Silhouette

It was late in the evening and light was not sufficient for any meaningful hand held bird photography. I saw the male Loten’s Sunbird(Cinnyris lotenius) on a Peacock Flower (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) plant searching for nectar in the nearby flowers. I had my Canon EF 300mm f/4.0 L IS USM on Canon EOS 7D. The dark dried pod of Peacock Flower was giving a nice silhouette against the setting sun. So I under exposed by 2 stops to get this result with only outline of the bird, complimented by the dried pod. I was on ISO 200 which gave a very sharp outline without any noise.

Loten's Sunbird

You can read more about Male Loten’s Sunbird in my earlier posts here and here

Fatal Attraction

I was trying to test Canon EF 300mm f/4.0 L IS USM which was courteously provided by Shivashankar with my Canon EF 1.4x II Extender when I spotted these mating Common Grass Yellows(Eurema hecabe) on a Peacock Flower (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) plant. On closer inspection there was this dark brown spider stuck on the head of the male. I wanted to capture the whole sequence so I quickly changed to my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro with Canon MT-24EX macro twin light flash and captured the whole sequence. I have posted 4 most interesting shots from this sequence.

Fatal Attraction

This Adanson’s House Jumper (Hasarius adansoni) had caught hold of the male by the head while in the act of mating. It had killed it and is now proceeding towards the female which was still stuck to the mate.

Fatal Attraction

It was a precarious perch for the spider as it had to manage the dead body of one and struggling butterfly on the other. The female was desperately trying to escape from the clutches of the spider but was unable to do. Spider manage to twist and turn the body of the dead male and lurched forward to reach for the female.

Fatal Attraction

After nearly 15 minutes of struggle the female managed to tire out the spider and gain the upright position. With bit more struggle she was able to release herself from the mate and fly away free and alive. It was such an awesome sight that I was amazed how she managed to do that.