Elliot's forest lizard (Calotes ellioti)

That Sunday evening I was returning back home I noticed a slender lizard peeking out from the rainwater drain of my garage entrance. I quickly parked my car and pulled out Canon EOS 1D Mark IV fitted with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM. My house has Mangalore tiled roof. I have fitted it with a Rainwater harvesting pipe which runs all around the roof edge and collects the rain water from the roof and routes it to our drinking water well after filtration. This has resulted in perennial water supply in our well which used to get dried by the end of summer months. The Rain water harvest pipe was good 8 feet from the ground where I was standing. So I lifted both my hands over my head so that I could get as close as possible to the lizard and took these photos. I let the camera auto-focus to do its job while shooting. To get the better depth of field I used f/11 and ISO 4000 as the light was fading. Luckily the lizard was on the west side of the house and thus received the evening light. The shadow area under the roof tiles gave the nice dark background to the lizard.

Elliot's forest lizard (Calotes ellioti)

The lizard which was peeking out through the semicircular water pipe was Elliot’s Forest Lizard (Calotes ellioti). Calotes ellioti also called Annamalai Forest Lizard is an agamid lizard found mainly in western ghats in Southern India, up to 6000 feet altitude in the Annamalai Hills. This species inhabits the Western Ghats and is found in the Anaimalai, Tinnevelly and Sivagiri hills and the Malabar coast (Smith 1935, Sharma 2002). Manthey (2008) mentions an isolated single record from Mahabaleshwar, in northern Western Ghats (Maharasthtra state, India). This brilliant photo of vibrant male Calotes ellioti in bright red color published on deviantArt by NEcrOMAnCERDEmON taken near Sinhaghad fort shows the northern extant of this lizard’s distribution.

Elliot's forest lizard (Calotes ellioti)

I don’t know how common this lizard is, in a city like mine. That too finding this lizard in my backyard was a great surprise. Studies have shown that it favors a degraded patch of the forest. Ishwar et al. (2003) surveyed the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve and 14 rainforest fragments in the Anaimalai Hills, both in the Western Ghats mountains. They found that this species occurs in dry and moist deciduous forest, as well as primary rainforest and associated altered habitats such as tea, coffee, and cardamom plantations. This species dominated the arboreal reptile community in the protected area and, moreover, rose to be the most dominant agamid in the fragmented forest. This species is a habitat generalist and appears to be unaffected by forest fragmentation.

Elliot's forest lizard (Calotes ellioti)

Inger et al. (1984) questioned the specific distinction of this species and placed it within the synonymy of its closely related congener, Calotes rouxii Dumeril & Bibron 1837. But none followed their arrangement, and instead recognized C. elliotti as a distinct species. Günther, A. in 1864 in his book The Reptiles of British India first described this species differentiating it from Calotes rouxii as follows “Jerdon enumerates a C. rouxii in his list of the Reptiles of Southern India (Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xxii. p. 471); having seen a rough figure of this species in the collection of drawings in the possession of W. Elliott, Esq., I have come to the conclusion that this must be an undescribed species, having a pair of isolated spines immediately behind the orbit and a black fold of the skin before each shoulder. The male is represented as uniform blackish brown, with yellow head and neck: the female brown, with irregular dark cross bands. I propose for this species the name of C. eliiotti.”

Monkey Puzzle

Monkey Puzzle I am referring to, is neither the political game which our politicians play, nor any other game I am trying to promote. That afternoon I was teaching my 10 year old daughter Neethi few basics of photography when she spotted a small butterfly with several tail filaments sitting on a crape jasmine bush. That butterfly is called Monkey Puzzle (Rathinda amor). My daughter wanted to try her hand on macro photography. I removed the flash and diffuser and just gave her my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV fitted with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens to try. Weight of this rig is too much to her tiny hands and she struggled to hold the weight. Nevertheless she managed to capture the butterfly quite successfully. Here is the photo she captured.

Monkey Puzzle

After she tried her hand, I wanted to take the similar shot. The butterfly was very cooperative. Here is my humble effort. As both of us were not using flash we had to push the ISO to 3200 to get aperture f/13 and speed of 1/200th second. Unfortunately the plant on which this butterfly was sitting was so awkward, that it allowed me only two good positions to take photos.

Monkey Puzzle

Later I connected my Canon Speedlite 580EX II with ExpoImaging Ray Flash Adapter. This gave me good light with which I could reduce the ISO to 100. The extra light from the flash allows you to extract a greater clarity from the picture by using lower ISO. The Monkey Puzzle, Rathinda amor is a small lycaenid or blue butterfly found in Western Ghats, South Indian plains, Orissa and Ganjam districts to Calcutta. Assam. Sri Lanka.

