Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
All the trees have been marked to be cut. Every single one. Not just the gangly teak (Tectonia grandis), but even the ones that have no ‘value’ – the red-leaved Indian almond (Terminalia catappa), the green-barked, symmetrical silk cottons (Bombax), the fallow but foliaceous mango (Mangifera indica) and the stout…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhqK8JrGWRk] After Borneo, it’s now Indonesia’s turn to throw surprises at us. Scientific American reports the rediscovery of a rare primate, the Pygmy Tarsier (Tarsius pumilus). The nocturnal cousin of lorises and bushbabies, the pygmy tarsier is mostly insectivorous and can rotate its head like an owl. More here The…
The tiger and the sloth bear are two major predators of the Indian jungles. Between them, it’s clear who’s boss. Some people know that tigers hunt and eat bears. Others don’t. And then, there are people who can’t bear to think about either possibility. The acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Shekar Dattatri…
The Green Ogre is going away. Tonight, I take a train to Delhi. Then, it’s off to the breeding grounds of the Sarus Grane (Grus antigone) in the wetlands of Uttar Pradesh. I’ll be back in the first week of December. Watch this space. Read the back pages. Keep yourself…
The first-ever layman’s guide to the dragonflies and damselflies of peninsular India, published in 2005, is the result of a collaborative project of the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. The author, K A Subramanian, and the series editor Madhav Gadgil,…
It’s a riot of colour out there. A blue wash is spreading over America’s electoral map. A coloured man awaits entry to the White House. Democrats are closing in on the Senate and the House of Representatives. At the time of writing this, Barack Obama leads John McCain 338:155. Please…
It’s how I met her. She wasn’t yet my wife but I knew we were on our way to making that happen. We were at Bandipur one morning in January 2005. The trees around the forest office were throwing long shadows. The grass was soft with ungulate shit. My…
I stumbled upon (not via Stumbleupon but via BlogCatalog) a very attractive blog on birding and wildlife from Sri Lanka. Gallicissa, Amila Salgado’s blog, provides informed photographic insight into the wildlife, birds and insect life of his fascinating island nation. I’m making a travel plan for a birding trip. And…
Tea has been on my mind. Mostly because I have spent the last few weeks drinking it guiltily. Coffee, I am told, is better for our forests than tea. Two NCF researchers I met in Valparai confirm this. Tea cultivation essentially involves the clearing of large tracts of forest, leaving…
S Karthikeyan is well known among Bangaloreans who are even remotely interested in nature. A widely regarded wildlife researcher, birder and butterfly expert, he has also photographed and documented a user-friendly guide to the flowering trees of Bangalore. For a long time, it remained a post on his website, linked…
What’s so changeable about this forest eagle, you may ask. The answer has more than one context. I cannot talk about the Changeable Hawk Eagle with laypersons without encountering that most pedestrian and wearying of questions: “What hawk eagle?” For your benefit, I say again: Changeable. One that is…
Over at Life Less Plastic, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the best non-plastic hair rinse options are some Indian recipes that have been used for centuries. The common ingredients: shikakai (the fruit of Acacia concinna), amla (the fruit of Emblica officinalis, the Indian gooseberry), henna (made from the leaves of Lawsonia…
Over the three or so decades of my life, I have seen many Deepavalis come and go (true to my chauvinism, I prefer the South Indian ‘Deepavali’ to the globalised ‘Diwali’)*. The essence of our festival of lights, I have been variously informed, is to symbolise the victory of light…
Last week, I was in Palani, covering the destination for a travel publication. Shock and awe are the two words that can best describe how I felt. Add to that sub-tones of revulsion, derision and the urge to get away from there as fast as a Tata Indica with a…
The Green Ogre has been away being more green and less ogre, and thus his stomping grounds have been quiet. I have enjoyed the most immersive wildlife and nature experiences over the last few weeks at some exquisite biodiversity sites in southern India. October 9 through 12, my friends Sahastra,…
