Wordless Wednesday – Ducking the sunset
Photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan All rights reserved The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Oh fish, no hooks, no line, no net!
How to fish in troubled waters. Or how to spice up your dinner with an old pan, a tattered towel and a lump of cooked rice!
When Stumpy almost cost us the World Cup!
Never mix cricket and a jungle adventure, the World Cup’s mascot seemed to tell us! Setting out on the bird trail Lopsided finances can crush a budget birding trip when one member of the party considers opting out. Harder still when the reason for his abandonment of our greater purpose…
On the wing – Himalayan Griffon in flight
Watching a great bird in flight is an experience both meditative and educational A Himalayan Griffon (Gyps himalayensis) rises slowly on a thermal — an updraft of warm air rising up from the sun-warmed earth — above the dense forests in a valley in Uttarakhand, northern India. Among the largest species of…
Odisha Diary: Onward to Bhitarkanika
Jennifer Nandi‘s sojourn in Odisha begins with a ride through the Buddhist ruins at Udayagiri and Ratnagiri Some serious packing after dinner leaves the night in tatters – yet, we are ready to leave the hotel at 5.30 in the morning to catch our flight to Bhubaneshwar. Sushanto, the epitome of…
Wordless Wednesday – Living to tell the tale
Photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan All rights reserved The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Madhyamaheshwar – In the temple of the Drunken Lord
Life is so quiet and still in Madhyamaheshwar that it’s easy to imagine why local people believe that the deity is drunk A wayside shrine en route to Madhyamaheshwar A moss-encrusted tree on the trail “I found myself moved by the simplicity of this shrine. It was a place where…
Raptor Friday – The Shikra
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…
Blossom Showers and Bamboo Famines
Coffee in full flower Early this week I travelled to Coorg on assignment. Mild spring showers had triggered a riotous explosion of coffee blooms. Planters depend on these early rains, known locally as Blossom Showers, for the next year’s coffee crop. The dark-leaved boughs drooped under the weight of the…
Wordless Wednesday – The gorilla’s kiss
The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
An Encounter with Radial Symmetry
While combing the Marakkanam beach in Tamil Nadu, north of Pondicherry, Sahastra, Beej and I came across an object that was pale green and symmetrical, with bands radiating from a central orifice at the top. Five white bands radiating from the centre can be seen Being city-slickers from landlocked Bangalore our…
Raptor Friday – The Common Kestrel
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
And swiftly fell the swift
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…
Wordless Wednesday – Spy versus spy?
Photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Encounter: Kashmir Rock Agama
At 6,000 feet oxygen isn’t as easy to aspire as I’d like. My lungs labour to adapt subcontinental lethargy to the punishing demands of altitude, and for a while I am oblivious to the spectacular Himalayan scenery drifting by in a sweat-soaked blur only furlongs away from my fumbling feet.…