A walk on the wild side

Wild angle Animal watching is second nature for lensman Aditya Singh. Neyaz Farooquee writes.

His love for nature drew him to the Ranthambhore National Park. An avid nature photographer, wildlife blogger and lodge owner ,Aditya 'Dicky' Singh is one of the leading tiger specialists in the country. A former civil servant, he has been shooting for nearly a decade and has been to India's major wildlife refuges, building up an impressive library of over 10,000 tiger images.

HT Image

Over the last one and a half decades, Aditya has worked with some of the biggest names in wildlife photography such as Andy Rouse and Theo Allofs.

After quitting bureaucracy, Aditya moved to Ranthambhore to pursue his interest in wildlife protection.

A spotted Owlet in flight at Ranthambhore. Photographer Aditya Singh, who has been clicking wildlife for more than a decade, says the agile birds are difficult to catch.

Shooting in Ranthambhore is not an easy task, he says. Take the case of the Spotted owl, pictured here on top. "The light was harsh, the space less and above all, the birds are very agile. Clicking them can be the result of your persistence and good fortune."

During the rainy season, shooting in Ranthambhore becomes even more troublesome. "That's when I visit other countries which offers better conditions for shooting," he says. On one of his forays outside India, Singh captured tigers mating in Sri Lanka.

A regular contributor to travel and wildlife magazines, he has been a part of Kids for Tigers, one of the world's largest awareness programmes for schoolchildren that helps develop them into naturalists and tiger ambassadors since 2003. He also helped track and capture man-eating leopards in Chittor district in 2005.

Tigers mate at Rajasthan's Ranthambhore National Park in June 2010.

Leopards fighting playfully at Yala National Park, Sri Lanka, May 2009.

Flamingoes nesting in Kenya’s Lake Nakurum. This photo was clicked in August 2010.

The resplendent beauty of Anna's Hummingbird, captured in Southern California, circa August 2009.