Dashing Darter

Dear friends wishing you a very happy Sunday, as we know Sunday MATLAB BLOG DAY so ready steady go with the new topic. Today’s topic is water bird i. e. Darter/Snakebird with wonderful memories of Bharatpur bird sanctuary. The reason I opted this bird today because Darter is a common bird and widespread but attractive at the same time it offers fantastic photogenic opportunities to create unique frames. Let us read about an experience I had with this dashing bird in the next section.

Days with Darter:

Darters are very common and widespread due to which mostly unattended or ignored by us even I ignored this dashing bird in initial visits but I realized the uniqueness of Darter during my Bharatpur visit. Darter is also known as Snakebird because of its long thin neck, which has a snake-like appearance when it swims with its body submerged. This is what we experienced and captured in our camera at Bharatpur, one of the best moments was watching Darter dipping in and coming out of the water with small fish. For photographers and bird lovers this is one of the best time because at every single second you get extraordinary opportunity for frame, Darter coming out of water without fish with sad expression or with fish with winner expression, what a time it was 😍 awesome is not the word, check out DSLR section for dashing photo shoot.

Normally you will find Darter seating or sleep with widespread wings or taking a sunbath on a branch of a tree in mid water, you need to wait for Darter to find opportunity in water, the right moment is when it finds a fish. During our Bharatpur visit, the morning was too foggy due to extreme cold so we had no choice but to wait, we converted this time into great memory thanks to Saurabh the champion. He is our mentor/guide who always brings a different perspective of Mother Nature.

Let me explain how it got converted into best time, as guided by the Champ we decided to seat near water land ready with our camera, we were staring at Darter like anything with a hope of some action. With long wait our patience finally turned rewarding, Darter suddenly jumped into the water at one point and came out at another point with winning strike and winning moment for us as well. This continued for a number of times at regular interval though not all the time Darter was lucky but we were on winning side all the time with unique pictures. You should connect to the nature to experience the value it offers.

Do plan your visit to any of these forests or sanctuaries, I will love to offer help if you need to plan such visit. Now it is time to know more about Snakebird so let us move to the “Who am I” section.

Who am I? Snake, bird or Snake Bird:

The Darters or Snakebirds are mainly tropical waterbirds in the family Anhingidae having a single genus Anhinga

Darters eat fish, crustaceans, reptiles, and insects attacking their prey with rapier-like thrusts of their sharp beaks, whence the name darter. Another common name, snakebird, describes the Darter's habit of swimming with its body submerged and only the snake-like head and long, curved neck exposed.

A skilled diver, the Oriental darter swims underwater and spears prey with its bill, before using the bill to hold or pick apart the prey, which it then throws into the air and swallows

Darter nest in mixed species heronries where they build a stick platform on the nest tree, which is usually surrounded by water