I did not go deep into some jungle to capture this photo of a Crested Serpent Eagle. No siree, it was just shot from my window in Battaramulla. We only a Kilometer from the town center. Despite the efforts of successive governments and countless people, there are a few trees still left standing in this neighbourhood, and sometimes they attract beautiful and rare creatures such as this.

Serendipity is walking into a used bookstore and finding a few gems for giveaway prices. Most visitors to the Colombo International Book Faircram themselves into shops runs by the big boys. They are crowded beyond belief and nearly all of them have the same content, low priced Indian Editions of books published in the US, UK and sometimes low priced Indian books. Ask any of the sales assitants (assuming you can find one) to show you where the Mike Hammers are and they will probably bring you a hammer from their tool box. Ask them for a Louis L’Amour and you will probably not get anything more than a blank stare.

They firmly believe that novels are like pop music, you need to keep up with the latest trends and the charts. I was never a fan of pop music. I’ve always been a rocker not much of a fan of classical music either. Perhaps that explains why I like Raphael Sabatini and Leon Uris but not quite into Dan Brown. Though I respect Shaken Bacesphere (or is it Christopher Marlow?) I would always prefer reading a CS Forester or a Hemmingway. To find that sort of book, used bookshops are where you should head to. That is what I did and this is what I picked up today going back on Wednesday for another lot.

It’s said that you will love your Sigma 50-500mm lens as long as you don’t point it up a tree. Here is proof. I shot about 20 photos of this Changable Hawk Eagle perched on an Alastonia tree but only one came well. Even then there is room for improvement.

There are certain light conditions though which allow the lens to be pointed up at a tree, a clear sky with the sun behind your shoulder is one of them.

A normally calm, quite and dark residential lane gets transformed on Vesak day with people bringing out their vesak lanterns.

Last year’s vesak was at Great Western. In 2007, I forgot to take a photo!

This is a photo of the Colombo fort area. An pro will say it isn’t a particularly good one, because the foreground is a wee bit dark and the sky apears to be mostly white. Even so, I value this photo highly because it represented a once in a life time opportunity. It was taken on the day of a national election when the city center was deserted.

This was at a time when Sri Lankan elections were more violent than they are now and people were expecting a curfew in the evening. So the city was even more deserted than usual. Unlike most people, I went out. Took the kid to the Galle Face. On the way back took this photo of the YMBA and the other building which at the time was marked for demolishen but fortunately they didn’t carry it out.

This was also the time of the ceasefire, otherwise it would not possible to take photos in the fort area. So that’s why this is such a rare and valuable photo and that’s why the government of Sri Lanka stole it.

With the number of trees that have been cut down in the neighbourhood in recent weeks, it’s a miracle that this dead tree was left standing. It made a perfect perch for this Brahmini Kite. If you happen to pass the Kelanitissa Thermal power station, don’t forget to look towards the sky, you will see at least a dozen of them soaring a long way up. The thermal currents produced by the steam turbines coupled with the proximity of the garbage mountain makes it one of their favorite areas.

This one though was seen in Battaramulla, I don’t know if they range that far but then again Kelanitissa is not so far off as the crow (or the kite) flies.

Huge monster back hoe loader? Is that background a huge rock cliff? nah it’s a toy. Well you can use it for earth moving but not 30 tons at a time as the label shows. More like 30 grams at a time. The background is latterite bricks.in my study.

I would have a magnificient view, if my neighbour’s Calicut clay tiled roof didn’t get in the way….

Momma Bird with her babies.

Spotted Dove Hatchlings no more than a day or a two old. Catching sight of them turned out to be very difficult. The wooden rafter blocks them from view. And when mama bird is also in the nest they are completely obstructed. In fact I didn’t know the eggs had hatched until at least a day after the event.

The nest is a clumsy affair but the location has been chosen wisely. There are two shikras in the neighbourhood and hatchlings like this would be easy prey for them when the mother bird is away. But because this nest is almost inside the house the Shikras are likely to keep away. The same cannot be said about cats though. Yet this rafter is two high for our lazy cats to reach.