Author: Beej

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 was formerly the founder-editor of Yahoo India's travel site.
Beej, Cartoons, Conservation, Tiger2 Comments
Tourists and tigers need to tell each other apart

Wanted – Tiger-friendly ID cards for tourists!

Beej

The wildlife resort business in India, modeled on African game safaris, has taken off in the last decade, and tiger reserves have been under the most pressure to entertain their guests. And it has been the beholden duty of these businesses to stuff into eco-sensitive zones vanfuls of tourists who pay stiff fees to enjoy intimate encounters with the big cats and who, sadly, almost always miss the forest for the trees, and the other joys that the forest inevitably offers. What makes this any more than trophy hunting, albeit in a modern sense? Continue reading Wanted – Tiger-friendly ID cards for tourists!

Beej, Birds, Encounter, Featured1 Comment

Encounter: God, Darwin, Ali and the Blue-capped Rock Thrush

Beej

In the foggy ruins of time, most memories can get blurred, or muddied entirely. But not a birder’s remembrance of a cherished bird. Every time I see the Blue-capped Rock Thrush, I am reminded of myself at twelve, a scruffy, itchy pilgrim gazing in rapture at a sprite, a vision, a gift of the forest. It’s a story that involves God, Darwin and Salim Ali — all playing significant bit-parts. Continue reading Encounter: God, Darwin, Ali and the Blue-capped Rock Thrush

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Balcony Bugwatch – Love song of the Carpenter Bee

Beej

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov might have feted the Bumblebee in music but it is the domestic life of the Carpenter Bee that inspires a fitting paean. How about one by the Carpenters? My wife and I had seen the Carpenter Bee buzz past us as we stole a furtive smoke on the balcony, but we never imagined that it lived there. Until, with a menacing hum of blurry wings, the walnut-sized insect drove our little daughter back into the house in a frenzy of sheer terror. Of our two balconies, the one adjoining the bedroom is narrower and shaded most of the … Continue reading Balcony Bugwatch – Love song of the Carpenter Bee

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No porking please, we’re boared

Beej

Thoughtlessly constructed and idiotically placed dustbins in a tiger reserve can turn a well-intended sanitation initiative into a howling travesty. How do you keep wild boar from scattering the trash you’ve conscientiously thrown away? It was a beautiful afternoon in Bandipur. The sun was tucked into the skirt-folds of dark, purple-rimmed clouds and so many busloads of busy tourists had made sure to fill up the dustbins (and places within 500 metres of them) with all kinds of interesting garbage. There were fruit peels, corn cobs, half-eaten takeaways, packets of crisps with neglectfully wasted leftovers, et cetera. To perform a … Continue reading No porking please, we’re boared

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Would they kill the keelback?

Beej

Did that curious crowd know, or care, that the snake we were trying to see off to safety was a harmless albeit aggressive Checkered Keelback? Here’s how to tell a Checkered Keelback from its venomous relatives: Round eyes, checkered scale pattern, keeled scales and the oblique stripes behind and beneath the eye I didn’t really plan to make a habit of writing about snakes and the human folly of mistaken identity, but it appears that the subject seeks me out. Remember the young cobra I had written about some time ago? And the harmless rat snake that could easily have … Continue reading Would they kill the keelback?

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The Green Ogre Weekend Update August 7

Beej

It’s been a high traffic week at The Green Ogre. This week we gave away our first freebie — a wallpaper download that doubles as an August calendar. Got it yet?  Snakes have always got the wrong end of the stick. So it was with trepidation (for the snake, of course) that I watched the movements of one in my yard. First, it attempted to climb a coconut tree and then hid amid a pile of pipes just a few feet away from the toiling gardener.  Was it a cobra or a rat snake? Who would have cared before killing … Continue reading The Green Ogre Weekend Update August 7

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Book Review: The Goan Jungle Book

Beej

Hidden Pleasures THE GOAN JUNGLE BOOK BY NIRMAL KULKARNI HERPACTIVE PUBLICATIONS INR 300 This book could have used the services of an editor and inept printing has muddied many photographs. That said, it warmed my heart to read it. These illustrated essays on Goa’s wildlife, though by no means styled after Peter Matthiessen or even Madhaviah Krishnan, are the spoils of a gallant indie effort. At the very least, the book might inspire tourists to more than ogle and tank up. Despite hundreds of square kilometres of seashore, rainforest and undulating coastal plain, Goa has received scant attention for its … Continue reading Book Review: The Goan Jungle Book

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Would you trust a snake on a tree?

Beej

The snake tried every trick to climb the coconut tree. Failing, it slithered down and risked death. How could I stop it from being killed, I wondered. But the snake had plans of its own… Remember how Kaa of Walt Disney’s Jungle Book hissed seductively from a tree: “Trusssst in meee, jussst in meee”? And remember how some time ago I wrote of a little cobra that I had seen to safety, away from the pipsqueak securitas that wanted to bludgeon it?  Ethnocide, I say. That’s what it is — to kill a snake for what it is. That tender … Continue reading Would you trust a snake on a tree?

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The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 31

Beej

Alaska, Gaia and birds whose presence is dwarfed by their voices — that’s what The Green Ogre was all about this week  It’s the last day of July with the monsoon still in full force over the subcontinent. In the rainforests of Agumbe, the frogs must still be calling, their trails of spawn must have hatched into little tailed tadpoles, and the snakes must be making merry at the abundance of chow. Over in Bangalore, pelicans have joined cormorants and herons in our lakes, feasting on the seasonal glut of fish. And here at The Green Ogre, we’ve been housebound, … Continue reading The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 31

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The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 24

Beej

Last week the birds returned to The Green Ogre, though we have been feasting on frogs and snakes after our Agumbe conclave and continued to lick our fingers into the week that was The Golden Frog The Golden Frog (right) poses for an ardent admirer Frogs have inspired fable, poetry and myth. And Sahastra, too. Back at Agumbe, he spent long meditative moments in the august (wasn’t it June?) presence of the Golden Frog. And he came back with a lovely photo-essay on the species. Inspired by Matsuo Bashuo’s immortal frog haiku, he wrote: “They were trusting, accessible and — … Continue reading The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 24