#Himalayan bluetail bird food driver#

Olyplectron bicalcaratum ], an alert and shy bird, which I was able to photograph only in Sikkim and not in Arunachal Pradesh.” Sphenocichla humei ] and the grey peacock pheasant [ Pellorneum albiventre ], the Sikkim wedge-billed wren babbler [ Among the birds that are very difficult to photograph are the spot-throated babbler [ One must hang around for hours to see them on a perch. She said: “Small-sized birds, such as the wren babbler, are fast-moving birds and tough to photograph. All the birds Jainy Kuriakose photographed in the wildlife sanctuaries of Arunachal Pradesh, in the mountain passes and along the long-winding roads are breathtakingly colourful.Īccording to her, bird photography is difficult in Arunachal Pradesh mainly because of dim atmospheric light and quick climatic variations. The changing altitudes provide a variety of habitats for different types of bird species, some of them rare. These unspoilt forests ranging from evergreen, semi-evergreen to moist-deciduous to bamboo breaks, starting from the uppermost regions to the valley sloping down towards Assam, provide a continuous landscape. km, with three main types of forests: tropical, subtropical and temperate. The State has a forest cover of 67,248 square kilometres, that is, 80.3 per cent of its total area of 83,743 sq. This altitude and climatic variance provides a variety of region-specific wildlife.

But the altitudes of these hills vary, so each district perhaps enjoys a different climatic condition, slightly at variance with the others. The State has 21 districts, and of them 20 are hill districts. When disturbed, the bird plunges down the slope uttering repeated whistles like a nightwatchman in a city alerting sleepy residents of something amiss.īiodiversity region Arunachal Pradesh is a unique biodiversity region. The bird is found in rocky slopes mingled with grass. Its head, neck and upper parts are finely vermiculated with dark brown and white chestnut-coloured feathers. Quite rounded and gentle in appearance, the snow partridge is a cute bird. Jainy Kuriakose said that but for her enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide she would have never been able to spend so much time in search of birds in the Eaglenest Sanctuary in the foothills of the Himalaya in West Kameng district or the snow partridge in the Sela Pass. There were a couple of birds, and I got the pictures I wanted,” she said.

#Himalayan bluetail bird food driver#

“Suddenly, the driver spotted something moving on the rocky slope and drew my attention to it. Although the snow partridge is distributed widely in the high altitudes, its brown-and-white plumage provides a perfect camouflage, making it difficult to spot among the rocks where it forages. She waited for more than eight hours in the cold weather with the camera in hand and her guide, Rofikul Islam, by her side. Jainy Kuriakose was as determined as ever to spot it. It is by chance that one gets to sight them. Of course, birds do not wait for a birder to arrive. When they reached the pass at an altitude of 13,000 feet (3,962 metres), the snow partridge was nowhere in sight. Only an expert driver can go forward through the blinding snowdrift,” she said. “There was snow fall throughout the journey to Sela Pass. For Jainy Kuriakose, the strain was even more because she always carries her Canon 1Dx and a Canon 500 mm camera, weighing seven kilograms, herself when she is out on her photo shoots. Low oxygen levels at high altitudes can take the breath out of anyone. Lerwa lerwa ), a bird that had fascinated her for a long time. In 2016, she travelled from West Kameng district to Sela Pass, the mountain road that connects the remote Tawang district to the rest of Arunachal Pradesh, to see the snow partridge ( Why? “The hills, valleys and meadows are filled with birdlife. Arunachal Pradesh is her stamping ground. That seems to be the personal motto of the bird photographer Jainy Maria Kuriakose.