The name of the bird is Silver-breasted Broadbill. They are endemic in the forests thickly covered with vegetation canopy. After the Bengal Florican, these are the most sought after birds in the Manas National Park. Many tourists visits Manas to watch these birds. This female bird in the picture here is sitting unconcerned in a dreamy surroundings of yellow green lights. Please notice that there is a white circular ribbon round the neck of the female birds.
Some recent findings declare that there are not only the yellow-green lights in the forests, but at least five different types of lights prevail in different situations there. They are 1. Yellow-green, 2. Bluish-grey, 3. Reddish-orange, 4. Bluish-violate, 5. Pure-white. The type of light depends mainly upon the geometry of the forest, upon the presence of the clouds in the sky and upon the angular position of the sun in the sky. Generally the bluish-grey lights are seen in the forests in most situations; when there are some opennings in the jungle reddish-orange lights are seen; when these openings become quite large the light becomes dull white with or without the presence of some clouds in the sky; the light becomes bluish-violate in early mornings and just before the darkness comes at night; and in the forests covered by a roof of thick vegetation the yellow green light becomes prevalent. These interesting findings were disclosed in the research paper of Mr. John A. Endler, a researcher in the California University. He also claimed that the presence of these different types of lights are not dependent on the diverseness of the trees of the forest, or on the heights of the forest nor on which continent the forest is situated.
All these are about the tricks of the different available lights which determines the different settings of the camera required for a better picture. But do these different lights influence the moods of the birds that I am trying to capture through my lens? As per Mr. Endler, yes! But what sort of influence do they play?
The Manas National Park has long been enticing and enthralling the tourists with the splendorous of its diversified landscapes of vast dry riverbeds, deciduous forests, rising slopes of the hills, long stretches of grasslands and with its vast expanse of wetlands. As we go past the long and grassy wetlands at the foot of the Bhutan hills on the north west of the Park we enter the canopy of the vast evergreen forest. Due to this variety of its topography and geography the Manas has produced a large variety of flora and fauna.
It takes a lot of hard work and trouble as a photographer to take pictures of these landscapes in such difficult situations and mainly while photographing birds. The main reason of this is ever changing of available lights. The settings of the camera have to be changed every time the lighting situations change. There are no scarcity of light in the dry river beds or in the the grasslands, but the moment we enter into a deciduous forest the light starts playing hide and seek with the camera. Photographing in the evergreen forests covered by thick layers green leaves at top are more difficult than any other places. Here nobody knows from where the light will come. In most cases the sun rays hardly penetrate the thick leaves at top, and when it comes at times it backlights the outlines of the birds and in situations like this the pictures of the birds become underexposed in the yellow-green background of the trees.
Please see the yellow-green background.
The female
Bookmarks