Pallas's Gulls

Last week of January when my good friend Shivashankar called me whether I am interested in exploring pelagic birds around Mulki coast, I gladly agreed as I had not ventured to explore such an opportunity. Any water in a sea or lake that is not close to the bottom or near to the shore can be said to be in the pelagic zone. The word pelagic comes from the Greek pélagos, which means open sea. Pelagic birds, also called oceanic birds, are birds that live on the open sea, rather than around waters adjacent to land or around inland waters. Pelagic birds feed on planktonic crustaceans, squid and forage fish. Examples are the Atlantic puffin, macaroni penguins, sooty terns, shearwaters, and procellariiforms such as the albatross, procellariids and petrels.

Pallas's Gull

We started in the morning of 29th Jan 2011 in a small fishing boat from Mulki. As we headed into the sea we could see quite a fishing boats actively fishing. We were 7 of us including myself, my daughter Neethi, Shivaprakash Advanne, Girija, Ashwini Kumar Bhat, Anush Shetty and Shivashankar. What I found out during the trip was large lenses were totally useless in a wobbly boat. Even at very high shutter speed it was impossible to focus or shoot any bird which was visible. So I switched to my 70-200mm f/2.8 without any tele-converter. Even at that magnification getting any good photos was impossible task. So Most of my photos during our outward journey into the sea were relegated to recycle bin . We traveled from the mouth of the Shambhavi River at Mulkhi to a unnamed Island 8km off Kaup and then back to Mulki.

Even though we set out on pelagic bird watch we were lucky to see only the winter migrant waders! You can check our traveled track along this gps map of Shivashankar . I used my new Qstarz BT-Q1000XT GPS Travel Recorder to track the whole track. It was used to geotag all our photos.

As we re-entered the mouth of the Shambhavi River of Mulki after finishing the trip at noon, we could see a large flocks of Gulls and terns sitting on the estuarine mouth. The photographs presented here are all taken there. There were lot of Pallas’s Gulls, a few Caspians Terns along with Brown Headed Gull and Gull Billed Terns.

Great Black-headed Gull or Pallas’s Gull, Ichthyaetus ichthyaetus, is a large gull. As is the case with many gulls, it was traditionally been placed in the genus Larus.

Pallas's Gull along with few juveniles

This species breeds in colonies in marshes and islands from southern Russia to Mongolia. It is migratory, wintering in the eastern Mediterranean, Arabia and India. This gull nests on the ground, laying between two and four eggs.

It occurs in western Europe only as a rare vagrant. In Great Britain a recent review left a single occurrence in 1859 as the only acceptable record of this bird.

Pallas's Gull and The Gull-billed Tern in flight

This is a large gull, nearly the size of the Great Black-backed Gull. It is 58–65 cm long with a 1.4 to 1.6 m wingspan. Summer adults are unmistakable, since no other gull of this size has a black hood. The adults have grey wings and back, with conspicuous white “mirrors” at the wing tips. The legs are yellow and the bill is red.

Pallas's Gull

In all other plumages, a dark mask through the eye indicates the vestiges of the hood. The call is a deep aargh cry. Young birds attain largely grey upperparts quite rapidly, but they take four years to reach maturity.

Pallas's Gulls

These birds are predatory, taking fish, crustaceans, insects and even small mammals.

Pallas's Gulls

Pallas’s Gull is named after Peter Simon Pallas a German zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia. A number of animals are named after Pallas, including Pallas’s Cat, Pallas’s Long-tongued Bat, Pallas’s Tube-nosed Fruit Bat, Pallas’s Squirrel, Pallas’s Warbler, Pallas’s Cormorant, Pallas’s Fish-eagle, Pallas’s Gull, Pallas’s Sandgrouse, Pallas’s Rosefinch, Pallas’s Pika, Pallas’s Reed Bunting and Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler.

Pallas's Gull

The Gull-billed Tern, Gelochelidon nilotica, formerly Sterna nilotica (Bridge et al., 2005), is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. It is now considered to be in its own genus.

The Gull-billed Tern in flight

It breeds in warmer parts of the world in southern Europe (and a very small isolated population in northern Germany and Denmark), temperate and eastern Asia, both coasts of North America, eastern South America and Australia. This bird has a number of geographical races, differing mainly in size and minor plumage details.

