A Young `un-- Black Buck in the making.Bidar

[Shyamala Kumar]

Nikon3200+70-300 F/5.6 ,1/2000s ISO800 FL300mm, Nov2013 morning.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Lovely light. Nice pose and eye contact. A lower ISO would have sufficed here. Good details and composition. Thanks for sharing.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Madam Shyamala,
Could you please help me with the close up/front view of the head, particularly horns. Kind regards,SaktiWild

[Shyamala Kumar]

Saktipadaji I am posting a close up of the horns as you requested.The image is very grainy but the best I could manage.I assumed it was a young blackbuck because the golden coats of ones with longer horns was tinged with black.I leave the final word to your judgement.Regards Shyamala

[Debasis Bose]

Lovely shot in early morning light. It is difficult to distinguish female blackbuck and chinkara from a distant as they look similar, but they are actually of entirely different. Blackbuck are a type of antelope, whereas chinkara are a type of gazelle. They share their habitats and look very similar. Chinkara stand about 25 to 26 inches and weigh 23 to 25 kgs, whereas blackbuck can stand up to 32 inches and weigh 40-43 kgs. The horns of a chinkara measure 15.4 inches and blackbuck horns measure 28 inches. Chinkara are reddish brown with white bellies and throat patches, whereas blackbuck have similar white markings, but males are dark brown to black in color.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

An adult Male Chinkara in its prime. Slightly curved and closely ringned horns. Nice horns of almost maximum size of about 8-9 inch. The long projected sleek ears and inside markings look beautiful. Incidentally, it is the only species of Indian Antelope of which female have horns, vestigial though they be (ears of the female are also small).
The male Blackbuck has spiral horns of maximum size of about 20-24 inch, female carries no horns.
Very fast, agile, capable of giant leap; very difficult to photograph. Nice capture.
Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Shyamala Kumar]

So far I had assumed that all the antelopes in Bidar were black-bucks.This is indeed an eyeopener.Chinkaras are known to roam the Deccan peninsula north of Krishna.I have some images in which both black bucks and chinkaras are grazing together( acc to Debasis both may share the same habitat).This is wonderful.

[Subhash Shrivastava]

wow, couple of weeks ago i was thinking that if i get a chance to go to R'than I can see chinakars also never knowing that i have been seeing them for past 1 year in Bidar. it's feeling really great that I have seen one more splendid species that too not far off. I used to wonder why some females are having short horns whereas most none, as it was clear that they are not juvenile males.
I really doubt that Bidar FD staff knows that there are chinkaras along with BBs there.

[Shyamala Kumar]

Subhash ,I am sure that they are as yet unaware of this fact.But still the Karnataka Govt. is to be congratulated in that they have made these small wilderness havens accessible to us.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice to see a chinkara. Not easy to shot as they often runaway. As Shaktipadaji has rightly pointed out, if attention is not paid to the horns, one can mistake them to be female blackbucks. I think slightly lowering the contrast and saturation would be good. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi