[robimahanta]

I love traveling in Rajasthan. It is probably the state I have visited the most, be it for off roading, lovely highway driving or nature photography.

Last winter I visited Desert National Park near Jaisalmer for birding and macro photography. It was a great experience roaming around in the desert looking for macro subjects and in 4x4 vehicles for birding. DNP offers a plethora of species and I was lucky enough to come across quite a few during my days there.

All macro images taken with a 100mm macro and birds with 600mm telephoto.
Everything else like food and landscape taken with my iPhone 11P.

Let’s start with the macro images first,

Saw Scaled Viper (Sochureki)





Sindh Toad



Brilliant Agama



Hedgehog (They curl up into a ball and is quite hard to photograph)


Backlit Sindh Gecko


Sindh Gecko


Licking its eye


Fat Tailed scorpion


Scorpion under UV light


Keeled Rock Gecko


Licking clean its eye like a wiper


Fringe Toed Gecko


Monitor Lizard






Antlion lighting experiment


Toad headed Agama (Laungwala)




Spotted Beetle


Hardwicke's spiny-tailed lizard


Red spotted royal snake

[robimahanta]

Birding images:

Ashy crowned sparrow lark


House Sparrow (lets give footage to common birds as well)


Cinereous Vulture


Eagle Clash


Eagle Backlit


Steppe Eagle Portrait


Griffon in flight


Vultures


Laggar Falcon


Eagle Silhoutte


Tawny Eagle Portrait


Steppe Eagle Take off


Eagles in flight, the superb aerodynamics and reminiscent of the winglets in Airbus and Boeing for efficiency






Grey Shrike


Egyptian vs Red headed vulture chase


Committee of Vultures


Some relatively rare birds from Thar

Desert Courser




Greater Hoopoe Lark (quite hard to spot due to its camouflage)


Isabelline Wheatear


Stoliczka's Bushchat


Trumpeter Finch




Red tailed Wheatear


In some clutter


Variable Wheatear variants




Desert Lark

[robimahanta]

The iconic bird from the Thar : Great Indian Bustard

Would have been the national bird of India but for its name

It was quite a distance away and I could not get decent images. However was quite lucky enough to see it.



A desert fox tried to chase them








Five GIB's together


Three in a frame


A random Chinkara image

[robimahanta]

Some desert scapes with the phone


Solo walk




Sandstorm brewing


Scapes








Camel tourism


Searching for macro subjects late in the night


Hedgehog roadside


Food:

Dal Bati Churma


Aloo Paratha breakfasts


Kher Sangri


How can there be a RJ trip without Laal Maas


Jodhpur views






Our ride..good old Mahindra with its crazy driver



Thanks for your time.

Cheers!

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Sedate driver]

Originally Posted by robimahanta

Birding images:

Attachment 2488881

Lovely bird images. May I know which camera and lens combination you used?

[raptor_diwan]

Originally Posted by robimahanta

Jodhpur views
Attachment 2488917
Cheers!

Fantastic pictures! The views of Jodhpur captured in these shots are a treat for the eyes. I've been admiring them for a long time. Thanks for sharing!

[Dr.AD]

Nice crisp report and fantastic photographs, Robi (as always from you)!

The world of desert has a totally different beauty and charm to it than any other kind of natural environment. Your photographs of the desert and the wildlife in that desert have brought out that amazing beauty and charm. Great work with the camera!

Thank you for taking time to share this report and the photographs. Inspirational stuff for sure!

[graaja]

Superb pictures and write up Robi. What a contrast the dry desert and brown background in all the images compared to our Agumbe trip. It’s great to see so many unique species of reptiles and birds that you were able to sight and photograph. This one now gets added to my wish list.

[click]

Lovely pictures Robi. Macro series is more so incredible, considering how shy and quick these animals are. Thank you for sharing.

[mgastor2022grey]

Beautiful pics, really loved how intimate your connection is with nature. As a BHPian, I just loved that you explored the place in a car.. Wishing you many more years of amazing photography!

[robimahanta]

Originally Posted by Sedate driver

Lovely bird images. May I know which camera and lens combination you used?

Thanks. I used a Canon 1DX and 600 f4 telephoto for the bird images.

Originally Posted by raptor_diwan

Fantastic pictures! The views of Jodhpur captured in these shots are a treat for the eyes. I've been admiring them for a long time. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks a lot. Jodhpur is indeed a very pretty city.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Nice crisp report and fantastic photographs, Robi (as always from you)!.....

Thanks a lot AD. We should do more photo trips together.

Originally Posted by graaja

Superb pictures and write up Robi. What a contrast the dry desert and brown background in all the images compared to our Agumbe trip...This one now gets added to my wish list.

Thanks Graaja. I am sure you will love the Thar desert macro experience.

Originally Posted by click

Lovely pictures Robi. Macro series is more so incredible, considering how shy and quick these animals are. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks. Macro was a little difficult. I forgot to carry a flash diffuser and hence the light is a bit too harsh in the images.

Originally Posted by mgastor2022grey

Beautiful pics, really loved how intimate your connection is with nature. As a BHPian, I just loved that you explored the place in a car.. Wishing you many more years of amazing photography!

Thank you so much.

[nvldvr]

Super pics. Thanks for sharing.
Amazing to see so many GIBs in one frame.

[sukhbirST]

Brilliant man, full marks to your photgraphy. May you keep up the good show with more trips and photos.

[HooghlyBoy]

Sir, Mother Nature is simply brilliant and it shows in your pictures. The Eagle in flight with its wingtips became the inspiration for Boeing/Airbus for their planes as their engineers talked about this in a NatGeo documentary.