All forms show a post-breeding dispersal, but the northern breeders are most migratory, wintering south to Africa, the Caribbean and northern South America, southern Asia and New Zealand.
This species breeds in colonies on lakes, marshes and coasts. It nests in a ground scrape and lays two to five eggs.

The Gull-billed Terns

The Gull-billed Tern does not normally plunge dive for fish like the other white terns, but feeds on insects taken in flight, and also often hunts over wet fields, to take amphibians and small mammals, as well as small birds.

Pallas's Gull and The Gull-billed Tern

This is a fairly large and powerful tern, similar in size and general appearance to a Sandwich Tern, but the short thick gull-like bill, broad wings, long legs and robust body are distinctive. The summer adult has grey upperparts, white underparts, a black cap, strong black bill and black legs. The call is a characteristic ker-wik.

In winter, the cap is lost, and there is a dark patch through the eye like a Forster’s Tern or a Mediterranean Gull. Juvenile Gull-billed Terns have a fainter mask, but otherwise look much like winter adults.

The Caspian Tern (Hydroprogne caspia, formerly Sterna caspia; syn. Hydroprogne tschegrava) is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no subspecies accepted either. In New Zealand it is also known by the Maori name Taranui.

The Caspian Tern

It is the world’s largest tern with a length of 48–56 cm, a wingspan of 127–140 cm and a weight of 574–782g. Adult birds have black legs, and a long thick red-orange bill with a small black tip. They have a white head with a black cap and white neck, belly and tail. The upper wings and back are pale grey; the underwings are pale with dark primary feathers. In flight, the tail is less forked than other terns and wing tips black on the underside. In winter, the black cap is still present (unlike many other terns), but with some white streaking on the forehead. The call is a loud heron-like croak.

Their breeding habitat is large lakes and ocean coasts in North America (including the Great Lakes), and locally in Europe (mainly around the Baltic Sea and Black Sea), Asia, Africa, and Australasia (Australia and New Zealand). North American birds migrate to southern coasts, the West Indies and northernmost South America. European and Asian birds spend the non-breeding season in the Old World tropics. African and Australasian birds are resident or disperse over short distances.

The global population is about 50,000 pairs; numbers in most regions are stable, but the Baltic Sea population (1,400–1,475 pairs in the early 1990s) is declining and of conservation concern.

All three of these species – The Great Black-headed Gull, Gull-billed Tern & Caspian Tern are protected under the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA).

The Brown-headed Gull, Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus, is a small gull which breeds in the high plateaus of central Asia from Turkmenistan to Mongolia. It is migratory, wintering on the coasts and large inland lakes of tropical southern Asia. As is the case with many gulls, it has traditionally been placed in the genus Larus.

The Brown-headed Gull

This gull breeds in colonies in large reedbeds or marshes, or on islands in lakes, nesting on the ground. Like most gulls, it is highly gregarious in winter, both when feeding or in evening roosts. It is not a pelagic species, and is rarely seen at sea far from coasts. This is a bold and opportunist feeder, which will scavenge in towns or take invertebrates in ploughed fields with equal relish.

The Brown-headed Gull is slightly larger than Black-headed Gull. The summer adult has a pale brown head, lighter than that of Black-headed, a pale grey body, and red bill and legs. The black tips to the primary wing feathers have conspicuous white “mirrors”. The underwing is grey with black flight feathers. The brown hood is lost in winter, leaving just dark vertical streaks.

Pallas's Gulls

This bird takes two years to reach maturity. First year birds have a black terminal tail band, more dark areas in the wings, and, in summer, a less homogeneous hood. This is a noisy species, especially at colonies.

Pallas's Gulls

Below is the checklist of the birds we saw on that trip (thanks to Sri.Shivaprakash Advanne & Shivashankar for this list).

