Crab Grab

I went to Puri (Odisha, India) after almost 15 years. I guess I can ignore an one hour visit to the city around 8 years back. As always Puri beach has its own charm. One can spend a whole day or rather days sitting on the beach and just keep looking at the waves. I did the same. Everyday, I'd find a non crowded spot along the beach and sit there for hours. Sometimes seeing the waves, sometimes clicking them. One day I realized that something moved on the sand just a couple of feet away from my legs. I kept looking until I found that it was a crab and then I found several crab holes around me and actually several crabs were peeping from their doors. In the following days I found out that crabs are overwhelmingly present throughout the entire beach of Puri. But they don't emerge at crowded places during the day unless They are hungry and unless they see food.

On my last day at he beach, I suddenly found an inch long bug which overturned while landing, struggling to get straight. The camera was on and the exposure was set since I was already clicking crabs a few minutes ago. I aimed the camera and WHOA!!! A fierce crab emerged from its hole just a few inches away from it. CLICK..went my first grab of the event that was quite presumable.

Within a second there was another hunter very close.

However, It may be a common understanding among the crab community that one of them left the scene a moment later. The other one didn't loose a moment and grabbed the live bug with a swift move.

But who gives up a life without a struggle. It was an amazing thing to see how the bug snapped out of the crab's claws. And really the crab waited for the next few seconds, stunned, before it jumped again.

Unfortunately, the bug still remained overturned and could not fly away. The hunter took its time to plan the next attack.

The next part was swift enough. The crab attacked again.

The Bug still tried its best to fight for its life.

But the claws of the crab were big and mighty enough to capture its prey. and then I realized that every movement of the crab was directed towards it's kitchen.

It took the crab less than a couple of seconds to capture the bug and enter the hole.

Now, don't ask me how crabs cook bug.
Thanks to the continuous shutter mode and abundant light that I could capture the whole thing in my camera.
All the photos were taken with Canon EOS 500D using a 75-300 telephoto zoom lens.
Exposure settings: 100 ISO, f/5.6, 1/500sec at 300mm focal length.

She sells Sea shells on the Sea shore

Sorry, I got no mermaids or fisherman's daughter on this post. Neither am I putting in too many beautiful photographs. But these are some interesting(to me) photographs I took last weekend in Mandarmoni, West Bengal. This beach is new enough to tourists. Hence, finding sea shells is a rather natural thing unlike other popular beaches.



I was walking on the beach when suddenly this 'dead yet dazzling' washed up near my feet. The shells were not detached yet as is normally found. Who could say, this one might have carried a tiny pearl inside it.



Met another dead one, the above one. It seemed to have been alive not much before I met it. I don't know their scientific names but I can bet they are 'piece of art'.



But this guy was too alive to let me picture it and it was moving fast on wet sand. And it vanished as soon as it touched water. What amazed me is, the little divine looking guy was acting as a parasite on this clumsy beast.



I think this above one was also some kind of parasitic act. The leaf like thing must be part of some creature as I found many like it being washed ashore. Well, the shell must have had a good surfing experience riding on it.



The thing shown above looked interesting. I found another same thing but that didn't have any such shells on it. The surface was smooth. At first, I thought it might be some kind of egg but later realized that it was nothing but a lump of clay which took this shape due to continuous rolling on the flatbed surface of the beach.



For the first time in my life I saw a starfish out of the TV or zoology lab. Don't ask me if it was alive or dead. I did not feel the urge to poke a dead or may be nearly dead person on my first meeting. And of course it was the most beautiful thing I saw in Mandarmoni.

I know that you are really pissed off seeing clumsy things which I think are beautiful. And I should not deprive you of nice pictures. I hope you'd like the next two photographs. Well, although not a 'she child', but a 'he child' was selling those sea shells on the sea shore.







I thought of bringing a few to my home so that I could take a few more pictures. But somehow, we missed the opportunity. Next time, I promise to be more careful in picturing them.