Page 119 - BBC Wildlife - August 2017 UK

PHOTO
CHOICE

SECOND CHANCE
4Every year I visit Sundarbans National Park, India, to see its
diverse wildlife. During this year’s holiday in January I ventured
into the marshlands with a group of other wildlife enthusiasts.
We had just missed an opportunity to photograph a female pied
harrier while on a boat trip when this lesser adjutant emerged from
nowhere. We managed to get very close to the large, bald stork and
stayed in the same spot for a while. The tall vegetation surrounding
us allowed me to take this picture without disturbing the bird.
Arnab Raychoudhury, Kolkata, India

OUT OF THE BLUE
5My husband and I travelled to Borneo
last December to photograph wildlife. We saw
orangutans, pygmy elephants and colourful
oriental dwarf kingfishers. I was taking pictures
of water monitors and dragonflies at a pond,
when I spotted this red-sided keelback snake,
and began to follow it. I lost it for a split second,
and when I found it again, the reptile had caught
a frog and was beginning to swallow. I took this
shot of the unexpected encounter.
Zuzana Gabrielova, Prague, Czech Republic

IN THE FRAME
6In late April, I visited Thailand
to go scuba diving. I’m a dive
instructor and we had planned
a dive from Koh Bon island, near
Phuket. We saw a great variety
of marine life, including turtles
and sea snakes. It was magical
to watch manta rays but tricky to
get a decent picture without the
white belly of the cartilaginous
fish overexposing the shot. Their
size also makes composing the
photograph hard work but I got
there in the end.
Luiz Felipe Puntel,
Belo Horizonte, Brazil

August 2017 BBC Wildlife 119