We are the Wingmates!
We, Pratyay and Sreemala, are a couple originally from India, currently residing in Oklahoma, USA, who love to watch and take pictures of bird and wildlife. Before moving to Oklahoma, we spent 3 years in Denver, where we started birding and photography more seriously. As time went by, we became more fascinated with nature and its beauty. Even a boring day can be an enticing one if you are outdoors. Our interests have taken over every aspect of nature, from birds to wild animals, from flowers to insects, from lakes to oceans and God knows what else. We find so much joy and happiness being outside and everyday feels like an outdoor class!
Along our journey we have made some wonderful friends and met some awesome people. We have learnt so much, which, of course, is just a miniscule amount of all that we can possibly learn! We would love to share our adventures through our lenses with you all. We hope you will join us in our adventure and appreciate nature as much as we do. A picture can tell you a thousand words and we hope our story reaches you with warmth and hope.
We try to learn more about our natural world and conservation biology, which is increasingly becoming more important than ever. We would have loved to call ourselves conservation photographers, but we have to be honest that we spend time out there mostly out of selfish reasons, due to the pure joy that we feel, and not with some goal to create awareness among my viewers. Saying that, we sincerely hope that all of you who love our images will try to learn more about nature and do a little bit towards keeping our natural world from getting destroyed by humankind.
2023 update
We had a very important life event in 2023… We became parents of a beautiful little human… Sreeja, as we call her, was born in May, 2023, and our lives changed immediately. She became part of the Wingmates by default, of course with the choice of seceding when she grows up. But it seems like she it enjoying the outings with us so far. She is curious about everything, which includes the natural world. Here’s the story behind the picture above…
Earlier this spring, we participated in the Birdlam by Payne County Audubon Society and for the second year running, won the award for the maximum number of species seen by a group. We didn’t cover as much ground as we were expecting Sreeja in a few weeks, but still ended up with more than a 100 species for the day. Ironically, despite finding so many species, we didn’t find a single Gray Catbird, which was the target bird for this year’s Birdlam. Fast forward a couple days after the contest, and I saw this silhouette of a shouting bird in our backyard. A Catbird! It was trying to compete with the Mockingbirds and Brown Thrashers for the top prize in the maximum call variation category. More Catbirds soon arrived in our backyard.
The Birdlam shirts were lovely! So, like every year, a Birdlam shirt selfie was due. Since all three of us took part in a way, there was no reason to exclude the little one from the photo. No shirt for her this time, but we found a make shift way to wear the Birdlam logo. Of course, she didn’t look at the camera when the timer went off! Was perhaps busy searching for a Gray Catbird up in the trees?
Pratyaydipta Rudra
I am a statistician by profession, but wildlife photography is my passion. I had always loved spending time in nature, but it really became a passion about ten years ago when I got a small digital camera as a gift and started observing the birds and wildlife more closely. Since then nature has always been healing for me, even at the toughest of the times. I would like to think that I have come a long way in terms of my photographic skills, but I never feel like I can do justice to the abundant beauty around us. Besides actually pressing the shutter, I tend to spend a lot of time trying to understand light and compositions… striving to create something different and artistic.
Sreemala Das Majumder
I am currently pursuing a Doctorate degree in Environmental Science at Oklahoma State University. When I am not working in the lab, I enjoy being outside, photographing and learning about birds. Unlike Pratyay, I hate editing my photos, which has led to thousands of unedited photos on my hard disk! I hope this blog will help me getting motivated to share more of the photos that I have captured!
Sreeja Rudra
I am the newest member of the team! I have enjoyed going to the lake with mom and dad so far. The birds are kinda nice. I can't identify them yet, but they often have a sweet voice, just like me! I played with dad's camera during a photo session. I figured that it works OK even though it's an old model. I might be able to give it a try!
