosquito it is I think. I quite like it for its antennas and one of them was posing for me the other day.

Some colours to end with. Hope to be back with more colours soon..

A little diversion

While choosing subject of my first post on this blog, I had selected squirrel in an instant and did not have any second thoughts. Reason I like them so much is their playfulness. There are no words using which I can overemphasis how much I love to watch them.

Many things have changed since I started this blog. I was supposed to be mostly taking bird photos then but turned out I spoke more with macro subjects, I also thought this blog would be largely photo driven but words started sneaking in more and more as way of expression. This place felt strange, nowhere place on day one and now it’s a comfortable home. these changes were both continuous and natural. However, something else, an completely unexpected change also occurred during this period. Back then, most of the time I spent was with birds, bees and butterflies and human-world mostly existed only in context of sharing my experiences here or at flickr. But then, in last one year, human- world has reclaimed me. or, I should say, someone just Stormed in and re-ignited my interest (and hope) wrt to the world. The Someone, to whom I just gave credit to alter direction of my thoughts so completely, was mentioned on this blog first time nearly 10 months ago - as the Sun I wanted in my sky.

Now, he appears to be willing to listen to anyone with good ideas in general and frequently everyone is explicitly invited to share ideas on specific areas too. I however, finding myself suddenly interested in a new world, am in learning mode. find I lack knowledge or ideas about anything. Plus, isnt it true that talking sense is a lot more difficult than what we imagine it to be when we are not actively trying to talk sense? Yet even in this purely learning stage my brain reacted somewhat strongly when I read one area where ideas were invited. Not because I had any idea to share, but because I still think there are no words using which I can overemphasis how much I love to watch playful life and value playfulness.

Views were invited on ‘Making India a Sport Superpower’. If not for the strength of the pull that has brought my attention back, my instant emotional reaction to this would have been wanting to escape to my old world where human affairs were nowhere in focus. Why bother about things you cant ever understand? ok, I survived the irritation but thought let me at least try to pen down why I think world is difficult to understand using example of my reaction to concept of ‘Sports SuperPower’.

I get into troubled waters with the term ‘Sport’ itself to start with. When I hear that word, I try to interpret it as something inherently good, something positive. But then I don’t get that feeling of goodness I expect when I see that most recognised sports people wouldn’t have earned recognition if they had not used most sophisticated tools, if they had not received best training (knowhow for how to ‘crack’ the game?) or in some cases if they didn’t also have killing spirit. I fail to associate words win and lose with my expected interpretation of Sport. These contradicting interpretation of Sport creates a very typical feeling like.. ok, have you played ‘Say the colour not word’? I may be technically incorrect but closest example of how I feel (or felt till I understood why this was happening) while interpreting the word Sport is how we feel while saying colour not word. two conflicting answers, incorrect one turning up first.

I think now however I have some idea why that happened. while trying to understand my irritation with word Sport, I suspected if it was a culture shock of some kind. I tried to translate the word Sport in Indian languages and then translated back to English. Word I got was Play. So there I was. Play- which arises out of playfulness – when there is an environment of security, confidence, mutual trust/liking and abundance of resources; Play- which strengthens the bonds between players, enhances fitness, may offer non-production environment to hone up physical and cognitive skills required at other times; Play- where joy experienced by ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ is no different as its joy of playing and counting win and lose is no one’s intention is of course very different from (or actually quite opposite of?) the ‘Sport’. Playfulness of course is also a much broader thing – it’s a state of mind you can carry in many different areas not just on playgrounds.

Second thing creating problem with me is trying to become a SuperPower – to my mind it sounds so much of a zero sum concept, almost feels disgusting. why try to become a SuperPower in any area? Why not try to become Strong?  Strength using which one can help those lacking it also gain it and can forge synergies with other's strength. Now, you may point out that my argument is not fair in current context of becoming more powerful in sports. In current context, it should be simply taken as attempt towards producing more and more champions and for that all you need to focus on is to produce more and more players who are among the best in the world – and by doing it, others are in no way rendered weaker players – so what’s wrong?

well, I have nothing against a scenario of seeing myself in a country having more and more best players in the world. especially if I don’t double count my problem with concept of ‘Sports’ again here. I will be happy in similar way with such a scenario as.. say someone checking his medical test results find that he has a very good HDL level. A great indicator saying things are going well on some fronts. isnt it? But what if test results are bad? Should he rush to change his HDL level by directly targeting it? What happens if value of indicator is changed with use of external forces? will that also make underlying situation all well or just break the relationship between value of indicator and underlying situation? Well, in case of HDL it doesn’t seem to be making underlying situation better and, I feel case for altering number of sports champions – by directly acting on that objective may not be too different. What’s more, now you have one indicator less to tell you how you are doing in reality.

