by PZ10.com

The Steppe's @ Dabhla

This magnificent raptor is the reason i decided to do wildlife photography(instinctively) and took an plunge. The Steppes come to India from Eurasia and are migrant Species. They readily take to carrion and are thus found easily on carcass dumps and waste dump sites around cities. Generally hang around Dabhla and surrounding till March... Me and Reshma thus had some opportunity to shoot them in birding season of 2005. I enjoyed shooting them thoroughly as with little patience they allowed close proximity to shoot full frame images. My joy new no bound. Like a child possessed with a newly gifted toy.. i would go around religiously to Thol come every weekend. Weekdays were spent at looking at those images and admiring them...Also whole lot of time was spent in making them more beautiful by Post Processing. This meant i had to learn new software...

Meanwhile the vulture crisis was getting serious and serious and i used to take some solace due to the fact that the birds still used to abound near Dabhla.. Thanks to the cattle camp and regular fresh supply of dead cattle which were dumped outside.. Humans(never to let anything go waste) would rip of the skin and flesh and leave the internal organs for the birds... No wonder we used to see some 110 odd vultures during winter of 2005...Those were the days..

Shall post thol images in the next post

This are some of my first wildlife images. Till this images, i was just a birdwatcher and still am. My interest in wildlife photography was triggered initially after seeing the success of my beloved friend Mihir Dave. I am sure today he would have been proud to see my images and would have taught me many things.

In between i totally lost interest in birding and i stopped going out also. The Strong seeds sown by Sri Lavkumar Sir and friends like Pranav Trivedi and Ajay Jhala with whom i did my initial birding ensured i never forgot the birds and love of going out always remained. After the hibernation another birding friend Mohan Iyer once told me about Steppe Eagles being seen at Dabhla Village. I could not believe my luck. I was always fascinated by Raptors. Till that day i had only seen the Eagles occasionally. I visited Dabhla with mohan and realized the potential of shooting eagles at close range. Although that day we saw only Vultures at Dabhla and no Steppe Eagles, the decision to take a camera was already taken.

I started actively looking on Net for an Digital SLR camera. I did have an Nikon Film SLR till then and thanks to my job at Xerox, i never had to break heads on understanding how an camera works. Little did i realize at that time that knowing the technical nitti gritty of how a camera works and making decent images are two different things. With a 300mm prosumer lens i never could make decent wildlife images. Another birding friend Santosh Gupta then gave an Mumbai contact of an Camera supplier from whom i got my used Sigma 170-500mm Lens. The price was lucrative and suiting my pocket and thus came the lens before the camera.

By this time i had narrowed my option on the then very popular Nikon D70. My desire to jump technologies for this hobby was known to my dear friend Charuta Raykar. With her, Naren and our lovely kids Advait and Atharva we went to many a places. If i have an camera today and do wildlife photography, apart from birds credit has to go to her for encouraging me to take this decision of spending money(50k) on the D70. 24th Feb., 2005 i allowed myself to one of the best(and the costliest yet) birthday gifts i ever got. Since then began an journey i hope to carry forever. The first trip yielded some of most favourite images i could make so far, all shot in auto and that time processed in Nikon Picture Project...........