I photographed a cormorant for the first time way back in 2010 in Mumbai with a mirror lens on a Canon 50D DSLR. But it was only towards the end of 2019 that I managed to click a photo of a cormorant that I liked. This was that photo. This was also my first trip with a Canon 300 mm F/4 IS lens. This lens is still manufactured today, was first introduced in March 1997. This lens has stood the test of time—just like everything else that’s born in the month of March! I prefer the 300 F/4 IS to the Canon 100-400 mm IS II lens which I still use sometimes. The reasons: the 300 F/4 somehow manages to bring every single detail of life, and the images are noticeably sharper than any zoom lens that I have used. It weighs just 1.17 kilograms. The 300 mm F/4 IS lens carries Canon’s primitive 2-stop image stabilisation technology as compared to present-day 4-stop IS. The other noticeable downsides are the slower autofocus speed and longer minimum focus distance.

Cormorants are also called shags. And Indian shags are everywhere! I clicked this photo while I was waiting for an oriental magpie-robin to reemerge from a shrub where it had gone to consume an insect that it had caught only a few seconds earlier. I’m sure that you remember the photo of the oriental magpie-robin with the insect in its beak that’s in my Songbirds section. The early morning sunlight kissing left wing of this Indian shag is what attracted me to click this photo. The sun was behind the bird, but not directly in front of my lens (otherwise I would be left with a mere silhouette of the bird). When we position ourselves in this manner (some people call this three-fourths lighting), the light will render every single detail better than it does when the sun is directly in front of the subject. I had spoken about this earlier with reference to the common redstart in my Songbirds section.

I spoke about how the 300 F/4 IS lens renders details so spectacularly—and here’s an example! The blue eye is what initially attracted me to click this photo. But looking at it on the computer later, I also love the bronze-brown feathers.

The northern shoveler tries—but struggles to swim away from the marsh harrier and spotted eagles who were circling the skies above.

We woke up to the news that our friend had passed away in Denmark after a brief illness. Eleven months earlier she was with us in Kumbhargaon photographing birds. Three days ago we had lost a friend in Goa.

Later that morning we saw a marsh harrier poking its claws into the head of the injured northern shoveler and made several attempts to fly away with it—but failed. A much larger and stronger greater spotted eagle ultimately won the prize.

Nature was trying to tell me something that morning. Eight people whom I knew passed away in 2019, including my own mother. Three of these eight people were in their forties.

Egrets are common birds. And the more common the bird, the more photo opportunities it will present us. Preening is an essential part of a bird’s daily life. Birds preen their feathers to keep them in the best condition and remove dust, dirt, and parasites.

It is especially critical to nail the exposure when photographing white birds so that no detail is lost due to overexposure. I always use my camera in the manual mode and set the light metering to “spot metering”. First I will set the lowest ISO sensitivity value that the available light lets me.

Next, I choose an aperture value after taking the available light or desired depth of field, or both into consideration (generally between F/2.8 and F/8 for wildlife). With these two values set, I will spot meter the brightest area of the frame where I want to see every single detail and overexpose by two stops.

The histogram is my best friend. I look at the histogram immediately after making a couple of photos and readjust the exposure if needed. Once I have set my ISO, aperture, and shutter speed using this method, I do not have to change it at all until the intensity available light increases or decreases.

Using a camera in the automatic or one of the semi-automatic modes can only lead to disappointments. A camera’s in-built light meter reads the light reflecting into the lens and ultimately onto the electronic sensor or film.

On the basis of this information, the camera will compute the exposure settings. As we point our lens to different areas, the exposure settings will change automatically depending on the proportion of highlights, shadows, and middle tones in the frame (in the automatic or one of the semi-automatic modes).

However, the intensity of light falling on the bird will not change during this time (unless of course a cloud suddenly comes in the way of the sun or floats away from it).

So for example when we’re photographing a bird in flight, the background goes from brighter to darker as the bird lands on the ground. Because of this, the exposure values will change from frame to frame. You will find that the photos turn out brighter or darker than they should be.

This can be avoided if you learn how to use your camera in the manual mode, spot meter the light and read the histogram.

The exposure of an image can be corrected using image editing software such as Adobe Lightroom.

However such corrections introduce digital noise and will affect the overall quality of the image—this will be noticeable when you print your photographs.

And what’s the point of clicking photos that you cannot print, frame and happily share with the world?

The partner wasn’t too far away—but it looked like this bird needed its space. Yes, that is a crushed mineral water bottle in the bottle that was carelessly disposed of by somebody. We couldn’t clear it due to the crocodiles and gharials all around us.