Btw, None of above means that I have even slightest doubt that our leader doesn’t values playfulness. I also have full faith that he will never walk or take the nation on paths of zero sum games. as well as, no one would imagine him to be naïve enough to target an indicator only. (Yes, I can happily call myself a Bhakt of our prime minister :-) ). So, probably this focus on what sounds not worthy of being an objective to me may be in some way just a tool in a journey to reach higher goals? ..whatever it is though, I cant read this phrase ‘Sports Superpower’ without some kind of irritation.

So, it seems I haven't made a lot of progress in being able to comprehend the way things work in human world despite my renewed interest to understand them. Fortunately though there is beautiful and not so difficult to understand Nature also around. Let me see what I find for the next post.

Side effect of poor net connectivity?

Keeping up with the trend of reducing frequency of posts seen over last few months it has been a long break again. There usually are set of things keeping me away each time but two reasons were present more consistently all these months. and now I guess one of them may have helped other to exist to some extent?

One hurdle between me and blogging over last many months has been my net connectivity and computer problems. I have been mentioning them now and then so nothing to add here. But other factor, which I initially thought to be independent, was my eyes. I first realised few months ago that my Mypoia had started decreasing. This was expected and somewhat awaited too. it was also confirmation that I had completed a good four decades of life. Now, as I had tried to get into macro world some two years back without spending money, I had +1, +1.5 Diopters at ready disposal and could estimate that reduction was around 1.25-1.5. But then, I am at my best and so succeeded avoiding hard work of visiting an eye doctor to get new prescription for months. Side effect of it was that my brain did not like me seeing thought glasses and I developed computer avoidance tendency.

Finally however, I managed to visit an eye doctor – for, mom was found to have cataract, ready to be operated on. So she had her cataract removed and I had my new eye prescription with Spherical power slashed by 1.25 and Cylindrical component slashed by 0.5. I see a lot better now but cant still say love to stare at computer. Probably staring at computer is not one of those activities eyes enjoy most, well corrected or not.

Now, since its first time my eye prescription change is in reverse direction, and since I have time to get interested in whatever I like, I have been trying to understand basic things about eyes and Myopia. (agree that its strange I didn’t try to understand it earlier) with not so hidden agenda of reaching to a preferred conclusion that this reduction in power is not simply sign of aging but actually some improvement. Its much like trying to identify a bird you just sighted where choices are between a commonly available and rarer similar looking species – you always want it be rare species while knowing its almost always the common one that it is. For now I have put on hold the decision if its just aging or positive effects of lifestyle changes (drastically reduced computer usage being one of those changes) till I get next data point say a year or so from now wrt to accommodation which can be taken as proxy for aging. What makes reaching conclusion more interesting is that, the eye doctor I consulted, a reputed one at that, has categorically declared that there wont be any future reduction in numbers whereas empirical evidence seem to suggest that its usual to see such reduction in 40s for those who have high Myopia..

Btw, while we were visiting Gujarat for eye care, I managed to spend some time looking out for birds.

Gull Billed Tern

Gull billed Tern

Purple Moorhen

Actually not much luck with sightings or shots this time so let me add here old shot of one of my favourite sighting there.

Back here, things were really cold and devoid of Sun till day before. Sun however is out finally and I have got my season's first flycatcher shot.

Meanwhile, a mixed group of stilts, sandpipers, etc is visiting and I hope to walk to Ganga before they go off and before the next post..

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P.S. With some more reading and experiment, I think I have somewhat better understanding of my reducing numbers than I had 10 days ago. My preliminary googling had led me to believe aging mainly affects near vision because we gradually lose accommodation. – this should not have any effect on far vision which is based on relaxed lens.
So, the only point of speculation appeared to be that reduced near-stress might have helped lens relaxing better. This, however did not explain why everyone with Myopia experiences reduction in numbers.

