Dark-fronted Babbler (Record image)

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Dark-fronted babbler Rhopocichla atriceps | Chorla, Goa

Once again, here is an image of a forest bird (my non-marine birding has gone down quite a lot, so every forest bird image feels like a landmark ).
The dark-fronted babbler is a small babbler species from the Western Ghats. These skittish birds stick to dense undergrowth, where they forage in mixed flocks with other species. I kept seeing these (possibly the same flock of 4 birds) and tried to understand their movements for 3 consecutive days, and managed to avoid spooking them and get usable images on the 3rd day. This was more of a wait-and-ambush technique than moving in close for the shots, since the latter is very hard to do with species that stay within dense undergrowth (not to mention the risk of scaring a flock of foraging birds).

Nikon D3100, Nikkor 70-300mm ED VR
SS 1/20
Av 5.6
ISO 1600
Hand-held
Minor crop, basic editing in Lightroom including noise reduction, shot as JPEG

The light was too bad, and hence the sharpness is not optimal in this shot. More to come in this series.

Thanks, C&C welcome.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Good you got it relatively in clear. Liked the eye contact. Wish the light was better. Look forward to more in the series. Thanks for sharing.