Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
A winters day In a deep and dark December – Simon & Garfunkel, I am a rock It’s been a long, long time since my teeth have chattered in Bangalore. While the reason for that may be partly due to my accumulated reserves of adipose (I always tell anybody who…
Via PETA: a heart-rending video of animals being skinned alive for their fur If you don’t have the stomach for it, here’s what the video is about: In China’s Hebei province, workers are skinning raccoon dogs alive. PETA claims that over half of the finished fur garments imported for sale…
Sálim Ali didn’t call it the Idle Schoolboy for nothing. If, uninitiated, you hear its song in a damp nook of the forest, you may be pardoned for suspecting the presence of spirits, or maybe goat-hoofed Pan playing his merry pipes. The call is eerily like human whistling, so much…
The fog clung to the ground in great murky blankets when I arrived at Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary on this Friday morning. At 6 AM, traffic on NH 8 via Mehrauli and Gurgaon had been thin, but my gruff but kindly Sikh cab driver held my gaze for an astonished moment…
Between November 21 and 25, I was in Rae Bareli, a place whose name most of us remember only during the elections (it happens to be the constituency of the Gandhi family). Rae Bareli and Unnao districts are in the heart of the Gangetic plain. The countryside is characterised by…
The rare Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis), also known as the Abyssinian wolf or Simien jackal, inhabits the Bale mountains of southern Ethiopia, about 10,000 feet above sea level. In 1990, a rabies epidemic reduced the largest population of these animals from 440 individuals to only 160 in under two weeks.…
All the trees have been marked to be cut. Every single one. Not just the gangly teak (Tectonia grandis), but even the ones that have no ‘value’ – the red-leaved Indian almond (Terminalia catappa), the green-barked, symmetrical silk cottons (Bombax), the fallow but foliaceous mango (Mangifera indica) and the stout…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhqK8JrGWRk] After Borneo, it’s now Indonesia’s turn to throw surprises at us. Scientific American reports the rediscovery of a rare primate, the Pygmy Tarsier (Tarsius pumilus). The nocturnal cousin of lorises and bushbabies, the pygmy tarsier is mostly insectivorous and can rotate its head like an owl. More here The…
The tiger and the sloth bear are two major predators of the Indian jungles. Between them, it’s clear who’s boss. Some people know that tigers hunt and eat bears. Others don’t. And then, there are people who can’t bear to think about either possibility. The acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Shekar Dattatri…
The Green Ogre is going away. Tonight, I take a train to Delhi. Then, it’s off to the breeding grounds of the Sarus Grane (Grus antigone) in the wetlands of Uttar Pradesh. I’ll be back in the first week of December. Watch this space. Read the back pages. Keep yourself…
The first-ever layman’s guide to the dragonflies and damselflies of peninsular India, published in 2005, is the result of a collaborative project of the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. The author, K A Subramanian, and the series editor Madhav Gadgil,…
It’s a riot of colour out there. A blue wash is spreading over America’s electoral map. A coloured man awaits entry to the White House. Democrats are closing in on the Senate and the House of Representatives. At the time of writing this, Barack Obama leads John McCain 338:155. Please…
It’s how I met her. She wasn’t yet my wife but I knew we were on our way to making that happen. We were at Bandipur one morning in January 2005. The trees around the forest office were throwing long shadows. The grass was soft with ungulate shit. My…
I stumbled upon (not via Stumbleupon but via BlogCatalog) a very attractive blog on birding and wildlife from Sri Lanka. Gallicissa, Amila Salgado’s blog, provides informed photographic insight into the wildlife, birds and insect life of his fascinating island nation. I’m making a travel plan for a birding trip. And…
Tea has been on my mind. Mostly because I have spent the last few weeks drinking it guiltily. Coffee, I am told, is better for our forests than tea. Two NCF researchers I met in Valparai confirm this. Tea cultivation essentially involves the clearing of large tracts of forest, leaving…