Salt Licks are the favorite spots for any animal living in the jungles. These spots contain deposits of salts/minerals such as Sodium, Calcium, Iron, Zinc and Phosphorous etc.,  which are essential for their growth and to keep themselvesin good health. These animals discover these spots intuitively and visit often whenever there is a need in their bodies.

We happened to witness this female elephant in an early morning at Bandipur, about a few months ago. It was so busy at its task and was least bothered about our presence. We spent around one hour with this animal, taking numerous shots of its varied behavior.

It first loosens the mud with its foot and then carefully sucks the mud containing the salts/minerals using its trunk. It sends the mud into its mouth by pushing the air through the trunk. It was so interesting to see its act as it was creating a smoke around its mouth whenever it was pushing the mud into its mouth.

Shot Using Canon 1Ds Mark III mounted with 70-200 lens.

This is a beautiful moth I photographed in my garden yesterday. Its presence was discovered  by my daughter Vaishnavi, who urged me to take this shot. This moth was  about 2 1/2 inches long and was lying on a leaf, quite camouflaged deep inside dwarf palm tree plants.

I later identified the species with the help of my close friend Mr.Jayaram, who is also a Macro Photographer and an expert taxonomist.

The moth is a common Hawk / Sphinx Moth and its scientific name is Daphnis nerii and its common name is ” Oleander Moth”.  This particular specimen   probably, just emerged.  Its favorite food plant is ” Nerium Oleander”. In our native language ” Tamil ” we call this plant as “ARALI”.  The flowers of this plant are regarded as having high spiritual significance in the temples.

Moths are Insects and they are active during nights.  It gets easily attracted by lights and it is interesting to see them circling the lights during nights. Most of them are nocturnal. But a few species are diurnal and crepuscular.

Like bird watching, watching Butterflies and Moths is known as butterflying and mothing.

Taken with Canon 1Ds Mark III with canon 100mm Macro. Used 580Ex flash with an off shoe camera cord.

Wild boars are common in the periphery of forests and jungles. These animals prefer to live closer to villages and agricultural lands. It used to invade cultivated lands such as sugar cane fields etc.,These wild animals are well known for their notorious behavior of damaging the crops . But I shot this image in a Daroji Sloth Bear sanctuary. Daroji is about 15 K.M from HAMPI town, which was once the capital of Vijayanagar Empire.

Daroji is a rocky terrain and very hot. The summer is simply unbearable. The rock-strewn hillocks that stretch between Daroji of Sandur taluk and Ramasagar of Hospet Taluk in Bellary district have been the abode of Indian Sloth Bears  since ages. In October 1994, the government of of

I took this image on March 2007. I used canon 1Ds Mark I (11.8 MP) camera with 300mm f/4 lens mounted. ISO as 200, Shutter at 1/250 and aperture at f/8.

Ranganthittu is a wonderful place for bird photography.  This place is near Mysore and lies on the banks of river Kavery.

Canon 1Ds Mark III with 1.4x converter and 70-200 f/2.8 lens. Shutter at 1/640 and aperture at 7.1 and hand held shot.

It was late in the evening during February 2009. We  ( Mr.TNA  Perumal, a veteran wildlife Photographer, myself  and Mr.Jayaram, a macro specialist from coimbatore) were about to finish our last shoot of the day at Ranganathittu, a famous bird sanctuary in Karnataka state in India. We were almost packed our gears and the boat was returning back home. To our surprise, there appeared a  boat full of nuns wearing blue costume and the boat having blue stripes. The back lighting on them was making the scene interesting and worth photographing.

Summer had just started to show its fangs…I was in Bandipur on 7th and 8th February 2009. Green Leaves have turned to be brown and trees have started to shed their dry leaves.  Animals had already started their migration from this park to other places where they would find water and food.

The road in the above image is a Highway running through the Bandipur National Park connecting Mudumalai Wildlife sanctuary of Tamilnadu state. Thousands of vehicle ply night and day causing the sanctuary a big disturbance.This sanctuary is under Project Tiger and is a very sensitive forest.  Recently Karnataka government, banned the night drivings  through the park and this brought big relief to the Nature Lovers.

It is always a habit to shoot landscapes with wide angle lenses…but on the contrary I shot this image using my 70-200 canon lens, hand held.

Zoom at 78mm, Shutter 1/200sec, Aperture f/13… ISO @ 200

I was returning back from Bangalore to Coimbatore via Mysore. I planed well so that I would visit a tiny village called Kokkara Bellur in the early morning hours on the way.  This village is one of the most preferred sites by Pelicans and Painted storks. They build their nests on the trees amidst the village. villagers welcome these birds and take care of them so well. These birds are so active in the early hours and it is so delightful to watch them busy taking care of their nests.

I used Canon 300mm, f/4 lens on Canon 1Ds Mark I body  hand held, with Image stabilizer on. Caught this beautiful bird on flight by panning the camera.

As the summer approaches, the forest fires are inevitable. The fire happens  due to various reasons and among them the main reason being Tourism. Irresponsible tourists throw their ignited cigarette buds on their way, and this sparks the heavy fire.

It was 11-30 pm in the night and I was returning from Bandipur. I saw this forest fire on the way. I stopped the car at a far away place and changed my lens from 70-200 Tele to 17-40  Wide  mounting  on a tripod.  I started to approach the fire slowly as the heat and its radiation was very high. I took several images trying various compositions.  It was very windy and the fire started  spreading its fangs ruthlessly in all directions. At one point of time I realized that I am almost surrounded all around by the fire. Immediately started running away with tripod to escape. I found a safe place and took this shot.

We were traveling very slowly in our car on the high way connecting Bandipur and Mudumalai sancturies. It was around 12-30 noon and the tigress came out of the lantana bush to our surprise on the left hand side of our car. By the time we realized the presence of the tigress, the car had gone a few meters away. We returned back to the spot and saw the tigress in the bush,  scanning the vicinity. To our further surprise, we saw the cubs behind her a few meters away . They were 3 in numbers.  May be, the Tigress was studying the risk factors of crossing the road with its cubs..