Mouthful

[Samrat Sarkar]

Photographed in my village in West Bengal
Species - Asian Koel (Male)

Canon EOS 7D + Canon 500mm f4 + Monopod
ISO 320, 1/400, f 5, EC 0, small crop from left and right side.

[Sandipan Ghosh]

exceptional composition...great work

[Prabir Chakraborty]

looks grate...TFS

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

More than an image, it is a nice photographic record.

Koel has very wide gape and can do swallowing a whole drupe or a big, hairy caterpillar. Throat will bulge as the mouthful is swallowed.
Thanks for sharing. SaktiWild

The article could be viewed in our Natural History column, it was posted on 12.05.2015.
(Country Notebook: M. Krishnan: Epicurean to the core: The Sunday Statesman : 22 March 2015)

[Mrudul Godbole]

Good you sight and photograph this behaviour. Nice low angle. The vertical composition works well here. Thanks for sharing.

[Mangru Minz]

Hard to identify without ID mention, Nice behaviour captured.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Interesting. The yellow has got overexposed and lost details. There are some strange brushstrokes appearing above the koel. What is that?

The ripe vegetable it is eating appears to be a Trichosanthes dioica. In Odiya we call it potala or parbal in hindi.

Sakti da's comment is an important reminder that natural history knowledge is invaluable for becoming a good wildlife photographer as a photographer can immediately anticipate and focus on specific behaviours.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Samrat Sarkar]

Thanks a lot everybody for your appreciation.
@Sabyasachi da
Yes you are correct. It is parbal that the koel was eating. In Bengali we call it patal. The brown horizontal stroke behind the bird is actually the bamboo structure which supports the growing parbal tree branch. I was hiding myself under this elevated bamboo structure to document their feeding behavior.
Thanks a lot to Shakti Da for remind me the behaviour of koel. Later I will share some of my experiences.

Samrat