Woh Time Nahi Dengi ! (They Won't Give You Any Time)

Pics 1 to 6 - Black Throated Bushtit : Sattal | Pics 7 & 10 - Yellow Browed Tit : Pangot | Pic 8 - Himalayan Bulbul : Sattal | Pics 9 & 12 - Himalayan Black Lored Tit : Ramgarh | Pic 11 - White Eye : Bhimtal

The little birds of Uttarakhand were a challenge that I prepared for like I wrote in “The Black Chinned Babbler.” As my encounters with these guys happened, I learnt more about them and taking pictures of them.

“Woh time nahi dengi” (They won’t give you any time) is what Neerdiv had told me when I met him first in Kenya. Bilkul Sahi ! You need your shutter at 1/2500 at least and ready to go before you start. I had always shot at Aperture Priority. That would never work with these guys. It’s Shutter Priority all the way. It also means that you need to be at higher iso. Thankfully, I had my Sony mirrorless system by then which has auto iso with a max cap. By day 2 I was used to shooting at 6000 iso or more in the shade. Auto iso is a miracle my old Canon didn’t have that Im sure the newer Canons do. So now I can shoot, turn my knob to stay at fastest and repeat without looking. Photographing these little birds turned my photographing style on it’s head but completely expanded my horizons and taught me about the capabilities of my camera.

These guys move faster than your eyes can see. So, my approach was to keep my guy at the center of the frame and let loose one or 2 shots. If he moves a little, I’d still catch it. Not more than 2. He’d be gone if I did more and I’d be shooting blanks. I am not into using the screen. Im a viewfinder guy and honestly, I don’t think anyone would have success with the screen with these guys. It’s gotta move with your head else, he’d be gone again. Now, every time these guys change locations, you have to readjust your eyes to normal view vs zoomed in, find him and then zoom in again however you do it and all of this is happening simultaneously. All in all, a crazy, short frenzy of activity by the subject that causes a different frenzy for you. What Mazaa Man !

These guys who are perhaps just a little bigger than moths live their lives in the fast lane. It’s amazing how their heads are like 1/3rd the size of their bodies and even then, those little brains comprehend the basics that most animals understand. Like, kinship, family, territory, danger, communal upbringing of their young like us humans. They recognize the calls of their predators like owls. It’s a 9 gram bird with probably a 3 gram brain. How does it compute these things? In comparison, my sony with lens weighs 2838 grams and it’s AI can’t even find the eye of one of these guys in frame let alone follow.

You see how dumb and inefficient our so called AI still is in comparison to nature’s creations?