Black Shouldered Kites - Mating

[Priya Vinay]

Nikon D40|Nikon 70-300|ISO 400|f5.6|1/2000s | Aperture Priority
Location: Bangalore Outskirts, Karnataka
November 2009

Even this photo was shot on a cloudy day with very less light. Was lucky to witness this and posted this image for the rare moment it showcases. Pls excuse the quality.

[Anuradha Nautiyal]

Hi Priya,

Thanks for sharing this pic .. Nice to be able to witness such a moment.

Anu

[Bibhav Behera]

Nice moment captured. Composing it according to the rule of thirds would have strengthened this image. Sharpening artefacts are visible in the thorny shrubs.

Thanks for sharing.
Looking forward to see more from you.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Lovely natural history moment. I am yet to see them mating. How many seconds did it last?

When you are shooting images with sky in the background, you need to be careful about the exposure. You need to give positive exposure compensation to bring out the details in the birds. Pulling up the exposure later during post processing increases the noise. You may like to check the following tutorials on exposure:
http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2006
http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1970

Thanks for sharing this image. Look forward to more from this series.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

Lovely behaviour captured. Its quite rare to witness this. Liked the outstreached wings. Agree about the exposure settings. Thanks for sharing.

Look forward to more..

[Priya Vinay]

Hi Sabyasachi,

Thank you for the suggestions.
This event happened very unexpectedly and hence did not have enough time to change the exposure setting accordingly.

The female was sitting on a high perch and was continuously calling out. By the time we figured that it was giving mating calls and calling out her partner, the male came and started mating. It lasted for less than 6 to 8 seconds. The male then sat on a thorny bush nearby and struggled a lot to cut a piece of twig. He then brought it as a present to the female, again mating for another few seconds. As it started to rain, we had to move out of that place...

- Priya Vinay

[Atul Dhamankar]

Such images are very important for behavioral study o the bird.
Nicely captured.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Indeed a natural history moment captured, Priya you have done well under the low light conditions, as Sabyasachi mentioned a + EC would have brought out more details. I always got confused with this theory of shooting against sky. This image would have been a master piece had you got light in your favour. It will be nice if you also can mention location along with EXIF details.
TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Hi Priya,
Thanks for the details. If you have more shots from the series, then you can post those serially in a thread in the Natural History section with detailed descriptions. For eg the breaking of the branch between the two matings, durations, date etc are important. That would be serve as a detailed record and will help lot of people.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi