The Star Performer - Yellow Browed Tit

Pangot, Uttarakhand

The thing with wildlife photography that makes it so exciting and frustrating at the same time is the uncertainty. No two sightings of the same subject at even the same spot will give you the same results and you just never know what you’re gonna come back with when you head out in this game. There’s just too much that goes on environmentally which influences a good image or video out in the wild and that’s why I keep harping on about the importance of chance. The whole thing is very adventurously satisfying as you start working it out and I guarantee you that most of the guys who do it full time end up becoming mentors and guides because that’s the route you have to take to increase your chances. Writing out “ The Babbler’s Fuss II ” took me back to my days in Uttarakhand and the confusing nature of bird names that I was exposed to there for the first time. It also reminded me of a gorgeous sighting of yet another bird who didn’t fit the norm as far as birds usually called Tit fit into. He was too small, too light and looked nothing like the other birds that carried the name. My guy was the Yellow Browed Tit and this little bird fluttered around me for a performance that was the most memorable from my day long birding adventure in Pangot.

People call Pangot a birder’s paradise and it might as well be so but based on my limited experience of trying to photograph birds there, I personally doubt that many photographers will share that opinion. The thing is that the road has dense vegetation on both sides and the subjects are small. It might be a great location for counting birds but perhaps not so if you’re after clear and uncluttered pictures of them. Little birds move fast and also prefer the clutter for security. The clutter though also filters sunlight and it’s that aspect of the usually frustrating nature of the cluttered foliage that works very well when it does to give you gorgeous images if you are favoured by chance like I was during this sighting.

Little birds give you little time and things happen in a jiffy with them. One second they’re here and the next they’re somewhere else and before you know it, they are gone. As chance would have it, this little Tit although smaller than most who carry that name, landed in a couple of clear spots during his flutterings around me. It was also pure chance that the light coming through the foliage was hitting him beautifully during most of those landings. The camera’s DOF can become an amazing enhancer of backgrounds when dealing with smaller subjects like I wrote in “A Matter Of Perspective”. In this case, my guy decided to sing some while the light coming through illuminated the zoomed in foliage to make the background look like stage lights on a dark stage for a performer and gave me these gorgeous images of his performance. He then moved to a couple of clear spots to give me clear and close pictures which isn’t the norm with little birds usually. Overall, this guy was my star performer from Pangot for that day. In fact, while his cousins probably gave me a lot more images that were a lot easier to score, it’s that tough terrain that ended up making his pictures truly special which actually fits cause my guy is pretty special when it comes to birds who carry the name Tit.

My guy in question is a Tit who doesn’t look like one at all. Yeah that’s funny. I actually posted this statement on social media soon after the sighting and you should’ve seen the hilarious comments. This Tit is an anomaly because he doesn’t look like the other members of his family. What were you thinking? Scientific classification has rationalized that by placing this species in a genus by itself among the larger family of birds who carry the same surname so to speak. There are two other birds who have been segregated within the family but none of those are from the lower Himalayas like my guy here and the segregation of the other two is not for the same reasons. The Yellow Browed Tit has been placed in its own monotypic genus because it is a highly distinct, basal, species within the Tit family. These birds diverged from other Tits a very long time ago. At 5 to 9 grams they are much smaller than other Tits and they look more like Warblers than other Tits. These guys were first described in 1836 and yet we are still unsure about what these little wonders eat. They have those little straight beaks and we assume that they sustain themselves by feeding on larvae, seeds and small invertebrates. It’s not surprising that there isn’t much data out on the lives of these little birds just as is the case with other small birds who are found in the lower Himalayas and North East India. The subjects are too elusive and the terrain too tough for us to be about chasing after them while it’s just so easy for them to give humans the slip. Chasing these birds is downright frustrating for a single picture in their environment, let alone doing it to observe their lifestyle. E bird currently is reporting 11000 observations of this species with about 1000 or so pictures. You can interpret that data whatever way you want I guess but I don’t trust entries without photographic evidence. What I do take from a browse of those 1016 or so pictures however is that I’m pretty lucky that my guy chose me to show himself to the way he did that afternoon. I did pretty alright with this guy and he gives me a happy in my belly every time I browse past his photos. This is why we take the chance see. That little guy still makes me so happy.

I’d worked out my standard settings of 1/2.5K Shutter, Auto ISO limited to 10 K and cane grip dropped at foot for fast retrieval by the time I got to Pangot. It’s nothing set in stone but a good starting point keeping in mind the fast pace of these little guys. A comfortable place to start helps a lot cause a little flick of the shutter dial to adjust to conditions isn’t hard but starting close helps when you don’t have you much time. All of those settings took shape at the start of that trip and are still in practice. Meeting the Yellow Browed Tit in the tough terrain of Pangot turned out to be a great find cause the light was just right for this sighting and gave me unique pictures that I keep going back to. The same foliage that enabled this beautiful background bombed my attempts at some of the other beautiful residents of those mountains. Light was an issue and something was always in the way. It can be pretty frustrating but that’s the nature of this game and you can’t really do anything about that. I’m just pretty happy that I scored these gorgeous and unique images of the tiniest bird I saw on that trip so well. As far as the others are concerned, here’s to hoping that there’ll be another chance to have my go at em soon someday. The Yellow Browed Tit was the star performer for me that day and he totally looks the part too don’t you think?