Tickell's Blue Flycatcher?

[Mrudul Godbole]

I photographed this at Ranganaththittu last month. It was very quick and the light was tricky. I got this image in the 2-3 seconds when it was perched on the bamboo. On the right there were some ropes tied, so I had to compose with tight spacing on the right to just include the tail in full.

The Tickell's Blue Flycatcher (Cyornis tickelliae) is a small passerine bird in the flycatcher family. This is an insectivorous species which breeds in tropical southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka to Indonesia. They are blue on the upperparts and the throat and breast are rufous. They are found in dense scrub to forest habitats.

Canon 50D, 100-400mm L IS USM, ISO 400, f7.1, 1/30, full frame, hand held.

Comments and Critiques welcome.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Nice image Mrudul, you should have increased the iso. At 1/30sec SS the the image is still good. I think you are talking about the place as we enter the park, there is a bamboo grove and this fly-catcher is resident there. I have seen it several times but was unable to photograph due to low light at that spot as it quite dense.

Thanks for info

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice image under tough conditions. The eye contact is nice. It is tough to shoot at 1/30th of second. You did well. Since you were already at ISO 400, increasing the ISO to 800 would not have helped you much. There is an out of focus stalk cutting across the frame. Without that the image would have looked great. A vertical composition would have looked nice. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Lakshminarayanan Nataraja]

Nice image Mrudul.

All along I was thinking that flycatchers (other than paradise flycatcher) can be found only in forests, light forest or woodlands.

Finding a flycatcher in R'thittu which has no forests nearby is surprising.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Thanks all for the comments.

Praveen, yes it was in the bamboo grove near the water. We were sitting when I saw it perched on the bamboo and so took the photograph.