Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
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…
Nothing can prepare you for the awe-inspiring spectacle of a Great Hornbill, flying wild and free in its ancient forests The swooshing sound of the Great Hornbills’ wingsweeps resonates in the silence of the forest The Great Hornbill (Buceros bicornis) is found in the Western Ghats and the Himalayan foothills…
Lifeless, numbered, fated to become furniture, the dismembered corpses of ancient forest trees are stacked neatly in the Dandeli Timber Depot. Peer closely at these images gleaned from that brooding graveyard — your mind’s eye might detect fate-lines gone awry, cracked smiles, suppurating wounds, faces contorted in silent pain, broken hearts, gnarled…
The Timber Depot in Dandeli presents a feast for both bird and birdwatcher, and then some rumination If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a…
Atul Jain, who has ticked 989 species of birds in the Indian subcontinent, ventured to the remote Andaman island of Narcondam and was rewarded with many prize sightings The Narcondam Hornbill is found nowhere else except on the remote Narcondam island The Andamans conjure a mystic image of a forgotten…
A timber yard in Dandeli, Karnataka offers some of the best views you can have of the threatened Malabar Pied Hornbill When you mention Dandeli, people respond in two ways. “Rafting!” exclaim the majority. The others enthusiastically say: “Hornbills!” On our trip, we (Sahastra, Bijoy, Andy, Satish and I) didn’t…
Monday through Friday, we explore hornbills and their habitats at The Green Ogre Hornbills are intriguing birds. You can never forget your first sighting of one, however uncharismatic the species. Charisma, by the way, is a misleading word, for all of us at The Green Ogre are crazy about hornbills.…
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…
The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Ladakh’s bleak and bare landscape springs to joyous life when Himalayan Marmots, these oversized ground squirrels, come out to play.
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
The wind blew down from the hillock and hissed in my ear: “I am a rock” A stray spell of sun lit up Ramanagaram’s famous rocks It wasn’t a winter’s day, as Paul Simon would have had it. But it had rained all night and the morning presented a stipple…
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…