1. Stork-billed Kingfisher
2. Small Green Bee-eater
3. Small Blue Kingfisher
4. Sanderling
5. Blue-tailed Bee-eater
6. Great Crested tern
7. Terek sandpiper
8. Brown-headed Gull
9. Caspian Tern
10. Great Black headed Gull
11. Brahminy Kite
12. Black Kite
13. Gull billed Tern
14. Blue-rock Pigeon
15. Whimbrel
16. Common Redshank
17. Common Greenshank
18. Marsh Harrier
19. Lesser Sandplover
20. Greater sandplover
21. Spotted Owlett
22. Common Sandpiper
23. Little Green Heron
24. Pond Heron
25. Common swallow
26. Grey Heron
27. Little Cormorant
28. White-bellied Sea-eagle
29. White-breasted Waterhen
30. Reef Heron/Egret
31. Kentish Plover
32. Ruddy Ternstone
33. Cattle Egret
34. Yellow-legged Gull

We also saw few dolphins as we returned to the shore at noon for lunch.
You can also view the Shivashanker’s GPS tagged images of this trip.
We plan to go again on this Saturday again on a similar trip; hoping to see at least a few pelagic birds this time!

Supermoon

Coincidence with Earthquake at Japan and subsequent tsunami made the Hindu festival Holi’s moon on 19th March a Super Moon. With sensation seeking media on the toes for disaster of magnitude larger than the devastation at Japan, I headed to the highest place in my home town to capture this Super Moon.

When I reached my place to photograph moon, sun was just setting. As soon as I arranged my tripod and fitted the Canon EOS 5D with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM Lens, I could see faint traces of moon behind the 2 large monolithic stone we have at my hometown called Konaje Kallu. Haze was quite a lot and I was able to get a faint picture of the moon. Then I added 1.4x extender on the lens. This gave me some more reach as the moon started raising up in the eastern sky.

Raising Supermoon Over Konaje Kallu

So how different was this Super Moon. I couldn’t make out that it was larger than any other full moon. In fact I had seen moons which were larger than these. Until almost 20° up into the horizon I was not able to define moon as there was strong haze as well as smoke. So only after half an hour I could get a good shot of the moon.

The detailed photo of moon above was taken by combining 2x with 1.4x (even though the exif shows only info about 2x). When you combine 2 extenders you must stack the 2X behind the lens, then the 1.4X. When you combine two extenders the effective magnification will be 2.8x, so my 300mm was now effective as 840mm. I could have used my EOS 7D which would have added another 1.6x crop factor for this equation, but the image quality of  5D mark II is far greater as it is full frame camera as compared to cropped sensor of EOS 7D. 5D mark II also fared better with the stacked tele-converters.

Metering moon is quite tricky. As it is a bright object in a dark sky. Spot metering will be your friend in shooting the moon. If your camera has it, use it while metering off the moon. Experiment with bracketing to bring out other objects in the frame. It’s better to have the foreground a little dark than the moon be completely blown out with no detail.

To photograph just the moon by itself, without any objects in the foreground, you will need a long telephoto lens like explained above to magnify the moon and try to fill as much of the frame as possible. Even with a good telephoto lens setup though, you will most likely be cropping the final image, simply because only a telescope would be able to provide enough magnification to fill the entire frame. With your telephoto lens mounted in your camera, secure it on a tripod and point at the moon. Make sure that your tripod is good and stable enough to accommodate and hold your lens and your camera. Set your camera mode to full Manual Mode. Set your base ISO you have in your camera, in my case it is ISO 100. Make sure Auto ISO is turned Off. Set your aperture to f/11. Set your shutter speed to 1/125 on cameras with base ISO 100, and to 1/250 on Nikon DSLRs with base ISO 200. Set your lens to manual focus and set your focus to infinity. Be careful while setting the focus to infinity, as some lenses allow focusing beyond infinity.

Hazy Supermoon with 300mm + 1.4x

On my 5D mark II I used live view with magnification to accurately acquire focus on moon surface. I have used it many times for my moon photography and it works great! If you do not have such a feature in your camera, then try setting your lens to the center of the infinity sign, then take a picture and see if it came out sharp by zooming in the rear LCD of the camera. Bracketing few shots would be nice so that you can get an accurately exposed moon.

It’s too bad that people are getting so silly about this super moon business. It really isn’t that super at all. In fact it is only little closer than it normally gets in it’s elliptical orbit around the earth. If you want to wonder about something think of the effect the much larger earth will have on the tectonics of the moon since it is also the same distance closer to the moon.

