Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
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.…
As we headed out of Guwahati airport towards Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh, the Bugun Liocichla (Liocichla bugunorum) was on our minds. Though none of us mentioned it (since no one wanted to be thought of as a twitcher), every one of us was hoping to catch a glimpse…
Much has been made of the “extinction” of house sparrows. Rural countrysides where farmers practice agriculture traditional crop cycles still have sizeable populations of the birds. At dusk, small trees tremble with fluttering boarders settling in to roost. Their frenzied chirruping, like the jingle of millions of coins in thousands…
If you are the type that stops to smell the flowers, or wonders what happened to that little brown bird that bustled about in the hedge until just a few weeks ago, or smiles at the bare avenue trees flaunting a flush of pink blossoms, you’re a candidate for Seasonwatch. …
The name has a definite ring, doesn’t it? So much that a friend, a newbie birder who had just come down to bird with me Mysore, went back and told his friends that he had a good sighting of a ‘Tommy Eagle’. The Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax) was the first…
The Asian Paradise Flycatcher can appear quite unbelievable for those laying eyes on it for the first time A female Asian Paradise Flycatcher I distinctly remember the first time I saw an Asian Paradise Flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi). It was May or early June and I was in my mango orchard…
Photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
Jennifer Nandi makes a quick dash to Havelock Island to peer into a world of colourful fish named after parrots and butterflies Introduced in November 2009, the Makruzz is a hovercraft. It leaves at 7.30 in the morning for Havelock Island and, well ahead of time, we are at the…
Driving between Chennai and Pondicherry, approximately 30 km before you reach the former French enclave, you cannot but notice a small inlet channel from the sea passing below a narrow bridge and then expanding into a vast lake stretching all the way to the western horizon. This is Kaliveli, the…
The Black-winged Kite alias the Black-shouldered Kite (Elanus caeruleus) is easily the most handsome and the most distinguishable of kites. The first time I saw this bird was in a photo, shot by my photography guru Prabakar Venkatraman, in which this bird was perched on a steel rod at the…
Antibiotic-addled Jennifer Nandi is awestruck by the avian diversity at Mount Harriet National Park Excitement keeps us on high alert as we leave the hotel at 5.30 am to take a ferry across the bay to visit Mount Harriet National Park. Our car snakes its way toward the seemingly lush hill that…
Photo: Sandeep Somasekharan The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from India.
How long before a koel discovers that it is not a crow? The family of House Crows (Corvus splendens) in my yard is upset. For the past few weeks mother and father have been teaching their youngsters to fly. I have often seen the young crows follow their parents about,…
I always thought only humans queued up, and that too occasionally when they have no choice. Ah… and ants. But on our very eventful tramway trek in Parambikulam, Kerala, we experienced an epiphany. And the evidence of such orderly behaviour came from an unexpected group of insects: Butterflies. Halfway into…
Until five years ago, every bird that soared was an “eagle”. I had just started birding and I don’t know how many times until then I had let pass this intriguing bird as an eagle. And by “eagle” I would have meant the ubiquitous Black Kite or Pariah Kite (Milvus…
