The Green Ogre Autumn Conclave – Dandeli, October 2011
From left to right: Arun Menon, Sahastrarashmi, Sandeep Somasekharan, Bijoy Venugopal, Jennifer Nandi, Anand Yegnaswami and Jagadeesh Seshadri
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.
Nominate a warrior for the Kumble Foundation – Jumbo Wildlife Awards
It takes more than eco-tourism or tokenism to save the tiger. Improving the lot of conservation’s foot-soldiers can be a good start. Forest officer Prabhu Swamy at one of the best-maintained anti-poaching camps in Bandipur, supported by the Jumbo Foundation. It is a permanent masonry structure equipped with solar panels…
Balcony Bugwatch – Love song of the Carpenter Bee
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…
No porking please, we’re boared
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,…
Would they kill the keelback?
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 Green Ogre Weekend Update August 7
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…
Book Review: The Goan Jungle Book
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…
Would you trust a snake on a tree?
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…
The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 31
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…
The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 24
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…
Encounter: Bombay Caecilian, an amphibian epiphany
Its serpentine structure and moist, clammy skin gives the caecilian the appearance of a frog masquerading as a snake. Chances are you’ve seen this intriguing amphibian before but never taken a second look at it!
All’s not well in the bat-cave
If we as a people so revere nature, why do we go to so much trouble to disfigure it? The view from Kavala Caves, Dandeli Is there a legit word ending in “phobia” for the fear of being ripped off? Whatever it is, it was on our minds when we…
The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 10
If you’ve missed anything this week, the weekend edition of The Green Ogre should sort you out… I’ve been away on a family vacation most of last week, soaking up the monsoon in south Goa. Rain-washed Goa is refreshing. The Western Ghats slope down in a verdant riot that skids to a…
Monsoon Mating Mania
Monsoon in top gear is a season for an unabashed green orgy, and we voyeuristic Green Ogres clicked away shamelessly. So much for the birds and bees…
The Green Ogre Weekly Update July 3
What you missed while you were slaving away at the office If your office blocks the beautiful Internet that lies outside of your work network, and if you’re not too savvy about the whole proxy thing, you’ve probably missed out on an entire week’s worth of The Green Ogre. Fret…