The Story behind the Rusty spotting

As wildlife photographers we sometimes desperately want to see and photograph some subjects or moments in the wild. But then these moments can be missed being captured due to various factors like luck or one’s own stupidity. Every click every sighting has some exciting stories behind it.

I am going to narrate one such instance that happened with me. I nearly missed a chance of a lifetime not because I was unlucky but because I did not follow the basic rules as a photographer.

I wanted to see and photograph the Rusty spotted cat which is the smallest wild cat found in Asia. This cat is highly elusive as it is very nocturnal and has been photographed by very few people.

After a lot of research and analysis we narrowed down the place to photograph these cats as Udaipur where it was more frequently sighted. We planned a trip and also included Bera (in hindsight a very wise decision) to photograph the Leopards as it was close to Udaipur

After 4 nights of searching in Udaipur we returned with only a brief sighting of the cat. We arrived in Bera and tried to put the disappointment of not seeing the Rusty behind us by praying that we see small Leopard cubs .

On the second safari we were lucky to see the cubs.

The Leopard and her two cubs at Bera

On the 8th of Nov 2022 there was a complete Lunar eclipse happening and we wanted to photograph it and our guide told us that he would take us to a spot from where we would get a clear and unhindered view of the moon.As we were photographing the eclipse I decided to experiment and thought would take multiple exposure shots of the moon at various stages of the eclipse. I put my camera in the multiple shot mode with 3 shots as a series. We were experimenting till the eclipse got over and then started back to the hotel.

The Moon on Lunar eclipse

The Multiple exposure image of the eclipse

On the way back suddenly my friend shouted Rusty !!!!! and we saw a cat just a few feet away from our jeep. We soon realized it was a mother and she had 2 small kittens with her. We thanked God for showing us the cat where we least expected it , our luck for having included Bera and my friend for spotting it and started clicking . After a few minutes the cat went behind some thick bushes and that is when I decided to check my photos and to my horror all of them were blurred. On closer examination I found that  three images were merged in one frame. That is when I realized I had committed the basic blunder of not resetting the camera to the original mode after experimenting.

Three images merged together

At that moment I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me as I did not want to admit to the people around that I had just committed an amateurish blunder. Then again knew that the cats were behind the bushes so after resetting my camera started praying for their reappearance.

I would never have prayed harder in my whole life not even on the eve of my Hindi exams and lo and behold it worked and the cats made an appearance again to give us another opportunity to photograph them. Probably it was my day as the Almighty had his hearing tuned to my frequency.

The big lesson relearnt on that day is always reset camera to the normal mode after experimenting. No matter how experienced a photographer one is he is bound to commit such amateurish mistakes once in a while.