Encounter: Russet Sparrow

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…

Can we refuse the world’s trash?

It’s something we have read about before, but this story by Tehelka puts all the canards and reports in perspective: India has become the ultimate receptacle of the first world’s trash. As if we don’t generate enough of our own. Excerpt: According to an estimate, India imported around 16.8 lakh…

Cheddar Moon

Caught her waking two moons ago over a city unaware of its certain doom ballooning unnoticed unsung a giant speech blurb full of aching emptiness and terrible secrets to tell us without a tongue to twist them into words The Green Ogre – Birds, Wildlife, Ecology and Nature notes from…

Test-driving the FZ28

Snapped these up with the new box on a walk in the park  Calotropis gigantea – one of my favourite weeds, because there’s always much happening on its leaves and flowers See – what did I tell you? This chap was sitting here waiting for brunch Closer crop. I need a…

Encounter – White-eared Bulbul

A prim little bulbul that’s completely at home in the desert In Horse With No Name, Neil Young sang: “In the desert, you can’t remember your name.” It’s sort of what you feel when you see a bulbul in the desert, comfortable among the spare vegetation. Meet the White-eared Bulbul,…

The Mockingbird, mocked

Mockingbirds are the true artists of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they’re born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mockingbirds aren’t content to merely play the hand that is dealt them.…

Sen. John Kerry does an Al Gore

Stepping into the shoes that we think Al Gore has now vacated since accepting the Nobel Prize, Sen. John Kerry takes over as the Next Big American Voice Against Global Warming. But despite the big press, the noises he is making are no different. And particularly, coming from another Presidential…

The Himalaya Story – from 2007

Footloose in Garhwal, my travelogue on our trek to Bedni Bugyal in April-May 2007, is finally available for viewing. It had been privately circulated until now. Here it is: On Yudu (Firefox users may have some Flash 10-related viewing trouble): We’re sorry, your browser doesn’t support IFrames. You can still…

The name of the bird

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing…

An elephantine storm in a teacup

The Nature Conservation Foundation‘s EcoLogic blog has been around for some time now and its content is on my reading list. NCF does so well what other eco-research blogs fail to do – present great, relevant scientific information in a thought-provoking and easy-to-read way. Not to mention some high quality…