Monkey Puzzle

Its sexes alike. Wingspan – 26 to 28 mm. Upper side of this butterfly is dark brown. It has a white-spot end cell. It has narrow white spots on 2 and 3 which form a short band on the fore wing. On the UPH it has two black tornal spots and narrow dark reddish spot above them. The underside is white to dark yellowish brown. Fore wing has irregular dark basal markings with a curved white discal line. The apical two-fifths are a rich dark brown color. The hind wing has a silvery margin with many irregular black lines and spots within. It has three tails, being 2 mm, 6 mm and 2.5 mm in length.

Monkey Puzzle

This butterfly is found in jungle areas of moderate to heavy rainfall – both, in heavy forest and scrub. The butterfly occurs below 900 meters or so. It keeps to undergrowth and can be seen along forest paths and in clearings. The butterfly has a weak flight, it stays low and does not fly for long without alighting. Its method of alighting is interesting – as soon as it lands, it turns around and waggles its tail filaments, it also sidesteps for a while – all this is apparently to confuse a predator as to which side is the head. This is a likely reason that the first naturalists may have named the species the Monkey Puzzle. The butterfly has a number of food plants from families Rubiaceae, Dipterocarpeae, Euphorbiaceae, Loranthaceae, Sapindaceae and Myrtaceae. In my garden I found it was feeding on Ixora.

Leafhopper

Soon after the Mysore trip I sold both my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Canon EOS 7D camera bodies and purchased Canon EOS 1D Mark IV. I needed a camera which included the features of 5D Mark II & 7D and 1D Mark IV fitted that slot correctly. As Canon puts it in its press statement about EOS-1D Mark IV is a high-speed, professional Digital SLR (DSLR) camera designed to empower photographers to capture split-second moments in high resolution, under the most challenging of conditions. Ideal for shooting action, sports, news events and wildlife photography, the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV delivers speed, power and high-resolution images, creating the perfect camera for photographers who require reliability in fast-paced, high-pressure situations.

EOS-1D Mark IV features a new Canon 16.1MP APS-H CMOS sensor and a brand new 45-point Auto Focus (AF) system with 39 f/2.8 sensitive cross-type points, providing a wide selection of precise focus areas across the frame. Dual DIGIC 4 processors provide the power to shoot continuous, high-resolution images at up to 10 frames per second (fps), as well as delivering the widest ISO range ever to feature in a Canon camera. I am not going to review this camera as it is reviewed at so many sites on internet.

Leafhopper

I found this Leafhopper at my house main door on friday the 13th afternoon. Nothing ominous about this insect though. This is a small 3mm long insect. Leafhopper is a common name applied to any species from the family Cicadellidae. Leafhoppers, colloquially known as hoppers, are minute plant-feeding insects. I could not get any species identification as there are over 20,000 species of Cicadellidae world wide. Leafhoppers are found all over the world, and constitute the second-largest hemipteran family.

I used Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro lens on Canon EOS 1D Mark IV with Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash fitted with ExpoImaging Ray Flash Adapter. Leafhopper was on the door and allowed me to reach close to 1:1 magnification before jumping off. Light from the adapter was somewhat harsh on the glossy wings. I wanted to change angle of flash and try again to avoid the reflection on the wings, but insect jumped away. On Adobe Lightroom during post processing I tried several methods to reduce the harsh highlight on the wings, what really succeeded was the Luminance slider from the HSL group. Check the detailed tutorial on that method here – Lightroom – Recover Highlights, Overexposure, and Colors from RAW

Leafhopper

Leafhoppers have piercing-sucking mouthparts, enabling them to feed on plant sap. A leafhoppers’ diet commonly consists of sap from a wide and diverse range of plants, but some are more host-specific. Leafhoppers mainly are herbivores, but some are known to eat smaller insects, such as aphids, on occasion. A few species are known to be mud-puddling, but as it seems, females rarely engage in such behavior. Leafhoppers can transmit plant pathogens, such as viruses, phytoplasmas and bacteria.

Cicadellidae species that are significant agricultural pests include the beet leafhopper (Circulifer tenellus), potato leafhopper (Empoasca fabae), two-spotted leafhopper (Sophonia rufofascia), glassy-winged sharpshooter (Homalodisca vitripennis), the common brown leafhopper (Orosius orientalis) and white apple leafhopper (Typhlocyba pomaria).