Civet

Hopefully my small carnivore luck is changing. Jungle cat after a long time in Bandhavgarh and now this Palm Civet in K Gudi (B R Hills).

It was a misty morning and light levels were poor. We saw this civet inside the hole of a tree at ground level. Its head was not visible as it had turned its back towards us. The stripes on the body had matched with the tree and was difficult to sight. We left it and then after about half an hour reached the same spot to see that it had turned back and was ready to move out.

After clicking environment shots, I clicked this close up.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II, Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L IS USM, EF 2xII, ISO 800, f5.6, 1/10th second, full frame image. This was clicked at 8.23am, so you can imagine how bad the life was.

I placed my Kinesis long lens case on my lap and placed the lens over it and shot. Happy to pull it off. After clicking this, for some reason I changed the Mark II and attached the 1D Mark IV to the 400+2x combo but didn't get a better shot.

At such close distances it was difficult to locate the civet as everything was appearing black and out of focus. The depth of field was very low at such close distances. We will post other full body images later.

Look forward to your comments and critiques.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Wow! was waiting for this image since Mrudul mentioned about the sighting. Lucky to have got this rare species. I am yet to see one and photograph:sad:.
The whiskers have come out well. Considering the low light conditions the image is expectional. Look forward to more from the trip.
tfs

A good shot, given the circumstances. First time that I am seeing a close-up as close as this one:) Look forward to a few habitat images...

tfs

Bhargava

You got a good closeup. The conditions were really tough to photograph with such low light. Look forward to more. Thanks for sharing.

Lovely shot of this uncommon civet.
Atul

Nice close up sir. Quite sharp for the shuter speed. With your luck changing we are waiting for the Small Indian civet or Nilgiri Marten.....:thumbup1:

TFS
Roopak