Grey Hornbill

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Posting in Indiawilds after a very long time, glad to be back here. This is an image of the hornbill I took in December last year in Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve. We had gone on pilgrimage to Srisailam and extended by a day to visit this reserve. The reality is, inspite of it being a beautiful jungle there is no facility for a proper safari. There is just one route and the forest department organizes a 45min-1 hr so called safari. There is one water hole that we come across which if you are super lucky can spot some movement. We could see a couple of bisons wading in water and saw the pug marks of a tigress about 2-3 weeks old. The department hasn't sighted a tiger in more than 1.5 years in that route. Infact the forest dept staff is least interested in any activity, when I made a safari reservation I was asked to report at 7.30am, we reached at around 7am and it was 10am by the time the staff arrived. We were pretty annoyed but still waited endlessly. Finally with absolutely no emotion they started the jeep at around 10.15am. We saw spotted deer, bisons, grey hornbill and a kukri snake. Fairly disappointing.

Light was a bit harsh while photographing this hornbill.

Nikon D7500, Nikkor 200-500 @ 370mm, f/8,SS 1/5000, ISO 800.