Bird photography is extremely challanging & most satisfying kinds of nature photography I believe. Last Friday early morning around 8am, I went to Santragachi Jheel(lake) to catch up with the local & migratory birds. Santragachi in Howrah is a famous railway junction of South Eastern railways and the lake is situated just adjacent to the station and only 10 km from Kolkata. It is a quite big lake spanning around 32 acres and very picturesque. It attracts large number of migratory birds in winter months particularly in December and January. Birds are from North of Himalayas, Russia, Australia, North American come here to enjoy the winter here. But I find Lesser whistling ducks are large in numbers. Also many Pond herons, Indian black cormorant, Sarus Crane, knob billed ducks are around.
The scope of seeing varieties of birds are there, if you spend more time just observing them. By the way, it is best to carry a telephoto lens maximum up to 600mm but if you have up to 300mm then it will do the job too. I was carrying 55-300mm Nikkor lens with me. The best time is to go early morning and afternoon to get good soft lighting. Remember most of the birds are always in action, some may be quiet for sometimes to enjoy the sunshine, so what I did keep the mode in semi auto i.e. Aperture or Shutter priority mode, Matrix metering mode & AF-C as it helps the camera continuously maintains focus on the subject in the focus area. It is very important to keep focusing on any particular bird for his actions for few seconds. Anyway, I got some results as a beginner & this is my first bird photography adventure. I must say it was a very enjoyable experience for me.
Indian Pond Heron
Black Cormorant
Black Cormorant in action
Lesser Whishtle Ducks
Common Moorhen
Flight of ducks
Thank you very much for your time to read my blog, hope you will enjoy it.
