Random lunacy, pictured
Say cheese! Brightly! The moon was a ghostly galleon… …tossed upon cloudy seas The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Author: Bijoy Venugopal
Founder-editor of The Green Ogre, Beej began this blog as a solo writing project in 2006. A communications professional, he has worked as a corporate storyteller, journalist, travel writer, cartoonist and photo-blogger. He is an active birder and citizen science enthusiast.
When the elephant played peekaboo
I feared the elephant’s shrewd little eyes were fixed on the diminutive human shuffling against my thigh. I don’t think we got the joke then, but when we viewed the pictures up close on our return to Bangalore, the punchline that tickled my daughter was ours to behold. On a…
Encounter: Blue Whistling Thrush
Relatively dowdy, screechy and less musical than its cousin, the Malabar Whistling Thrush of the Western Ghats, the Blue Whistling Thrush is nonetheless a character. To reach any destination in the Himalaya — from anywhere that you may venture to do so — you must first impatiently transect the purgatory…
Moth Smoke II – id help please!
The early monsoon has brought on a spate of moth-finding. Here are three beauties that I shot around the house. Id help will be greatly appreciated. 1 – Medium. Shot on exterior wall 2 – Small, shot on shelf beading 3 – Small, found resting against a car window All…
Snake in the grass and the hiss of life
In childhood, I have watched snakes clubbed to death by people I loved. Possessed by ignorance and fear, perhaps they killed without thinking, because harmless snakes had been at the receiving end of their wrath. I had no say then but I knew it was awfully wrong. Today, by saving…
A BR Hills weekend in pictures
Driving in the beautiful Biligirirangans can be equally exhausting and enchanting! Drove with the family for the first time to my favourite forest in Karnataka last weekend. Wandered desperately for 40 km between Yelandur and Chamarajnagar looking for a fuel station because we forgot to top up at Mysore. We had…
Tehelka’s Summer Special – my travelogue on Meghamalai
It rains nine months of the year in Meghamalai The May 29, 2010 issue of Tehelka was an unusual one. The magazine took a break — a holiday, if you will — from its hard-nosed coverage of grimmer happenings. The enjoyable Summer Special compiled travel articles by well known writers (such as…
Encounter: White-capped Water Redstart
I woke up at half past five to a clear dawn sky. There was a cold edge to the happy laughter of the brook. Ambling down on creaky knees to wash, I heard an excited chirruping and saw two lovely white-capped water redstarts (Chaimarrornis leucocephalus) chasing each other up and down the length of the brook.
Water Wars – The battle of the bottle
Bellandur, the Bangalore suburb where I live, does not have piped water supply. It is an ecosystem of swank software parks, malls and hypermarkets densely clustered with high-rise apartments milling around what were traditionally villages but now degraded partially to slums and shanties. There is a huge multilevel Maruti automotive…
Digging up the dirt – Guerrilla gardening
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylDrlL2gxTI] In Los Angeles, “guerrilla gardeners” take over bald patches of public land at night and turn them into gardens of cacti and succulents. As this inspiring video shows, the gardeners are fiercely independent and know each other only by nickname. This is a very inspiring video, and the concept…
Sankey by twilight
It’s as urban a lake as you can get in Bangalore but Sankey Tank in the precincts of Malleshwaram is crawling with evening walkers even at twilight. Above the shouts of children at play, other signs of life stir. A flock of domestic ducks paddles a few laps while a…
After the storm
After a spell of searing heat, April thunderstorms have been cooling the city every evening. After a storm, the sky burns distantly with the remnant embers of the day. That reminds me of two of Eliot’s verses: April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land,…
God’s own garbage
I was brought up to be religious. When I could think for myself, I changed my view. But temples located amid forests still held a fascination for me – it was the journey, rather than the destination, that appealed to me most. It’s been a long time since I have…
The Andamans and Borneo – two beating hearts of darkness
…the morning I swam with him, the Indian Ocean was like a warm bath, just the way Rajan — and I — like it. I first treaded water a few feet away, watching him step like a delicate matron into the sea. He raised his trunk to breathe as if…
Eyes in the field – The Audubon Guide to birding binoculars
The Audubon Magazine makes for fine reading. And recently, I came across this excellent guide to buying a pair of birding binoculars. Since I know that many readers of The Green Ogre are newbie birders, I thought this was worth sharing. This excerpt is sure to hook you: Many beginners…