Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
All posts authored by Beej
You must be familiar with that old joke: How many morons does it take to change a lightbulb? The answer shall be illumined presently to the patient reader of this post. But first, the story of a sting operation. Apart from a long line of little black ants bearing whitish larvae…
Tawny Coster (Acraea terpsicore) Photo: Beej The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Common Bush-Brown butterfly (Mycalesis perseus) in wet-season form flirting with the shadow of a Tulsi plant (Ocimum sanctum) on my balcony on a sunny afternoon, and eventually perching on it. Enough said. Well, that was almost wordless. Photos: Beej The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from…
The Hill Swallow – note the rufous throat and face ‘One swallow does not make a summer’ is part of a quote attributed to Aristotle. In truth it represents a very Eurocentric position on swallows, in this case the Barn Swallow that migrates south to India in winter. On my…
Half-mouse and half-hare is the Royle’s Pika. One of the most adorable mammals in the Himalaya
I was drawn to the massif gleaming in the horizon as it towered over the lesser ranges in the foreground Chaukhamba (right) from Bedni Bugyal. The peak next to it is Shivling (near Gangotri). Photo: Sahastrarashmi (2002) In September 2009, Sahastra and I took a train from Delhi to Haridwar…
Friends call me Beej. I started the Green Ogre in 2006 for the pleasure of writing about nature. Four years down, I felt its scope should extend to featuring talents more diverse than mine. On my 36th birthday in June, I extended an offer to three close friends and fellow-travellers…
I feared the elephant’s shrewd little eyes were fixed on the diminutive human shuffling against my thigh. I don’t think we got the joke then, but when we viewed the pictures up close on our return to Bangalore, the punchline that tickled my daughter was ours to behold. On a…
In childhood, I have watched snakes clubbed to death by people I loved. Possessed by ignorance and fear, perhaps they killed without thinking, because harmless snakes had been at the receiving end of their wrath. I had no say then but I knew it was awfully wrong. Today, by saving…
Driving in the beautiful Biligirirangans can be equally exhausting and enchanting! Drove with the family for the first time to my favourite forest in Karnataka last weekend. Wandered desperately for 40 km between Yelandur and Chamarajnagar looking for a fuel station because we forgot to top up at Mysore. We had…
I woke up at half past five to a clear dawn sky. There was a cold edge to the happy laughter of the brook. Ambling down on creaky knees to wash, I heard an excited chirruping and saw two lovely white-capped water redstarts (Chaimarrornis leucocephalus) chasing each other up and down the length of the brook.
Our destination is Tungnath, the third Kedar, and my purpose is religious only in a pagan sense. To walk the wild Himalayas, breathe their bounteous air, encounter their wildlife, their trees and wildflowers, rivers and springs, and to be at the mercy of their elements is pilgrimage enough for us.
Like thousands of coins jingling in hundreds of fists, the chirruping of sparrows heralds dusk. Trees quiver as roosting flocks fuss like train passengers arguing over berths. The din dies down with the fading light and all is quiet again. Until the morning, when breakfast squabbles are made public and…
Even a peacock must bow to this unchallenged monarch of mountain fowls, the majestic Himalayan Monal
The Chinkara or Indian Gazelle (Gazella bennettii), more of a newsmaker for its association with a trigger-happy Salman Khan, is a sight to behold in the arid wilderness of Rajasthan and Kutch
