Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
All posts authored by 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.
The Blyth’s Reed Warbler makes a long winter journey from the temperate zones of Asia to the Indian subcontinent, and then returns when its northern breeding grounds warm up. This year, at least one of them isn’t going back, thanks to a glass-and-steel high-rise that stood in its way. Who…
From left to right: Arun Menon, Sahastrarashmi, Sandeep Somasekharan, Bijoy Venugopal, Jennifer Nandi, Anand Yegnaswami and Jagadeesh Seshadri
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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!
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…
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…
Why call it a chestnut-tailed whatever when no one notices the colour of the tail? Bar-throated Siva? Ah, that’s another story.