Now, in last week I did and read few more things.
- For the first time I managed to find a study (study itself is old – only I did not find it before) where someone had accepted that Myopia actually decreases with Age.
- I also tried to measure my current accommodation so that I can see how it changes with age in coming years. Now, I happened to do this exercise both indoor in artificial light and after few days outdoor on a Sunny day. – Initially I found results confusing. – I was younger outdoor under the Sun than indoor under artificial light? Accommodation was higher by 0.5 to 1 Diopter. but.. was it accommodation effect? if yes, why I managed to get near point nearer and far point further instead of just near point nearer? ok, I should not have asked this question to myself.. Of course more light, higher f number means better DoF. Outdoor light allowed my pupil to constrict and what I thought was higher accommodation was only higher DoF.
- No wonder that after noticing above effect, I quickly saw everywhere it was mentioned that with age, our pupil size also decreases. Smaller pupil size equals not only better DoF but also lower levels of aberrations. plus, lets not forget that we see with Brain. I forgot to note the source but I think somewhere I read that brains may get better at seeing (making up pictures) with age.

Ok, I could not find ready calculation how much effect and if its significant or not is generated by reducing pupil size for highly myopic eyes or could not calculate myself so far due to not having put effort to do it myself and therefore don’t claim that should be the reason for myopia reduction. but with all of above additional information, my hopes of finding any other reasons beyond simple aging has reduced drastically.

Another morning with the Orange headed Thrush

Light I was so happy about lasted only a day after previous post and even if fog was expected, I certainly didnt expect it as much as one sees only towards end of December. World suddenly became small and whatever visible, was also mostly seen as outlines. This illustration mode of black headed gull captures how much you could see in that fog. 

Unlike last year, this year they arrived on time. were here by mid Nov I think. This year however, so far I haven't managed to walk up to Ganga and so along with other river birds, haven't taken their photos so far this season.

Fog was too early indeed and didnt manage to last long. Light returned in some two three days with bonus of cleaner air. I returned to watch the Orange headed thrush and as I sat on the ground, knew that I will have nice time. The spot actually belongs to an Indian Robin family. Its their favourite spot to feed when they are around and now they were back. So I guessed there will be some not very friendly interaction with smaller long time owners of territory and new, larger, temporary visitor. Indeed there were signs of dissatisfaction but it was not permanent vs temporary criteria but large vs small that had upper hand. The Thrush ran after Robins on couple of occasions only to push them few feet away for a while, on the other hand Robins expoited their better comfort level with me to feed nearer to me than the Thrush could. All in all it was very enjoyable session of sitting on the ground till of course leg and back muscles raised their voice louder than brain's capacity to ignore them that they were not happy with twisted position to accommodate camera at ground level to track three happy individuals.

A tailor bird too joined briefly.

At far end, there was some movement and see this Francolins checking out who was sitting at other end.

and, some shots of the Orange headed Thrush for whom I was there. they are no different from last time but who says you cant indulge in repeating similar shots on a blog once in a while.

Lots of light but not many subjects

This year, most of migrants who come here for winter are either hard to find or not there at all, but sightings of passing migrants fortunately has not been that bad. While I was shooting butterflies in previous post, had come across a group of energetic Minivets. Some 6-8 of them I think and many of them Juvs probably. There were there for some 10-15 minutes.

Highlight of this November I think was not presence of any species or any shots taken rather it was absence of them, specially insects - as it was this month that got me interested in insects in first place. This year however I noticed almost nothing. towards the last days of the month, not having taken any insect shot appeared too odd to me and I thought I must find something even if as a token. Found this nice looking moth and a grasshopper. Nothing much about grasshopper except that I find its eyes interesting - looks like watermelon design.

Back to migrating birds, I am seeing one off examples for last two three years where I see an isolated individual for a day or so (passing migrant) and next year see it spending lager part of the season here. This year I think spotted thrush was the first such example. Now, a second thrush species has joined. Had seen a single individual of Orange headed thrush stopping over for one morning some two/three years back. and now, one individual is here to spend full or part of winter. I am quite surprised to see that its not much shy.

