Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
Even as male weaverbirds build their love nests, tenants are waiting in the wings for real estate prices to crash Imagine that the lady you are wooing would accept your proposal only if she is impressed with the houses you have built for her. Such is the tale of the…
Why are male Eurasian Marsh Harriers so hard to come by in winter? A juvenile, banking in flight With early winter the wetlands of India become the haunt of a chocolate-brown raptor, some individuals showing an odd facial coloration as if affected by leucoderma. This, to the uninitiated, is the…
A few things to remember before you are battered to death by a wild elephant There are two opinions on elephants with respect to their behaviour. Some say they are foul-tempered creatures while others contend that they are the gentlest of animals that resort to violence only when left with…
At first they looked like coconuts bobbing in the water. The next second we were gaping with wide-eyed delight at a family of Smooth-coated Otters! Champion Swimmer’s Rule #1: Keep your nose above the water My first brush with the Smooth-coated Otter (Lutrogale perspicillata) was back in 2008 when I…
A fig tree in fruit is a forest in itself: every creature in the vicinity is attracted to the sprawling canopy to eat the ripe red fruits, or the fruit-eaters. Sadly, these lovely fig trees are disappearing with our appetite for wider roads
Formerly thought to be a resident of the Himalayan foothills, the Lesser Fish-Eagle has pleasantly surprised us by nesting along rivers in southern India Formerly thought to occur only in the Himalayan foothills, the Lesser Fish-Eagle has now been confirmed as a resident breeder along the Cauvery River in Karnataka…
Ogres Sandy and Arun recollect their encounters with the common but lovable Pied Kingfisher Black, white and eats fish Sandy: The first time I saw the Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis) was in Thekkady, Kerala, in my fledgeling days of bird-watching. As a kid I had read that kingfishers were of many…
Two Ogres compare notes about their respective sightings of a fast-flying falcon. Was that a Peregrine or a Shaheen? Sandy: I saw it fly at a height where it looked like a fast-moving orange-and-black speck in the sky. The wing-flapping wasn’t anywhere near furious, but every flap propelled it further ahead…
If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers. There is no doubt in my mind that feral…
I have a faint memory of my grandmother telling me about a small bird that swooped down from the trees and picked up the young chickens that she reared on her little farm. She called it “eramullan” in Malayalam. I had always wondered what it might have been but I…
The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
The Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) visits the subcontinent in winter. It is also resident in the Himalayas and to a lesser extent in the Western Ghats
It was a typical Friday morning at work. I was getting a status update from my team when my friend Deepu called. Another friend Prajual had informed him that he had found a fallen raptor on the pavement leading up to our building. He had lifted it and placed it…
The name has a definite ring, doesn’t it? So much that a friend, a newbie birder who had just come down to bird with me Mysore, went back and told his friends that he had a good sighting of a ‘Tommy Eagle’. The Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax) was the first…
