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Photographs

Every photograph on this site is mine, taken on the ground we walk

Not licensed, not stock, not borrowed from a better photographer. Left imperfect where the light was. Here is how you can check that yourself.

How to tell these are mine

You should not have to take my word for it, and there is no certificate for this sort of thing. What there is, is evidence you can check in about two minutes.

01
The originals still carry their EXIF

Camera body, lens, shutter, ISO, date and time are written into every file. Ask for any frame at full size and read it yourself. Stock libraries strip that data, and a lifted image will show someone else\u2019s camera or nothing at all.

02
One camera, one set of hills

The whole collection comes off the same body and lens, frame numbers running in sequence, every location within a few kilometres of Majkhali. A set assembled from other people\u2019s work never looks like that.

03
A public trail that predates this site

Most of these went up on Instagram as they were taken, dated. Reverse image search any of them — they should lead back to me and nowhere else.

04
The ordinary frames are here too

A bought portfolio is all hero shots. Mine keeps the flat light, the distant birds and the half-obscured ones, because that is what these forests actually give you.

The collection

All of it within a few kilometres of Majkhali, Ranikhet and Binsar.
Male Cheer Pheasant on a grass slope
Cheer Pheasant
Catreus wallichii · Vulnerable

The bird people travel for, and the one I am least willing to promise. This male stood in the open perhaps thirty seconds before walking back into the scrub.

Male Koklass Pheasant in grass
Koklass Pheasant
Pucrasia macrolopha

Usually only a voice at dawn. Getting one in the open, in light, is a matter of being in place before it is bright enough to see.

Asian Barred Owlet on a dead pine snag
Asian Barred Owlet
Glaucidium cuculoides

Calling from a dead pine in the fog. It answered a whistled imitation three times before losing interest.

Trishul in last light
Trishul in last light
From the Binsar ridge

Two minutes of colour on the summit, then the whole face went flat. Worth standing outside for on any clear evening.

Himalayan Black-lored Tit on a thin branch
Himalayan Black-lored Tit
Machlolophus xanthogenys

Crest up, working seed heads at the edge of the orchards. A bird you will see on any morning here, and none the worse for it.

Brown-fronted Woodpecker on a pine trunk
Brown-fronted Woodpecker
Dendrocopos auriceps

On the lichened pines beside the track. Usually the first woodpecker of any morning out of Majkhali.

Rock Bunting on a bare branch
Rock Bunting
Emberiza cia

A small party feeding on the open ground above the orchards. This one sat up long enough to be worth the frame.

Mountain Bulbul perched on a bare branch
Mountain Bulbul
Ixos mcclellandii

A forest bulbul rather than a garden one — shaggy brown crest, olive above, and usually heard in the canopy of a broadleaf patch before it is seen. Moves through in noisy small parties.

Slaty-headed Parakeet in a tree
Slaty-headed Parakeet
Psittacula himalayana

A screeching flock coming through the orchards in the afternoon. They rarely settle for long, so this was more luck than craft.

Pine forest above Majkhali with light through the trees
The pine forest, mid-morning
Above Majkhali

Not every frame has a bird in it. This is the ground you actually spend the days on — open pine, easy walking, and light like this once the sun clears the ridge.

Mist filling the valley below the ridge
Mist in the valley
Looking down from the ridge

Cloud sitting in the valley with the ridges above it. A morning like this can mean nothing moves for an hour, and then everything does at once.

Sunset over the Kumaon ridges
Sunset over the Kumaon ridges
Looking west from Majkhali

The view from the cottage. Ridge behind ridge going blue, and the pines going black in front of them.

© Vivasvat Chauhan, Majkhali. Happy to send any frame at full resolution with its metadata intact, or to license one — just ask.
Viv's Nature Scope

Small-group guided birding around Ranikhet, in the Kumaon hills.

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