Brown Shrike

That Sunday evening as I was returning from my photography round, I found this Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) sitting on an Indian Almond (Terminalia catappa) Tree. I was quite far away from the bird and there was no way I could approach the bird without startling this vigilant bird. I was holding Canon EOS 5D mark II with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens fitted with Canon EF 2X II Extender. Evening light was quite weak. I used a higher ISO of 800 to capture this bird. The pictures presented here are cropped by around 50%.

Shrikes are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family is composed of thirty-one species in three genera. The family name, and that of the largest genus, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for “butcher”, and some shrikes were also known as “butcher birds” because of their feeding habits. Shrikes in general have a variety of names that arise from people’s observations of the bird’s feeding and food storage strategy. In Africa they are called as fiscals. That name comes from the Afrikaans word fiskaal (“public official”, especially a hangman)

Brown Shrike

This species is solitary except when breeding. They are found in open habitats where they can be seen sitting on a prominent perch like a treetop or a telegraph pole. A sit-and-wait hunter, they “hawk” or pounce on their prey, which includes large insects, small birds, reptiles and mammals. These birds use their feet to hold smaller insects whilst they rip them into bite-sized pieces. Larger prey are impaled upon a sharp point, such as a thorn or the barbs of barbed wire so they can be ripped open with the bird’s hooked bill. This also serves as a cache so that the shrike can return to the uneaten portions at a later time. As this looked like butcher’s larder, the name “butcher birds” was given to it. The distinctive black bandit like mask through the eye also might have influenced this name.

Brown Shrike

The Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) is a bird in the shrike family that is found mainly in Asia. It is closely related to the Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) and Isabelline Shrike (Lanius isabellinus). Like most other shrikes, it has a distinctive black “bandit-mask” through the eye. It is found mainly in open scrub habitats, where it perches on the tops of thorny bushes in search of prey. Several populations of this widespread species form distinctive subspecies which breed in temperate Asia and migrate to their winter quarters in tropical Asia. They are sometimes found as vagrants in Europe and North America.

The Brown Shrike is a migratory species and ringing studies show that they have a high fidelity to their wintering sites, returning to the same locations each winter. They begin establishing wintering territories shortly on arrival and their loud chattering or rattling calls are distinctive. Birds that arrive early and establish territories appear to have an advantage over those that arrive later in the winter areas.

Brown Shrike

The timing of their migration is very regular with their arrival in winter to India in August to September and departure in April. During their winter period, they go through a premigratory moult. Their song in the winter quarters is faint and somewhat resembles the call of the Rosy Starling (Sturnus roseus) and often includes mimicry of other birds. The beak remains closed when singing and only throat pulsations are visible although the bird moves its tail up and down while singing.

Brown Shrike

Female Plain Tiger

I had written long back on Plain tiger (Danaus chrysippus) butterfly. At that time I was using Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM with 36mm of extension tube to photograph this Plain Tiger butterfly. Soon after the Scarlet Skimmer dragonfly photograph session which I published last week, I spotted a female plain tiger butterfly nearby. I used the same setup as I used in the dragonfly photography. My rig consisted of 1D Mark IV camera with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L + 1.4x tele-converter stabilized on a monopod. Beautiful evening sun gave me plenty of golden light to experiment around this butterfly. It was not at all shy in posing for me as was evident in the photos which is one of the great advantages of using a long telephoto lens for closeup shoots.

Female Plain Tiger Under Side View

As I photographed I noticed that the butterfly had a wound on the thorax at the base of the right hind-wing. The Plain Tiger is protected from attacks due to the unpalatable alkaloids ingested during the larval stages. The larvae pf this butterfly feed on host plants like milkweeds (like Asclepias, Calotropis) which are have toxic alkaloids. The butterfly therefore flies slowly and leisurely, generally close to the ground and in a straight line. This gives a would-be predator ample time to recognize and avoid attacking it. Inexperienced predators will try attacking it, but will learn soon enough to avoid this butterfly as the alkaloids in its body cause vomiting. The butterfly I was photographing also must have escaped such an attack on it.

