A bad day of birding need not be a bad day with nature, not when you have a lush green paddy field to adore
Another routine morning trip to see if I could catch some birds on the wing took me to a remote corner of Mandya, along a paddy field. Skies were clear from the rain that had cleansed everything the night before, and a September sun jovially smiled upon us. But birding luck didn’t. All we got to see were a few egrets and black headed ibis, and a few weavers.
Sneaking up on them, I lost my footing and fell amidst the paddy. As I hauled up my overweight frame from the (thankfully dry) paddy field floor, something tiny caught my eye. This orange insect clung to a paddy leaf, the tip of which held a glowing crown — a tiny drop of water. It held onto the leaf, as if guarding the drop from being stolen, its eyes fixed on it.
Intrigued, I looked around for more and was rewarded by scores of other insects. No two were alike. A tiny white moth sat on another blade, wings spread as if in penance.
Another orange moth sat on a straight blade, looking down, possibly pondering over life’s intricacies.
As if to test its resolve, Providence let a gust of wind blow another blade across, giving an illusion to the moth that it is on the crossroads of life. Yet, it preferred to stick to its blade.
More careful inspection showed many other life forms. A pied paddy skimmer dragonfly, a robberfly, a ground skimmer dragonfly, and some other teeny rock stars I couldn’t identify. As I spent time observing and clicking them, this tiny ladybug materialized in a sea of green.
My day was made. Birds or no birds.
Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan
Sandeep Somasekharan (or Sandy as friends call him) took his headlong plunge into photography with a three-megapixel Nikon point-and-shoot he purchased in 2003. The avid reader and occasional scribbler started enjoying travel and nature more as he spent more time photographing. Meeting Beej in 2008 helped him channel his creative energies in the form of essays and nature photographs that he started publishing on The Green Ogre.
Sandy loves to photograph birds and landscapes, and considers photography and writing as his meditation. Now based out of the US, Sandy juggles his time between parental duties, a full time engineering role, writing short fiction in Malayalam, and an occasional birding trip thrown in between. His debut novel in Malayalam hits the bookstalls in January 2025.
Sandy can be found at instagram as @footprintsonlight
Sandy loves to photograph birds and landscapes, and considers photography and writing as his meditation. Now based out of the US, Sandy juggles his time between parental duties, a full time engineering role, writing short fiction in Malayalam, and an occasional birding trip thrown in between. His debut novel in Malayalam hits the bookstalls in January 2025.
Sandy can be found at instagram as @footprintsonlight
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