Blue-tailed Bee-eaters in action

Blue-tailed Bee-eater Merops philippinus

So here are a few images of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters i made in the month of May. Hope you enjoy them.

All the images were shot on a Canon EOS 20D with a Canon EF 600mm F4 L IS USM lens using rear-focus AF.

A pair of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters on the ground.

A pair of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters with their catch!

Blue-tailed Bee-eaters are near passerine birds from the Bee-eater family. They breed in South-eastern Asia, and are seen during the season in most places in peninsular India.

It is a richly-colored slender bird that can reach lengths of 23-26cms. The body is mainly green with a blue tail, from which it gets its name.

Blue-tailed Bee-eaters feed on insects, especially bees, hornets and wasps. They also feed on dragonflies (as seen above) in equal numbers. Quite often they are seen beating the insects cought in their beaks against twigs or branches, this is done to break the insects exoskeleton.

They nest in colonys in sandy banks or open flat areas, with the birds laying five-seven eggs each. Both the parents take care of the eggs and chicks.

A note to photographers: Please avoid going too close to the nest as this prevent the parents from taking food to the chicks inside the nest.

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All Images are Copyrighted Angad Achappa and may not be used in any form, website or print/online media without written permission of the Photographer. For any inquiry for the photographs please contact: angadachappaphotography@hotmail.com

Leopard on rock -Bandipur

Another trip to Bandipur!! :)

It started of with Mahesh Reddy, Vinay S Kumar and I heading for Bandipur late night. Our destination was Jungle Lodges. It had been raining tigers over the past few days in Bandipur, with sightings of them for over an hour. For some strange reason i just knew it, what we were going to see was a Leopard, and that too one on a rock, an image i'd only dreamt of making.

Just before we headed for the morning i remember telling Mahesh 'dude, we'l change the sightings at Bandipur from tigers to leopards, and hopefully will get to see one on a rock.'

It was just two minutes into the safari, when i spotted a thin stripe of something golden-ish on one of the rocks and decided to wait for a few seconds to confirm that it was a leopard before shouting 'LEOPARD LEOPARD LEOPARD'. This was the very same rocky area that i had seen way back in 2008 and had dreamt of seeing a cat on it from that very first safari.

I cannot explain the feeling of seeing a cat at the very same spot id dreamt of for four years. Hopefully you like the images of this sighting as well!!

Both the images were shot using a Canon EF 600mm F4 L IS USM mounted on a Canon EOS 20D.

Both Mahesh's & Vinay's images can be viewed at Mahesh Reddy Fotografy & Vinay S Kumar Photography.

For bookings and info on Jungle Lodges, Bandipur please CLICK HERE

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All Images are Copyrighted Angad Achappa and may not be used in any form, website or print/online media without written permission of the Photographer. For any inquiry for the photographs please contact: angadachappaphotography@hotmail.com