If you see one ruddy shelduck, it’s mate won’t be too far away. We have always seen ruddy shelducks in pairs. You cannot miss them especially when the early morning or late evening light kisses them.

Flamingos always stir up a frenzy in this part of the world. The flamingos of Kumbhargaon appear in the month of November or December depending on the length of the monsoon that year and fly away just before the monsoons return—in June. Hordes of people show up on weekends to watch flamingos birds foraging on the mudflats.

Over 22 million people live in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, making it one of the most populated cities in the world. It has a population density of over 30,000 people per square kilometer (or over 80,000 per square mile).

Mumbai has a "flamingo sanctuary" of about 4,000 acres. It consists of mangrove forests and a waterbody where about 167 species of birds roost. These include flamingos and other waders such as sandpipers, northern shovelers, black-winged stilts, and pond herons etc. The sanctuary stretches over parts of Mumbai and neighbouring Navi Mumbai, and Thane.

A few flocks of greater flamingos inhibit these marshlands throughout the year. But lesser flamingos are migratory—seen between November and June.

It’s always a great joy to see Indian spot-billed ducks. I first saw them in Bharatpur in 2014. The red, yellow, and green against white stand out from even a mile away. Look how comfortable they are—what a life—I feel like joining them for a snooze.

This is a pair of northern pintails who appear to be roosting on some antique designer furniture—making them look all smart and sophisticated members of the bird fraternity. But that don’t impress them much: as soon as they were done preening they took off for the nutrient-rich waters all around them. I was in a hurry to reach Jatoli Canal—that’s where the party was: herons, kingfishers, and egrets were fishing. I stopped to make a few photos of these pintails as an afterthought—glad I did—aren’t they wonderful?

It was pitch dark at 6:15 am when Bhupinder came to pick me up from my hotel. We were the first to enter the park when the gates opened at 6:30 am sharp. I asked Bhupinder to keep pedaling away to Jatoli Canal because that’s where herons and kingfishers start fishing as soon as day breaks out. We did not hear or see a single bird during the twenty minutes that it took us to reach Jatoli Canal. It was dark—and cold—8°C. I couldn’t feel my palms as we jounced away in the wind. It was still dark when we reached Jatoli Canal. Sapan Mori is a trail opposite to Jatoli Canal. I saw large teams of eurasian coots and grey-headed swamphens foraging within inches of the walking trail. Seven-feet-tall shrubs stand between the trail and the water. I found an opening and stuck one eye out without making a sound—but got noticed. One coot called—another one confirmed the “intruder alert”. Soon all hundred-odd birds flew twenty feet away from the trail. This must happen every morning when the first human arrives. Seventy-odd low-flying great white pelicans appeared in the sky in V formation. The sun was yet to appear. So instead of firing away tons of high-ISO record shots, I decided to stand still and enjoy the moment. Another flock of seventy-odd low-flying pelicans followed. This was the first time that over a hundred and fifty pelicans were seen together in Bharatpur this season. Having just arrived, they were looking for the runway to land. The search continued for the next ten minutes—they circled the skies—looking for the airport with the best facilities. Bhupinder was the only other person who witnessed this first arrival of the pelicans. He recorded a video of this exhibition on his smartphone while he looked skywards in awe. The pelicans landed on the waterbody to the right of Jatoli Canal—all one hundred and fifty of them. So I followed them. No sooner than I got closer they took off—never again did they roost so close to walking trails. It was still a little dark for good photography. But I made some record shots nevertheless—which is very unlike me.

Doesn’t the background look like it’s a part of a giant pond heron—in exactly the same position as the bird in the picture?

The legs of black-winged stilts make up 60 percent of their body length—the most for any bird. Black-winged stilts measure up to 40 centimeters from the tip of the bill to the tip of the tail. Their legs alone measure up to 24 centimeters.

Gulls are one of the easiest birds to practice our flight photography skills on—they’re big, slow and don’t shy away from humans easily. This helps us to understand our individual ability to handle telephoto lenses, especially what’s the slowest shutter speed that’s required to get sharp photos of birds in flight. We will need to use faster shutter speeds for birds that fly more swiftly, for example, the peregrine falcon that can reach speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour.

The heads of brown-headed gulls turn brown during the breeding season—that’s how they get their name.

This is what October in Kumbhargaon looks like. You see whiskered terns perched on electric wires (in the background, out of focus). You have electric poles, fishing nets and sugarcane plantations in the background.

Four painted storks waiting for fish to arrive.