© Faisal Al-Nomas, Kuwait City, Kuwait
A baby grey heron is slowly trying to reach his nest after becoming separated from it and starting to feel unsafe. This photo of the baby heron was taken on Bubiyan Island, the largest island in the Kuwaiti coastal island chain situated in the north-western corner of the Arabian Gulf. It is a safe place for both animals and people alike. To reach the island you need to have government permission and has been an environmentally protected area for more than 27 years. When I got to the island I found some nests then lay down and moved around slowly while wearing my camouflage clothing.
© Jianhui Liao, Nanchang, China
A pond heron flies away and is pulled back by his companion.
© Sunil Warnakulasuriya, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
The subject in this photograph is a brown-headed barbet. It is resident in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India. Its habitat is gardens and avoids thick forests. These birds feed on fruit and occasionally on small insects. They build nests in tree holes by pecking and digging out the tree trunk. A pair will repeatedly communicate with each other in a call that sounds like repeating ‘kutroo’. In this photograph a parent bird is seen about to enter the hole with a beak full of banyan fruit. In this case the nest was built about three meters above the ground. I set up an alumi-num ladder and tied the camera to it yet I could not get close enough without scaring off the bird. The shutter was released from a distance using a remote shutter release. I waited nearly six hours to capture this shot. Weather conditions were fine, though it was bright the sky was cloudy making the light softer. I am an amateur photographer. I have experi-ence in covering family events and social events of friends and relatives. After retirement I became interested in nature photography especially birds and insects.
© Mohammad Murad, Kuwait
I took a picture of this pharaoh eagle owl chick in the northern Kuwaiti desert, 160 km away from Kuwait City. He was hiding between these yellow small bushes while one of his parents was giving an alarm call since I was kind of close to the chick. I parked the car far away and walked slowly to a spot where I lie down and put a net over me and waited for the parent to catch something and feed the chick. I stayed there for almost three hours and I was sweating all over because of the high temperature – it was about 49 degrees – so I waited and nothing happened then a breeze of air started to hit the yellow grass. Then the chick stood up and started looking around. Because I was on the ground at eye level, this blur effect came out perfect.
© Santhosh Krishnamoorthy, Bengaluru, India
This beautiful little bird is a vernal hanging parrot, it is the only parrot in India, all of the other birds in the parrot family are parakeets. It was January, mid winter in Goa. Not that cold in this part of the world. Good season for birding and bird photography though. On one of my visits to this area, I kept observing that these parrots regularly visit the plant of powder-puff flowers, in the morning and afternoon, almost everyday. These birds seem to love powder-puff flowers. So, one afternoon, I found a spot to sit and wait for them to arrive. Didn’t have my tripod with me unfortunately. So, I had to make do hand-holding the big and heavy 500 f/4 lens. After a long wait, they finally showed up. Landing on the plant, they started feeding on the lovely pink flowers giving some opportunities to make a few images. I had to juggle around with the ISO combinations to get a decent enough shutter-speed to hand hold. All the effort and the wait was absolutely worth it.
© Guiyang Zeng, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
The mother egret guarded her three children and spread her wings to protect them.
© Arshdeep Singh, Jalandhar, India
I often travel to Kapurthala town with my father for birding. In winter on a Sunday morning I also went with my father once again for bird photography. On the way while we were crossing the road I saw a spot-ted owlet flying and he went inside this tube. I asked my dad to stop the car, he stopped the car but didn’t believe me that the owl could go inside this tube. I looked at the tube again for few minutes and I was surprised to see a pair of owlets coming out of the tube. I pointed my dad towards the tube and he was stunned seeing the owls over there. He rolled the car glass down for me and without wasting anytime I got the shot of the owlet duo. They were looking straight into my eyes, I felt like each of the owlets wanted to say “I C U” boy! I was happy to see these beautiful spotted owlets in their urban home and I had to say goodbye to them so that they could be on their own.
© V Krishnan, Mumbai, India
© Indranil Basu Mallick, Pune, India
© Yoshimasa Sugitate, Shiga, Japan
© Omar Al-Asem, Kuwait
© Kallol Mukherjee, West-Bengal, India
© Vinod (Baiju) Patil, Aurangabad, India