The Story
The shot
Sanjay Van is a reserved forest on the Aravalli ridge in south New Delhi, a shaded patch of woodland where the city’s noise drops away within a few steps of the trail. I was working the understory at about 8:40 on an October morning when I found this House Crow (Corvus splendens) perched on a bare branch about 17 metres from me. Crows are so common in Delhi that they’re easy to overlook, but in the soft light under the canopy, with no harsh sun on it, this one was worth stopping for.
I shot it on my Canon EOS R5 with the RF 800mm f/11 and the RF 1.4x extender, which gives 1120mm at f/16. The forest floor was still dim, so I used a 1/60 second shutter at ISO 3200 and dialed exposure back 1.5 stops to hold the detail in the grey collar. At that distance, the long reach let the background melt into soft green.
©2026 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The House Crow (Corvus splendens) belongs to the family Corvidae (Crows, Jays, and Magpies) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2018), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List