The mean distance to the moon, 384401 km, is the semi-major axis of its oval elliptical orbit. The closest moon (perigee) was 356375 km on 4th January 1912; the most distant moon (apogee) will be 406720 km on 3rd February 2125. The mean distance is not equidistant between the minimum and maximum because the Sun’s gravity perturbs the orbit away from a true ellipse. Although the absolute extremes are separated by many years, almost every year has a perigee and apogee close enough to the absolute limits to be indistinguishable at this scale. On March 19th Moon came 356577 km close to earth. So in effect Moon was closer by 27824 km from its mean distance which is insignificant. That is why we did not have any catastrophe as predicted by the popular media. If you suspect March 11th earthquake happened because of this, you are wrong as on that day moon was far off from this perigee.

Even the scientific world seems to have been influenced by this mass hysteria. NASA science news podcast wrongly mentioned last perigee was in 1983. They all forgot that perigee and apogee happen almost every month. Almost every year there is one full moon which is near perigee. Check this Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator.

Supermoon with 300mm + 2.0x + 1.4x

The frequently-stated assertion that the Moon always keeps the same face toward the Earth is also not really correct. The combination of the eccentricity and inclination of the Moon’s orbit causes the Moon, as seen from the Earth, to nod up and down and left and right. These apparent motions, the lunar librations, allow us to observe, over a period of time, more than 59% of the Moon’s surface from the Earth, albeit with the terrain in the libration zones near the edge of the visible disc, only very obliquely. By taking photos of moon during perigee and apogee we can make out these lunar librations.

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)

Strolling in the evening in grassy field in Mangalore can be sometimes rewarding. Other than catching ticks & fleas left by domestic animals, we can catch glimpse of some of the native grassland birds. On that evening I saw this Paddyfield Pipit near half burnt dry grass patch. As it was surrounded all around by tall grass, falling flat on the ground to capture the best pose of the bird ( with sky as the background) was out of question. So used my Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM fitted with Canon EF 1.4x II Extender on Canon EOS 7D camera lowered myself to get the best view possible of the ground dwelling bird. The bird being not so shy gave me plenty of time to capture before it ran away to nearby bush.

Camouflage

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus) is a small passerine bird in the pipits and wagtail family. It is a resident breeder in open scrub, grassland and cultivation in southern Asia east to the Philippines. It is one of the few breeding pipits in our region.

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)

This is a large pipit at 15 cm, but is otherwise an undistinguished looking bird, mainly streaked grey-brown above and pale below with breast streaking. It is long legged with a long tail and a long dark bill. Sexes are similar. Summer and winter plumages are similar. Young birds are more richly coloured below than adults and have the pale edges to the feather’s of the upper parts more conspicuous with more prominent spotting on the breast. This pipit seems to be malayensis subspecies described by Eyton in 1839. It is the larger, darker and more heavily streaked than the nominate form of Anthus rufulus. This subspecies is seen in the wet zone of the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka.

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)

Paddyfield Pipit is smaller and dumpier, has shorter looking tail and has a weaker fluttering flight. The usually uttered characteristic tsip-tsip-tsip call. It is a wide spread species found in open habitats, especially short grassland and cultivation with open bare ground. It runs rapidly on the ground, and when flushed, does not fly far.

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)

Breeds throughout the year but mainly in the dry season. Birds may have two or more broods in a year. During the breeding season, it sings by repeating the note during its descent from a short fluttery flight, a few feet above the ground. It builds its nest on the ground under a slight prominence, a tuft of grass, or at the edge of a bush. The nests are woven out of grass and leaves and are normally cup shaped. Exposed nests are sometimes domed or semi-domed, the long grass at the back and sides extending over the top.Nests are lined with finer grass or roots and sometimes with a little dry moss, bracken or other material at the base of the nest. The usual clutch is 3-4 eggs with greenish ground color and numerous small brown specks at the larger. When disturbed near the nest, the birds flutter nearby with weak tsip-tsip-tsip calls. Parent birds may also feign injury to distract predators.

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)

It feeds principally on small insects but consumes larger beetles, tiny snails, worms etc. while walking on the ground, and may pursue insects like mosquitoes or termites in the air.