Gazing in the void ...Repost ...

I am reposting this after correcting and straightening the Horizon.

Thanks Daniel for the feedback ... Will always look to improve ...

Nature and Rains ...

These are some of the pics that I had taken one morning just after it had rained ... Just loved the texture and vividness water created on these plants ...

The Morning Sky ...

Where are all my friends?

This one was flying around with a group and while the others flew to a nearby tree this one landed up on the wire in front of my window. I just managed to take thi shot before it flew away.

In the Sun and Rain

These are two photos of the hibiscus flower from my garden. They were taken on a Sunny winter morning about a week back.




And this one was taken after a couple of days. It had rained heavily here in Nagpur for those two days and the flower had taken quite a bit. But the hibiscus still looked beautiful despite of it being an overcast day and it had just stopped raining when I took this picture.

Some more birds ...

I found these small cuties on 14th Jan, while flying kites, please manage with the quality of the pics coz these birds were very small ... Please keep the comments flowing ...



And if there are any bird watchers coming in here ... please do enlighten me with the names of these two birds ... the black one and the one with the purple neck ...



Happy Blogging ...

American Goldfinch

This bright yellow bird played hide-n-seek with me for about an hour before I got a clear glimpse of it(well, almost clear ... ;-)). I was flying some kites on 14th Jan, Sankranti, when I happened to spot this one on a tree.


Wikipedia:

The American Goldfinch is a granivore and adapted for the consumption of seedheads, with a conical beak to remove the seeds and agile feet to grip the stems of seedheads while feeding. It is a social bird, and will gather in large flocks while feeding and migrating.



Human activity has generally benefited the American Goldfinch. It is often found in residential areas, attracted to bird feeders installed by humans, which increases its survival rate in these areas. Deforestation by humans also creates open meadow areas which are the preferred habitat of the American Goldfinch.




The American Goldfinch is a small finch, 11–13 centimeters (4–5 in) in length, with a wingspan of 19–22 centimeters (7–9 in). It weighs between 11–20 grams (0.39–0.71 oz). The beak is small, conical, and pink for most of the year, but turns bright orange with the spring molt in both sexes.

Basking in the evening Sun

I caught this one on sunday, when I was having my evening tea.

Click on the picture to see the full size.

Little Green Bee-eater

The first bird that I spotted on my window was the Little Green Bee-eater, a very colorful and pleasant bird. I'm adding a little more information about it below.



This species is a richly coloured, slender bird. It is about 9 inches (16-18 cm) long with about 2 inches made up by the elongated central tail-feathers. The crown and upper back are tinged with golden rufous. The flight feathers are rufous washed with green and tipped blackish. A fine black line runs in front of and behind the eye. The iris is crimson and the bill is black while the legs are dark grey.

We can see the Golden Crown clearly in the image below.



The neck can be seen in this image, asian green bee-eaters usually dont have a prominent blue neck like their Arabian counterparts, but the shade of blue can be noticed.




Just as the name suggests, bee-eaters predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps and ants, which are caught in the air by sorties from an open perch.






Ref: Wikipedia, Google.
Motivation by: http://klishmaklaver.blogspot.com/

The New Year's Moon

We had such a hype of the blue moon on the new years eve, that I couldn't fight the urge to stay inside, and despite of the eclipse and I found myself out on my terrace clicking pictures of the moon. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed when I saw that the moon was not "Blue". A bit of research told me that the moon is not really blue but then the eclipse occurs twice so its called a blue moon. I still clicked the "Blue Moon". And I clicked a half moon too a couple of days back, so thought I'll post both of them.

I personally like the half moon, how about u ?

Birds from my window

Its been a while I got a new SLR and I've been experimenting a lot with it lately but most of the pics that i had clicked were of family only. But only in the new year I started to click random stuff. The very first ones were the cutie pie birds that I clicked from my window, which reminds me of my Director Mr. Nishikant Mukherjee, who was clicking pictures for his book, 'Birds from my window', I hope I can be half that lucky to find enough birds on my window too.

These are some from the first week.

P.S. :I'm really very new to photography, please feel free to criticize or applaud.