Photography by Neville

Watercolours

Neville — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:25:38 +0000

The sun sets and colours the waters...

What better way to remember the place I come from… This image incorporates a lot of my dreams and hopes for the future. Enjoy!!!

Majestic in Black and White

Neville — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:54:42 +0000

Majestic

Shot at the park in Nisarga Dhama in Coorg. Got some great shots there when I visited in January. Will be posting those up as well. Don’t fret loyal readers there will be more posts in the near future. January was a busy full filled month for me. Spent almost 2 weeks in Mysore and had a lot of great experiences and photos to share!

Catch me on Flickr!

Neville — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:29:59 +0000

The Great Escape

I’ve been a very on and off user over at Flickr for many years now. After joining BNG Birds group at yahoo I have become a more frequent poster at Flickr as a lot of other photographers I know also post up there. It’s a nice and simple way of getting a wider audience and more comments.

For regular visitors of my blog there are more images there that didn’t make the final cut and end up on the website. So do take a look at some of my other shots over there too.

http://flickr.com/nevillel

Comments are always welcome!

Interview with a Ringer

Neville — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:19:42 +0000

Surfing the web gives me (and everyone) a chance to learn about new things and meet lots of new people from across the globe. The other day I came across a very interesting blog by Peter Fearon, a Science Teacher from Liverpool, who is also a Ringer. Don’t know what a Ringer is? Well find out more below -

1.) Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Peter Fearon from Liverpool, UK and I am a Science teacher in Secondary Education. Before I became a teacher I worked in Canada for two years setting up and running the Ausable Bird Observatory, splitting my time between education, research and training.

Peter Fearon

2.) How long have you been ringing birds and why do you do it?

I cant remember exactly how old I was when I started ringing, but I do have fantastic memories of being woken up by my father in the middle of the night whilst on holiday in Portugal to ring a Red-necked Nightjar. Before that I remember being able to suprise my father when I asked if the bird in the net was a Sedge Warbler, at our local sewage works, nine months after I saw my last one. At some time after this, I think I started school!

I blame my father for the fact that I am not a professional footballer or astronaut, two of my early ambitions, preferring to ditch football practice to go to the sewage farm and ring birds with him. I had the perfect introduction to ringing, as a child with my father, long summer holidays ringing birds in Portugal and surrounding myself with friends from the ringing community.

As a child, ringing was just something that I enjoyed, it wasn’t until I grew older that I started to appreciate the scientific value of the work that we do. Spending time with experienced ringers such as my father Pete Fearon, Adrian Blackburn and Paulo Tenriero really helped my development and understanding of birds. The bottom line is that I love ringing, I love being outdoors and I believe in the reasons why we ring birds. Most of my friends thing I’m a bit crazy, but at the same time they tell me that they are jealous, when I ask why they tell me that I have a ’cause’ that I believe in, that I am passionate about and they admire that.

Cedar Waxwing

3.) How many species of birds have you ringed?

I couldn’t tell you precisely how many birds I have ringed, or an accurate total number of species because I am not someone who is driven by personally ringing as many species as possible, although seeing new species and the challenges of identification and ageing/sexing them are really exciting. In North America I would estimate I have ringed over 110 different species and about 130 in Europe.

Northern Parula

4.) How does ringing help the birds and us in understanding them better?

Ringing birds can allow you to study a multitude of facets of a birds life, from migration and population dynamics, to breeding site fidelity and dispersal as well as behaviour. From the collection of ringing data, the effects of environmental change, both natural and human-influenced, can be investigated as birds are brilliant indicators of environmental change.

Most of the work that I was doing in Canada was looking at migrating populations of neo-tropical migrants and most of the work that I do in Portugal is monitoring sub-Saharan migrants and the data that we collect can indicate the condition of the wintering grounds, the breeding success - which can be linked to habitat loss or other environmental pressures, to name but a few.

More topically, migration data from ringing ducks and geese was used by the BTO to inform government agencies on the potential spread of bird ‘flu. Whilst the threat can be looked at as relatively minor in hindsight, at the time the BTO had a significant amount of data from which to provide information and best target preventative measures.

5.) What places have you traveled to for your ringing activities?

I have travelled to North America, Southern Europe and to Oman in the Middle East to ring birds as well as being active in the UK. I still do a lot of my work with my father in South-West Lancashire, ringing Barn Owls, cannon-netting ducks and ringing a number of woodland sites out the year. In the summer, before I am found in Portugal, I can sometimes be found with my father at a local sewage works catching Swifts. My father, with my help when I can, rings about 1/3 of all Swifts ringed in the UK, the Swift is a species that he is especially passionate abou, but is sadly a species in decline.

In Canada, with the help and inspiration of Dr David Brewer, I helped set up the Ausable Bird Observatory and in the two years that we operated in South-West Ontario, we were able to ring over 15,000 birds of 120 species, six of those species being designated as ‘at risk’. Unfortunately, due to financial and political reasons, the observatory now no longer exists, however we acheived our aim of proving the significance of the Lake Huron shoreline as an important corridor for migrating birds.

