Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
On Father’s Day, we raise a toast to the best animal dads, but our top contender isn’t a bird! It might be just another Hallmark card red-letter day, but Father’s Day means a lot to us Ogres. And not just because we hold our own dads in great esteem. While…
Though dirt-common, the Brahminy Kite is both gorgeous and majestic if you care to give it a second glance An adult Brahminy Kite surveys the landscape beneath overcast skies To quote my good friend Nikhil: “The only mistake the Brahminy Kite ever committed that made him a non-celebrity among birders…
It had given me the slip in Kutch, but in Oman I caught up with the Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin.
Photo: Beej The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Atul Jain and friends track down the Spot-breasted Parrotbill, the Mountain Bamboo Partridge and other incredible birds at Fakkim Wildlife Sanctuary Mountain Bamboo Partridge The plan to visit Pungro and Fakkim WLS, Nagaland was hatched on “Emerald Blue”, the sailing boat which had taken us to Narcondam Island. The usual…
The younger women are lithe and beautiful with tattoo markings and jewellery and a piece of cloth wound around the waist and then carelessly thrown over the shoulders. I am amazed at such natural beauty worn so easily. They sit in the warm sunlight, looking at us take pictures, talking to their babies, bathing their little ones, pounding rice, just carrying on despite our nosiness, our inelegant clothes and ungainliness with our shiny cameras. The group embodies an intelligence that seems to be fundamentally social.
If all goes well, The Green Ogre will hold its first-ever Monsoon Conclave at the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station from Saturday through Monday. Conclave is actually a dignified and rather hyperbolic term that describes the rare opportunity when all four (and now five) of us get together. Weather and luck…
Ever wondered why some birds never fly? And we are talking of little birds, not ostriches and emus… Flit: v. To move lightly and swiftly. I have always been amazed as to how some birds never seem to fly — they always flit. Whenever I have come across a flock…
With the menacing looks and businesslike patience of an assassin, the Robber Fly captures its prey on the wing
Photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Meeting the Bar-headed Goose, arguably the world’s highest flier, in its breeding grounds at 15,000 feet is a rare and humbling privilege
A day of tired wandering in a forest ends with an intimate rendezvous with a stunning damselfly – the Stream Glory. It’s often the little things in life that give you the biggest highs
Eucalyptus, exotic and introduced, has had a complex relationship with the Indian forest landscape, impacting biodiversity and the water table.
May is just behind us, but the familiar trees that lend their signature flush to this month are still in riotous flower One reason I look forward to May, despite the sweltering heat it brings, is the blooming of Gulmohar (Delonix regia), often called ‘Mayflower’ locally. The tree is also…
Is that a drongo? Or a cuckoo? Or a bit of both? Meet the Fork-tailed Drongo-cuckoo
