22 : Painted Stork

Painted Stork - Myteria leucocepheria

Another Indian/Asian bird and again photographed at Yala. Painted really is an apt name. The flight feathers remind of something from a chinese silk screen.

These seemed to be fairly abundant birds in Sri Lanka inhabiting any flooded area including paddy fields, tanks and ponds. They feed by walking with their bill immersed and so I assume they snap up small fish and frogs etc. It was certainly more of a feed by touch method than a wait and stab egret/heron type strategy.

They are fairly tall - a metre or so and impressive in flight soaring with outstretched necks.

Here a bird added to the site after a trip to Bangalore a year after this original post.

I promised pictures of other Yala wildlife as we seem to be spending a lot of time this month in the Yala. Below a Sambhur Deer stag - the biggest deer we saw in the park. Very shy and secretive so this was a lucky shot on our way out after 48 fabulous hours. Before this individual we had only seen one or two animals and they bolted as soon as we appeared. These were big animals - think red deer if your from Europe and you have got the size

I now am being encouraged to invest in a new camera on the grounds that I am going to run out of quality photographs at some point and the blow ups I am doing from quite a humble panasonic are often a touch clunky ! The plan is to get a Canon 450 D with a 400m f 5/6 lens. That was the recomendation from quite a good site on bird photography and a fast lense is the way to go. I have to say some of the pictures I have seen on the net put my efforts to shame. I am sure I won't look back and we are fast approaching a point when the cupboard of images will have run out (a couple more months perhaps). In the Summer in Dubai a lot of the families clear out (including mine) so I will have plenty of time to wander lonely as a cloud (dust cloud that is) playing with my new toy. So thats the plan. I may manage a quick weekend somewhere that the wife and kids might not fancy for a family break (Iraq ?!? - seriously would love to see the Marshes but would not want to end up in a boiler suit on CNN - pehaps leave that to sort itself out for a few years. The marshaes have been reflooded though in part and *thousands* of marbled teal have return. You only have to give nature half a chance.)

I will need a hide clamp and a tripod and a bit more patience probably. I think maybe Ethiopia might be good or up into Asia for a bit of vast steppe action. When you fly from Dubai to London there are some mighty big mountains out of the plane window. Its time to get the maps out and time to get kitted up - the Task in on !

Painted Stork - Mycteria Leucocephia
Yala, Sri Lanka, 15-18 April 2011