I travel to Portugal at least once a year to visit my great friends and ring birds, mainly trans-Saharan migrants. I owe a lot to great friends such as Paulo Tenriero, Joao Paulo Lopes, Rui Brito and Antonio Periera whose hospitality and knowledge have always given me a great time. Recently I have talked about my work in Canada at the 4th Technical Meeting of Ringers in Portugal and I am involved with the work of APAA - the Portuguese Association of Ringers (http://www.apaa.pt).

6.) What are your favorite birds?

It is hard to choose a single favourite, but I do have a ’soft-spot’ for these:

Chesnut-sided Warbler
Nightjar
Black-shouldered Kite
Orange-crowned Warbler
Red-headed Woodpecker

Although these are a few particular favoruites, every bird is treated equally when we catch them!

Head over to Peter’s blog to read more - Peter Fearon’s Ringing Blog

Hanging With Other Birders

Neville — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:37:55 +0000

Since my recent foray into the world of Bird photography I’ve been meeting a lot of birders on-line and also out in the field. One of the best places to meet like minded people is by joining the BNG Birds group on Yahoo Groups. It’s a relatively simple matter of just signing in and joining the group. Once thats done you can see what birders in your area (Bangalore) are up to.

The group also has various trips on almost every weekend to places which are known for the variety in birds. I’ve been with this group to Nandi Hills, Shivanahalli and Anekal. In these trips I’ve basically learnt a lot more about birding than I would have going out by myself. I’ve seen and spotted many more species of birds and become better at identifying calls of certain birds.

There are a lot of great people who you can meet during these trips and its definetiely worth checking out. Catch you at the next BNG Birds trip!

Mysore’s Nightlife

Neville — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:05:59 +0000

As most people know I love going to Mysore! I’ve always wanted to shoot images at night ever since I got my tripod but my interest for birding always seem to get in the way of that.

Light up the Night

Last weekend I ended up in Mysore but thanks to the weather conditions I had a really hard time spotting the birds and shooting them was almost impossible. So I decided to do some landscape shots at night.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Chamundi Hills is a great spot to shoot from as it gives you a nice view of the Mysore Palace and its surroundings. Lots of people there on weekdays and weekends and you might also run into crazy drunk people doing stunts on their bikes and cars. So watch out for them if your driving up there.

Palace Lights, City Nights

Long Billed Vultures

Neville — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:23:04 +0000

Finally, I got to see them and shoot some great images of these magnificent flying creatures! They seem to be doing well in Ramnagaram and I hope that this continues. These LBV’s are becoming extinct all over the country because of a veterinary drug called diclofenac.

Incoming!

The Watchful Pair

Read more about the Long Billed Vulture / Indian Vulture at the Wikipedia entry. These magnificent birds are a marvel to look at so lets do everything we can to help them survive.

In flight

On Bikes

Neville — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:19:58 +0000

In Thought

One of the largest cycling events in India happened in Bangalore. Here are some shots of the huge event!

Posing

Undone By Wheels

The Way Back

The Horde

The Kids Race

Smile

The Jump

Highlight of the Week

Neville — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:41:58 +0000

This week was an incredible learning experience for me. Nandi Hills on Thursday with a bunch of 11 other birders from BNG Birds and with another group on Sunday morning at Shivanahalli.

I learnt a lot about birds, their habits, common traits and sounds. The weather was also superb and we had no problems with clouds getting in the way of our search for the birds.

The highlight for me was the Black Shouldered Kite -

Black Shouldered Kite

This beautiful bird was just about 10 feet away from me and was almost posing for me. I must have shot 50 odd images of this bird while he sat around patiently. Thanks to Mahesh for stopping his car so I could get down and take these shots!

In Deep Thought

Longing for the Sky

Are you done yet?

Comments are always welcome!

A Shot at Product Photography

Neville — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:09:33 +0000

So about two months ago I decided to try my hand at product photography just to see what it was like. I had a lot of fun setting up the shots by using some household items.

Materials used in the shots below:

A half empty bottle of Bacardi Rum

An old black t-shirt

A bottle of water

A tripod

I used the bottles to hold the t-shirt up. Then placed the objects I wanted to shoot on the t-shirt so as to have a black foreground and background. The lighting used was all natural with the whole setup being placed next to a couple of windows.

Polo Sport 1

Cap On

After shooting a few of the bottle of Polo Sport I decided to try shooting another bottle of perfume that was just sitting around. It had some interesting colors and I wanted to see what it would look like.

Perfume

Adidas - Force

The last shot is a bottle of Adidas cologne which was a birthday gift from last year.

Most of these shots came out pretty good for a first timer I think. Let me know what your thoughts are about theses images.