Water Snake

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Shot this Water Snake at the entrance of Ranthambore National Park.

Camera Model Canon EOS 40D
Shooting Date/Time 10/17/2009 3:07:33 PM
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/125
Av( Aperture Value ) 5.6
ISO Speed 800
Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Focal Length 400.0 mm

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Since you were shooting from the top, you could not have done anything to the steep angle. The brick at the bottom doesn't look great. I agree with the composition.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice composition. Wish the brick was not present. Did it come out? Disd you get any more photographs? Thanks for sharing..

[Bibhav Behera]

It looks like a checkered keelback. Agree about absence of the brick. There is a blue cast in the image. Changing the white balance to a higher temperature will nullify it.
Something about Checkered Keelbacks: They are known to display false hoods and are thus often mistaken for cobras and killed. They are non venomous and feed mostly on fish. Recently an albino specimen was discovered by a friend of mine. It was reportedly the first documentation of such an abnormality in this species.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Thanks Bibhav for more details on this snake.

Mrudul i could not take more pictures of the snake, as mentioned earlier at Ranthambore the naturalist are only after Tigers even in this case the when I asked the guy to stop the jeep he replied " Sir Ji Pele Bagh Dekenge, yeah samp tho edar he pada raye ga"

I even noticed that if naturalist do see any moment of tigers or leopard then they take a good nap in the jeep, they are least interested in birds or other animals.

Similarly whenever I wanted to shot a bird, i would get the same reply But anyways the trip was good and was fortunate to sight so many tigers and photograph them. I remeber you had asked me if it was crowded during Diwali, it was ok and well organized. the good thing is they allocate routes and leave limited no. of vehicles so I feel it was quite ok.