Superb photography and very nicely taken background Ajay Ji. Nice one Regards
Prasad On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 10:21 AM, J.M. Garg <[email protected]> wrote: > Nice picture, Ajay ji. > > On 5 January 2012 22:45, Ajay Ramakrishnan <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Though I am a brand new member of EFI, I have been passionate about >> flower photos since August-September 2010. Around that time, I heard about >> Kaas for the first time. But that year I was not able to plan the trip. In >> 2011, I made the long awaited "pilgrimage" along with my brother and cousin >> >> But the dream almost became a nightmare... First, the Neeta Volvo that >> took us overnight from Mumbai to Satara was 2 hours late. Then, the driver >> dumped us on the highway instead of taking us to the Satara ST stand as >> advertised on the Neeta website. Then, we had to pay an auto driver 90 >> rupees just to take us the 3 or so kilometers to the stand. Then, we learnt >> that we had just missed the 6:45 am ST bus to Mahabaleshwar that would have >> taken us directly to the Kaas plateau and that the next bus was at 8 am, by >> which time the sunlight could get too bright to take good photos. Then, we >> asked a tourist taxi operator what he would charge for the round trip to >> Kaas, and he quoted an eye-popping Rs. 1200 >> >> Okay, now for the twist. Telling the taxi driving con artist we'd get >> back, the three of us started bargaining with some auto drivers near the >> bus stand. One of them finally agreed to take us first to Kaas, then to >> Thoseghar waterfalls, and then back to the ST stand in the afternoon, all >> for Rs. 1200. We grudgingly agreed to the fare and hopped in. On the way to >> Kaas, the hillside road was lined with beautiful flowers, including some >> light blue morning glories that I had never seen before. But since I wanted >> to reach Kaas by 7:30 am, which I had been told was the best time for >> flower photography on the plateau, I sacrificed the blue ipomoeas and >> probably many other rare morning flowers. But it was worth it, since the >> auto driver stopped on top of the Kaas plateau, which was only slowly >> filling up with tourists, at precisely 7:25 am >> >> We spent 90 minutes of exploring the plateau to find the few rare species >> left other than smithias and balsams (it was already October 1, the fag end >> of the season). Among the beautiful flowers we did find was this bunch of >> Adenoon indicum - Blue Sonki. Hope you all like the photo (resolution >> reduced for sending to the EFI group) >> > > > > -- > With regards, > J.M.Garg ([email protected]) > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1 > 'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna' > The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a *thousand species*& > eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged > alphabetically & place-wise): > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg. You can also use > them for free as per Creative Commons license attached with each image. > For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, > please visit/ join our Efloraofindia Google e-group: > http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix (more than 1760 members & > 1,00,000 messages on 21/12/11) or Efloraofindia website: > https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/ (with a species database > of more than 6000 species). > Also author of 'A Photoguide to the Birds of Kolkata & Common Birds of > India'. > > -- Prasad Kumar Dash Ecologist, Orissa, India email: [email protected] ph. 09437444241
