In this guest post, Priya Darshini shares her photographs and experiences from Darter’s Wild West Tour of Kutch. She participated in the 2014 and 2017 editions of the tour.
Silence stretched across the vast expanse of broken earth, except for the occasional sound of the howling wind. The red-brown hue of the barren sun-baked land was turning a dull grey with the oncoming dusk. I peered through my camera lens once again, at the big black obsidian iris of a Peregrine Falcon.
It was perched on the ground, one claw firmly on its feathery dinner. Having spent the past 15 minutes photographing the bird like this, my fellow photographers and I waited, to see if the bird would move, eat or fly. Instead, it remained motionless, much like us, and seemingly unafraid of the big looming vehicle before it. Several long minutes passed. A slight movement in our vehicle alerted the bird. The Falcon took off in a flash, disappearing into the dimming light.
For days later, that puzzling moment stayed with me. Why did the Falcon wait? What was it thinking? Perhaps moments like this, and the actors therein, are as idiosyncratic as the landscape they inhabit. A landscape called the Little Rann of Kutch (in case you haven’t already guessed from the reference to “broken earth”). Remote. Unforgiving. Unforgettable.
A land that evokes tantalizing images of a mysterious antiquity. Full of contradictions. Where living seems to be a grueling task and yet, is home to so many. So alien to the humdrum of city life that it continues to fascinate and beckon me.
I’ve done two trips to this addictive landscape with Darter Photography, three years apart. A few memorable moments from these tours are presented below.
Vantage Point. A Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) on the lookout.
One minute there…
Gone the next. In a Rush of Wings.
Trotsky. An Indian Wild Ass (Equus hemionus khur) on the run.
Mealtime. A Black-winged Kite (Elanus caeruleus) with what appears to be a rodent in its claws.
Sleeping beauty. A Pallid Scops Owl (Otus brucei) deep inside a tangle of Prosopis juliflora.
Bird Imperial. A Greater Spotted Eagle (Aquila clanga) atop a Meswak (Salvadora persica) tree.
Ballet in water. Common Cranes (Grus grus) in a small water body on the Rann.
Surreal city. Thousands of Greater and Lesser Flamingoes (Phoenicopterus roseus and Phoenicoparrus minor respectively) stretched on for nearly 6/7kms
Camouflage. A Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) among foliage lit up in the evening light.
Saltmakers in silhouette. An agariya family returning home after a hard day’s toil.
It’s all about perspective. A minimal eye level composition of a Sykes’s Nightjar (Caprimulgus mahrattensis)
About Priya Darshini
Does Little Rann of Kutch sound intriguing? Join us on our next photography tour this winter – https://darter.in/photography-tours/wildlife/kutch/
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