[skanchan95]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

I also heard that the Jetpur (where the 4-laned road from Rajkot turns off towards Porbandar) to Junagad section is also in bad shape - is that so?

The Jetpur-Junagadh is not four laned but it is fairly good. Except for the drive through Jetpur town, the roads are free from potholes.

Even the Junagadh-Veraval road is good now. A spell of showers could quickly change it though

[ambivalent_98]

Awesome photos. Thanks for sharing. I like the Egyptian Vulture series.

[TheBeastFieast]

Originally Posted by ambivalent_98

Awesome photos. Thanks for sharing. I like the Egyptian Vulture series.

Thank you very much, that's one is my favorite one as well, though I am yet to post 2-3 interesting ones as well

[TheBeastFieast]

Damn it is becoming more of a photo-log as I am not able to put time and efforts to write the details. I will try to put them later on and for now will move on with rest of the safari.

Our first day guide had a good talk with our 2nd day’s early morning safari guide and advised him what my interest areas are. Also they were discussing to call the patrolling team inside forest and get some idea about the lion sighting.


The guide and driver kept calling one of the person from the patrolling party and finally they got the call back and luckily there were some movements in the route assigned to us. I got the hint that possibility of spotting big cat has increased.

In the forest path we met with a local person on bike and talking to our driver / guide and saying one lioness is sitting on the path itself, later I got to know that person belonged to the local ‘Maldhari Tribe’.

Generally when patrolling parties knows big cats are nearer to forest route and gypsy can be driven (generally 100-200 mt. either side of main path) then they ask the drivers to form a queue and sends gypsies one by one to sight the lion.

Same started happening with us, they sent the first gypsy and then there was tussle among drivers to queue up, unfortunately first gypsy waited for over 10-15 min and they couldn’t spot it. Patrolling party sent it back. I thought that’s the end of it.

But no, Gir is different, here the patrolling party member does the patrolling on bikes and they carry a lathi (wooden stick around 6feet and looks very strong). This time they kind of forced the big cat to come near to main root and give its full look to all the gypsies (around 10+) in one go.

While gypsies were queuing up we were supposed be in the top 5, but due to tussling we became 2nd last. But when big cat came near the path, it came nearest to the first gypsy and we were at 2nd nearest point.

Now starting the photo-log (BTW this big cat is ‘she’).
Here it comes on the path


Look how close we were


Then it started to move on left side of path, why, I found very next moment


This tree belongs to me


Let me mark my territory


Now this whole area is mine, who has the dare to challenge me


Who the hell are these fellows??? I heard they don’t taste that good, any way lucky fellows, I am already full


The Big Cat Walk


Another angle of majestic cat walk


And then she decided to take some rest, later on our guide said most probably she will be resting at this place for rest of day, I was busy taking shots


The full look, we were hardly 10 feet from her


As I said earlier I am getting in to animal portrait, started with them and here comes the very first


I really liked the meaty neck of her


Who said he liked my neck, hello I am the one who gets to the neck of anyone and that too at my own wish


One of the best portrait of shoot


Now she was getting worried, and the gypsies lined up behind us were requesting to move forward, as we were just perpendicular to majesty


I missed the shot of full open mouth, damn


Liked the at peace and calm look


Then she decided to move on, but luckily for others she again sat about 5-10 feet away from this position, that was the sign for me to ask driver to start moving.

[TheBeastFieast]

After sighting Lioness everyone was very happy and the guide and driver were happy too and just wanted to take their gypsies out of park and collect the heavy tips. They were driving gypsies like they participating in some kind of rally and all of them wanted to come first.

I requested our driver sahib to take a pause and pull-over, while we waited for others gypsies to fly by, I took time by taking a shot of this:


Then finally we started moving as well and now I wanted to capture many other things, our driver had told that in the route allotted to us has got few trees which are home to owlets and he was trying to spot them.

Soon I spotted this and requested to stop for some time and captured some of the best shots of entire tour, lets have a look


He/She was very camera friendly and gave multiple pose


Another one


Hard to decide which one is best


How about this one


Another look


I am not bad either


Tried hands on in-flight shot as well


Now came the most interesting and most unexpected part of entire journey, suddenly my brother-in-law spotted something on the left side about 25-30 meter away from us, and luckily the moment he started shouting, I look at the correct direction and I too said, ‘yes you are right’. But I was worried how I will capture it, it was all happening so fast and suddenly our driver sahib said, “Owl” on the right side, I saw at that side and we had this beautiful creature just 5-8 feet from us, looking directly in our eyes. I got confused whom to shoot (the scene on left or the owl at right).

