Sunday, August 18, 2013

flight of a hornbill

When I am in the woods, there is always much to wonder. One can certainly expect a lot of surprises and nature will never disappoint anyone. No, I am not talking about a tiger sighting here. Yes, there are so many other tiny-little-things that can thrill me if I observe carefully. The wonderment of sighting a new thing is always a beautiful experience.  I still remember a lot of such beautiful moments in the past; be it sighting flying squirrels or sighting a Himalayan brown bear or a beautiful orchid up on a tree. I may or may not have clicked a picture, and it does not matter as much. What matters is that there is always something to look for when in nature. 

One such beautiful sighting made me feel ecstatic during my recent monsoon trip towards North-West Karnataka. After seeing the magnificent magod waterfalls, I was at Jenkal gudda photographing those huge valleys cut across by the gorgeous Bhedti river. While the river silently flows, there comes a great hornbill flying from one side of the valley to the other. It was a beautiful sight to see the hornbill crossing the valley and it was even magical because I was able to see it from a higher elevation. It took a long time to cross the valley and I was observing its flight for a long time till it completely crossed over. I was also lucky to get some pictures (of course not-so-good ones) of its flight. This one sighting was worth the trip this monsoon. 






Cheers,
Srik

4 comments:

Narasim Katary said...

Dear Srikanth,

Thank you for the spectacular photographs of the beautiful bird in flight. The canary yellow colour glistens in a magical way. As you say in your text it must have been wonderful to watch it over time.

Very sincerely yours,

KFK

Manjunath Byadigere said...

Wonderful photographs Srik,

I remember we sighted a couple of these great birds in a long flight at Dandeli when we were walking to the rafting place. Majestic birds to watch in flight...

Prashanth Nuggehalli Srinivas said...

Nice photographs! From the photos, it appears to be the Great Hornbill (Buceros bicornis) though, no? You can see the golden casque (as opposed to the bright yellow bill and casque) in the photo.

Srik said...

Thanks Daktre for correcting the ID. :)