Botanic Gardens

Today I went to botanic gardens along with my brother,  We woke up at 5:15, got ready and left the house at 6:40.  We misjudged our route very badly.We thought of just walking rather waiting for the bus to take us to the mrt station. As we were a quarter of the way there the bus over toke use. At the mrt station we also misjudged as we took the train that would take us to dhoby ghaut just to save time. But this over complicated our trip as we had to get of  multiple times. If we went on the train heading to harbour front (yellow line) we would have no stops and our trip would have been 15 mins shorter.


We reached the botanic gardens at about 8:00 and headed towards the national orchid gardens. We went here because we heard about the owl which was staying near the garden. After about 5 mins of searching we heard three men with very expensive camera equipment talking about the owl. One of the man found the owl and was taking the others to the location, so we decided to tag along. We did manage to get a shoot and here is an image:

Scoops Owl | ISO160 | 300mm | f/5.6 | 1/4 sec

I took the picture at ... .I put the camera on  a tripod as the lighting was low. I tried to keep the iso low and the picture overexposed. But  I still had to crop slightly to fill the frame. The other two men had 800mm f4 lenses and could get very close. I do not like the picture too much as it is not as sharp as possible.

At 9:00 we decided to leave to go to the swan lake to look for the grey headed fish eagle. But  we got detoured after we talked to a cleaner who was sweeping the leaves. He asked us if we saw the owl and we showed it to him. After talking for a while he revealed to use that there where hornbills found in the rainforest trail. So we entered the trail. I had stopped to take a picture of a flower while my brother walked  a bit ahead. Suddenly I saw a shrew or squirrel of some sort.  It was unique because I clearly saw it and it was red and blue in colour.

After a while I caught up with my brother, who was not too far ahead as he was trying  to locate some bird calls. We waited under a tree for a while until we gave up and moved on. We reached a place where we could hear the same bird calls angaing. We could locate the tree and we spent about 15 minutes trying to locate the bird until we saw some movement. After a few mitues two crow like birds flew out. At first I thought they were crows, but when I saw their brakes I realised that they were hill mynas. Also they were making the same calls we were hearing. This is the best picture I got after extensive cropping.

Hill Myna | ISO320 | 300mm | f/5.6 | 1/125 sec

Hill Myna | ISO320 | 300mm | f/5.6 | 1/160 sec

As we watched the hill mynas a hornbill flew over us and sat on a tree. I think it was a greater pied hornbill. I did not bother to take a picture as it was too far. . As we were watching a lady came to us and asked us what we were seeing and we told her. She informed us that she had seen two owls. At first I thought it was the same owl as the one we saw,but from the location she was telling and pictures she was showing, we realised it was different. Our luck fas fabulous. We saw two more owls. I could not get a good shot as the conditions where not good and I only had a 300mm lens so I had too crop. After a while few photographers came and they had D4's and other high end camera boys and a few had 800mm lenses. Even they were unhappy as the location was not too good. Here is a picture:

After a while we decided to go to the swan lake to see the eagle. We took a small detour to see the first owl, and yes, it was still there, now with many more photographers. We reached the swan lake and stayed for a while, asking around if anyone saw the egale. After no luck we decided to visit the orchid garden. I always love that place. Orchid are my favourite flowers. We spent half an hour there and then we decided to return home as it was already midday and it was getting hot. On our way home my brother and I had a minute maid and magnum each just to keep us going due to the heat. I got very tired due to the heat.Here are some other pictures from the trip: