Praying mantis is a ruthless and powerful predator of the natural world. It has the aptitude, the attitude and all the implements needed to be very successful at that. For a highly driven Praying mantis, no prey is out of bounds. It is quite capable of bringing down prey much bigger in size than itself. Mantises have been known to hunt reptiles like lizards, geckos and also some small birds. I have so much admiration for this creature....
Indian Eagle Owl (Bubo bengalensis), also known as the Rock Eagle Owl or the Bengal Eagle Owl is a large, horned owl found across the hilly, rocky scrub-forests of the Indian Subcontinent. The cat-like long ear tufts, those big glowing eyes and the majestic size are unmistakable. Quite widely distributed across India, this species is found all over. However, the place I most love to see them in, is the amazing capital town of the erstwhile Vijayanagar empire, Hampi....
Here is a quick video tutorial on how to create an animated GIF using Adobe Photoshop. Recently, I used this to represent a very interesting behavior of a jumping spider. It was the Two-striped jumping spider (Telamonia dimidiata). The GIF is what you see in the featured image of this post above. Find out more about this interesting behavior and how I went about creating this GIF, here : Hope this was useful....
Ornamentation among birds is a very common occurrence. Males of many species develop some beautiful physical traits at the onset of their breeding season. The main drive behind this being to attract the female of the species. One of the more beautiful ornamentations I have come across is in a bird known as the Long-tailed widowbird. Long-tailed widowbirds (Euplectes progne) are passerine birds of the weaver family, ‘Ploceidae’. They belong to the genus ‘Euplectes’ which includes widowbirds and bishops....
Many places hold the title of the ‘Land of dreams’ from a perspective of offering good business opportunities, a wonderful career and a monetary standpoint. For me, Africa signifies the ‘Land of wildlife dreams’. Each time I embark on a journey to the varied wildlife destinations of the continent, I dream and try to visualise the kind of sightings and image making opportunities that I would love to encounter. With wildlife and the weather being as unpredictable as they are, most of them stay as dreams....