One thing however that is both puzzling and frustrating is that it somehow evades giving sharp shot. After blaming my photo taking skills, low light, its tendency to keep moving etc etc, now I am starting to suspect something to do with nature of its feathers. I intend to catch it in those sunlit spots few times to see if its really me or its feathers that comes in way of a crisp shot. Absence of other attractions may give me enough time to spend on this individual too.

if light situation in above doesnt look too bad, here is the context why I complain of low light. in above shots. I underexposed the thrush in all shots in shade at ISO 1600, f5.6, 1/160s whereas I somewhat overexposed this Ashy prinia shot standing at same spot at ISO 400, f8, 1/640s.

So, light is at its best right now. I hope to get some birds too while the light lasts as fog may start setting in anytime now.

Butterflies in flight

I should be trying for better shots but for now, some results out of attempts so far. Almost all of below shots are sharpened quite harshly and in third shot have removed a flower just left of the butterfly.

Scaly thrush and more

Scaly thrush is one of those birds that you are always thrilled to sight. Stays on the ground, under dense bushes and loves to stay hidden. I had seen it here once two years back – had assumed it was on her way back to summer home. This season, a week ago as I was walking by around where I had seen it previously, something took off from ground and gone in a fraction of second. I was sure it was a Scaly thrush. Was it here on its way to South or was here for the winter? In few days I got the answer. Same place, I was careful this time and stopped as soon as heard the thrush walking on the ground. It watched me for a while from inside those plants that hid it nicely, and then flew off. landed on a tree not far, on a branch at eye level. (tree was at lower height then ground I was standing on). too good to be true? Well, I wasn't carrying right equipment. Here is a crop from what I got using smaller cam. (it was on Aperture priority and I clicked without noticing what shutter speed cam had selected. I was surprised that I got at least one shot steady enough at 50x zoom at shutter speed of 1/50.) 

After above shot, I thought ‘How lucky to get it on a tree in clear sight’. While indeed for a bird that spends almost all its time on ground and hiding I was lucky to see it on the tree, what stuck me as odd fact that it was my third photograph of the bird so far and in all three it was on a tree. I remembered term for this that I had learned more than 15 years ago in context of performance measurement of portfolios - its called Survivorship bias.

Some couple of hundred meters from where I saw the thrush, is a spot that was favourite get-together place for many birds last week (they seemed to have moved elsewhere this week), mostly resident and some local migrants (i.e. those who are technically resident but appear during some season and disappear in other). Essence of being there can be best captured by capturing sound, which I haven't done so far. for now, a black hooded Oriole Juv there while it was playing with other Oriole.

Another day. I saw below flycatcher at low and clear perch. Now, I was supposed to take as good picture as possible, as fast as possible. and flycatcher was supposed to notice me and fly off. but, for the reasons I did not try to understand, my camera kept refusing to focus on the bird - probably it was underexposed or bird was too small to focus on but whatever it was, I stubbornly refused to apply mind and kept pressing shutter hoping I will get a shot. (for the fear that bird will fly off by the time I correct settings / move closer.) the bird too refused to play its part well and gave me unreasonably long time to shoot. In the end, however, being anxious about getting result, doing same thing and expecting different result policies didn't work and I was left with this below shot losing excellent opportunity. - I think I am falling back in that trap of getting anxious seeing a shot I want where probability doesn't favour me getting it. for the first time last year I had managed to get out of this trick mind plays with me and stay calm and enjoy what I see no matter how rare the shot may appear. I had managed to stop wanting to grab it. It had, as expected increased success rate, but more than that, feeling of winning over mind's trick was more enjoyable. I guess, this flycatcher reminds me that less time I am spending with nature in last few months is not a development in right direction.

Lastly, an encounter with this inquisitive butterfly. It was flying with what looked like intention to reach some flowers, suddenly notices the other butterfly on ground, alters its flight path in typical 3 dimensional unpredictable zigzag pattern to move near the butterfly on the ground, with two three dips it appeared to have understood what it wanted to and was back on its way. 

I was watching the episode and to me the butterfly on the ground appeared dead - and therefore the other one more of a concerned individual rather than just a curious creature. I thought to keep dead butterfly away from this walking path so someone doesn't step on it / cause stress to other butterflies around. I took a step towards it and it flew away :-)

Managed to get a shot of above because I was already trying for some in-flight butterfly shots. no good shots so far, but flying butterflies appear most interesting subjects right now. hope will get a post with them soon.