The Sky of Dreams

I hope you are like me – a nature lover who had dreamt of a favorite animal since childhood. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do or not, but I did – I had always wanted to photograph a Great Indian Hornbill.

To be fair, these are not very difficult to photograph if you know where they are. While they are not very widely distributed, we can see them along the rainforests and tea estates of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Uttara Kannada districts in Southern India. We went on such a birding trip to Valparai in late 2022. But this is not a post on a special bird, but a special photograph.

On that day we had spent almost the entire day photographing these wonderful birds, and the sun had started to set in the west. The birds started to move towards their nesting area across the hill, and we waited on a hill slope photographing the wonderful birds in flight.

As the evening drew to a close, the sky turned crimson, with the setting sun draping the hills in a golden hue. Suddenly, we saw the great hornbills flying across the sun – a golden opportunity to frame some silhouettes. We positioned our tripods immediately, and I saw the sight of a lifetime – my dream birds crossing a red, crimson sunset over green, green hills of western ghats.

Indeed it is true that no artist is equal to nature!