Female Plain Tiger Side View

It was an old wound, the lymph had accumulated and clotted around the right side of the thorax. Even though injured the butterfly was flying normally and was resting like any other of its kind. Tenacity of this butterfly was amazing. The butterfly also has a tough, leathery skin to survive such occasional attacks. When attacked it fakes death and oozes nauseating liquid which makes it smell and taste terrible. This encourages the predator to release the butterfly quickly. The Plain Tiger thus has the ability to recover “miraculously” from predator attacks that would kill most other butterflies.

Female Plain Tiger Upper Side

Even though a macro lens and a flash setup is ideal to get extremely closeup photos of these butterflies, my tele-macro setup works nice. Drawback of this setup is that it needs a good light and is heavy and cumbersome. So it is not very portable. With that setup I can take quite a good amount of closeup shots with a very creamy bokeh effect. I can also using the same setup photograph birds and other distant object which is a real bonus as the same rig works as dual purpose setup.

Female Plain Tiger Closeup

Dry Leaf

I found this dry skeletonized leaf of Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) tree in my backyard. Trying to photograph this naturally disintegrated leaf posed a problem as I wanted to highlight the veins which are still intact. I took the leaf and arranged a light box so that I can back light the photo. Here you can see the result. The light box I use for this is different from the light tent which is used for product shots which need seamless lighting with no shadows. We will explore light tent in future articles.

To photograph this leaf, I used simple contraption of self made lightbox. I had one large Polystyrene packaging box. This was a rectangular box size of A4 paper. It had a lid on one side. I removed the lid and made a hole on the on the shorter side big enough for my flash head. I placed a sheet of white writing paper on the opening where the lid was supposed to sit. I placed the dry leaf on this sheet of paper. Result as almost like the X-ray viewing box you see in Hospitals.

I used Canon EOS 7D as I wanted to fire the flash using its wireless flash controller. I set my Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash in slave mode and used the setting on 7D to control it. Now it is just trial and error to get right exposure. Even though there was ETTL on my flash I prefer to use Manual so I set my flash on 1/8 power and adjusted aperture to get optimum results.

Dry Leaf Cropped

Few early lessons in photography teaches that the photographer should make sure that the sun is always behind photographer’s back when they take photos so the subject is front lit. This is why many of us are afraid to experiment with back lighting which can give you a great opportunity to explore light. Back lighting adds drama to an image. It can can highlight details on the edges of subjects and reveal textures that might previously have been hidden. In Macros it can show delicate transparent or translucent things. It can transform the image in such a different way that you may be astonished. Silhouettes are great example of nice use of back lighting.

If you plan to explore like glass, leaf, jewelery this light box can be of nice assistance. Sliced translucent fruits are great subject to your still life collection.

If you want to skeletonize leaf yourself place leaves, a couple at a time, in a large beaker with ethanol (at least 70% ethanol) and bring to a boil. Allow the leaves to boil until they become pale or clear. The chlorophyll dissolves in the ethanol, so the ethanol in the beaker will turn green. Different types of leaves will take different lengths of time to clear. A half hour might do the trick. Rememember not to let the leaves boil dry – more ethanol can be added to replace the volume boiled off. After the leaves are pale/clear, place them in a warm (56°C) solution of 5-10% NaOH. They may then be removed, rinsed with water and can be used for the photography. As always, be certain to follow appropriate lab safety procedures when handling solutions of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or boiling flammable liquids such as 70% ethanol

This year I plan to introduce several short articles on technique of taking certain types of photographs. I have been conducting workshops on photography which seems to benefit only the people who attended my workshop. Several persons contacted me to conduct workshops so that they can attend, Due to to my profession, busy schedule as well as the hassle of organizing one good workshop I have refrained from entertaining their request.

Internet is a vast sea of resources. Writing on my blog will allow an opportunity for wider audience to learn from my technique. It also gives me opportunity to refine, revise and revisit my methods of photography. I have been photographing for last 25 years right from the early days of my medical school in 1984 using various cameras. I am self taught photographer. Being a voracious reader I could digest lot of theory of photography from the books I read. But putting them to practical was different ball game.