Light up your day with - "Natural Aeronauts"

The Year 2020 is going tough and many have extricated new skills like cooking, painting, dancing, drawing, learning new things. I tried my hand on my favorite gadget - a Camera, to capture the beauties of Nature "BIRDS" who wake up before us and lighten up our day with their melodious songs.

Getting up with chirping and melodious sounds fills the soul with new energy and positivity, but it has been missing for a long time due to encroachments and the hustle-bustle of life.

The clean and clear air, the chirping of birds has instinctively made me pick my camera and start capturing the beautiful creatures. Though bird photography is the toughest of all, still I challenged myself to capture them through my lens. I started to photograph the "Natural Aeronauts" from my colony during the lockdown phase. The phase made me recall the song

पंछी नदिया पवन के झोंके

कोई सरहद ना इन्हें रोके

सरहदें इन्सानों के लिए हैं

सोचो तुमने और मैने क्या पाया इन्सां हो के

पंछी नदिया ...

So many beautiful birds visit our colony was not known to me. The first bird I captured was a beautiful pair of Yellow-footed Green Pegion but it did not stop here, I captured a Brown-headed Barbet one of the shyest and vibrant bird, long-tailed Parakeets, jumping jack Oriental Magpie Robin

The craving for capturing the beautiful featured birds kept growing and compelled me to follow and join a photography group. I started looking for bird watching groups ,guides and guided tours and following them on social media.

I faced a dilemma, to capture more species of birds one has to travel out of Delhi and traveling during this Corona period and staying overnight is like putting myself and my family at risk of getting infected with COVID'19 and to capture more species of birds from Delhi cannot be imagined by me. But I was wrong, I discovered that Astroport India was making it possible for all the Bird watchers of Delhi and around to capture these beauties in location in and around Delhi. They have located many locations where you do not have to stay overnight and can capture more than 50-60 species of birds in just a 1- 2 hour drive. It's a delightful experience for sure.

Booking my bird tour with Astroport was the best decision, I had made for the ever difficult job - Capturing the birds. It is do true birds are a treat to watch, they make you forget everything and engross you in the game of fun and frolic they seem to play all the time. Since, birds keep dancing from one branch to the other and love to play hide and seek with the photographer aspiring to capture them. Capturing the poses and feature of a bird is a difficult but interesting job to do. Keep you excited all the time.

Astroport India- a known name for Astronomy and Space experience, they now offer a guided tour for Bird Watching and photography at such a nominal cost in and around Delhi.

The tour is for 5 hrs inclusive of breakfast, a guide for making us learn photography techniques, the location where we can find nearly 100 species of birds including migratory birds.

I was taken to a village near Gurgaon in a 12 seater bus from Delhi. On each seat of the bus a sanitizer, facemask, few chocolates, a water bottle, and a guidebook with some instructions were kept. An Astroport Ambasodor also joined us who made us understand the difference between the different species of birds, their habitat, colors, and habits.

When we were in the vicinity of the observation location I spotted so many Yellow-footed Pigeons, the excitement started and in no time we spotted White-throated Kingfisher, Grey Wag Tail, Hornbill...

On arrival at the observation area, we were given a brief about the number of species we are going to see and capture and why the location is best for Bird watching. I captured Bush thrush, a pair of Sarus, common crane, black shoulder Kite, bar-headed goose, cormorants, yellow weaver bird, bunting, Prinia, Purple heron and many more...

A few Photographs captured from my lens of our "Natural Aeronauts" are

To book your trip hurry contact Astroport @ 91-9276787700. They take a guided tour every Saturday and Sunday to different -different locations in and around Delhi.