Friendly Neighbourhood Barn Owls

On 1st January as I was going out early in the morning for my birding trip, I wanted to record the screeching barn owls on Brishti's (a neighbour's little daughter) roof top. They call every night and all it takes is to switch on the recorder and hold the microphone.

But just as I was going to press the recording button a loud Ajan (Muslim call for prayer allowed by the government to be blared on the (extremely) loud speakers) suddenly started in the mosque nearby and the owl stopped calling. Later some howling dogs ruined the atmosphere further.

This morning at around 5 am as we were getting ready to go out for our morning walk (after a long long time) I heard them calling again and went to my rooftop to record this call. I also saw some movement of one of the birds. It flew from the rooftop of Brishti's house to a large Kadam tree in front of their house. There are obviously more than one bird.

It was quite dark and I could hardly see anything clearly. These owls call only when there is zero sunlight. Our neighbourhood, if you are interested, is not very well lit but it isn't dark either.

This vocalisation, as is obvious, is quite different from the other one that I had recorded earlier. I hope one day I will get the answer about their meanings.

There are some loud crows making their presence known when it is still dark. There is still a very faint Ajan sound coming from some distant mosque that could not be helped. Hope to record the sound again at around 3 am on another morning. Hopefully it will be quieter.

Acratech GV2 - One of Big Boy's Latest Toys

One of the most critical elements for a good photograph, when you are using a tripod, is the ball head. The ball head that I have been using so far is the Manfrotto 496RC2. It is a decent ball head for its price of around 5k. But it is not adequate when you are using it for bird photography using a 400 mm lens.

First of all, there is a slight play when you press the shutter. That is, the lens moves down marginally. But the real inadequacy of the lens is greatly exposed when you try to shoot a particularly active bird that is, for example, jumping from one branch to the other in search of food. In eastern Himalaya the small birds are famous for doing this. It's a real challenge shooting those birds. You have to constantly loosen the head, turn the camera and tighten it again. It is very difficult, if not impossible to shoot such hyper active birds with the 496 RC2.

The answer to this problem is a gimbal head. But they are very very expensive. Not just expensive, they are very heavy and bulky too. Quite difficult to lug around really. Manfrotto has a cheaper solution but that's quite heavy and bulky too. My search for the ideal ball head took me to the Acratech website where they sell this  ball head - the GV2. It is a standard ball head but it can work as a gimbal head as well for lenses upto 400 mm.

I checked their website. They have an extensive range of youtube based instruction manuals (curiously enough, the model in those videos is the CEO himself who takes pride in letting you know that the whole thing is made in the USA). I asked them several questions about the lens plate. And finally made up my mind to dream about it.

After dreaming about it for several months I finally got a chance to get it from Canada thanks to Suranjanadi. I got it on Sunday, 1st January, but finally got the courage to open the box and use it tonight.

It is frightfully expensive to say the least. If you are curious, please google it up. Please don't ask me. I feel guilty. I must thank Monisha for not making a big scene after I told her about the purchase and the price :-)