The owl was very close and I had my doubt with the scene at left side, so decided let first capture the owl and then request the driver sahib to move ahead and if I am lucky we will be very close to the scene at left.


Now coming to scene on left side, it was again one of the most beautiful creatures but was moving fast and going deep inside the forest and it was getting more tough to spot and focus, in between it kind of started running or rather jumping and then suddenly stopped and gave cool look, thank you very much for it


Yes, I couldn’t believe my luck I spotted a leopard, many thanks to wife of my brother-in-law who kept her eyes on it and helped me spotting and focusing it, I guess I did good job by focusing on it amid all the trees and branches between us, it was very far as well.


I got 2 good shots and then I decided to concentrate on owl on the right side, and captured some of the shots


One of the coolest shot I liked very much


It was turning his head very fast, almost 360 degrees, here one of the shot in which its neck has come in motion


Then again I tried my hands with leopard


I guess I did very well in focusing on it


Spot the leopard


And then we spotted this on the left side on some branch, wasn’t that easy, look how it camouflaged with its environment


In following images it looks so focused out from the background but let me tell you, i never expected that this will come up so clear


Close-up shot


Even the eyes can’t be seen


This is where we ended our 2nd safari; I would try to add some extra shots and some fine details.

[gd1418]

Wonderful. Good shots of the Egret, Owl & the Leopard. Lucky to spot the spotted one..

[TheBeastFieast]

Originally Posted by gd1418

Wonderful. Good shots of the Egret, Owl & the Leopard. Lucky to spot the spotted one..

Thanks a lot Sir, liked the one, "Lucky to spot the spotted one"

[TheBeastFieast]

Finally I got my shots of Gir Tour printed in form of a photobook,

YouTube - Photobook: Sasan Gir - Much More Than 'Last Home To Asiatic Lion'

[pjay_in]

That's a mottled wood owl. It's call, heard primarily at dusk, has an eerie feel to it and used to be considered a bad omen in Kerala (maybe in other places too). Among other names, its most recognized name in Kerala is 'Kaalan kozhi' which means the bird/fowl of Yama or the bird of death. If you hear its spine chilling call at dusk, it was said that you could expect to hear about someone's death in the immediate neighbourhood.

A load of superstition about a harmless bird who happens to have an interesting call.

[TheBeastFieast]

Originally Posted by pjay_in

That's a mottled wood owl. It's call, heard primarily at dusk, has an eerie feel to it and used to be considered a bad omen in Kerala (maybe in other places too). Among other names, its most recognized name in Kerala is 'Kaalan kozhi' which means the bird/fowl of Yama or the bird of death. If you hear its spine chilling call at dusk, it was said that you could expect to hear about someone's death in the immediate neighbourhood.

A load of superstition about a harmless bird who happens to have an interesting call.

Thank you very much for the information, I was under impression that I spotted 2 different species (the first set and then 2nd set). After reading your post I did some googling and looks like I spotted only 1 species but in first set i was able to capture the frontal shots and in second time the side and back shots.

[abheekg]

Great shots Bhavesh.
How easy / hard is it to film/shoot lioness hunting at Gir ?
Are all the lions fed by the department or do they hunt themselves too ?

Dr. A Ghosh

[TheBeastFieast]

Thanks a Lot Dr. Saab

Lions at Devaliya (12km from Sasan gir, a 4sq km fenced off area) are fed. But in actual jungle they are not.

[unicorn_i20]

Originally Posted by TheBeastFieast

Give me some time to prepare the next series and story please!!!

I liked the story you made out of the series shots of twin lions

[TheBeastFieast]

Originally Posted by unicorn_i20

I liked the story you made out of the series shots of twin lions

Thank and glad that you like the story, I take that as . Hope to imagine many more.

[mallumowgli]

Very interesting report sir. And a tough decision between a rare owl and another rare chap-the leopard. Lucky you got wonderful snaps of both

Originally Posted by pjay_in

That's a mottled wood owl. It's call, heard primarily at dusk, has an eerie feel to it and used to be considered a bad omen in Kerala (maybe in other places too). Among other names, its most recognized name in Kerala is 'Kaalan kozhi' which means the bird/fowl of Yama or the bird of death. If you hear its spine chilling call at dusk, it was said that you could expect to hear about someone's death in the immediate neighbourhood.

A load of superstition about a harmless bird who happens to have an interesting call.

Quite right, pjay. This bird is called the bird of death in South Kerala. The call is similar to a distress scream of a lady. In Malabar, another bird(this is also an owl) is called the Kalan Kozhi - am yet to find out the English name of that. Called Neduvulan in Malabar