Encounter: White Storks wintering in Polachira
In the Polachira wetlands of Kollam, southern Kerala, the sight of a White Stork, a winter visitor increasingly hard to come by in the subcontinent, fills the mind with memories seen and imagined
Tag: birding
Encounter: Rhododendron, sentinel of the highlands
Never mind its cough-syrupy taste, or its tongue-twister of a name, a Rhododendron in flower is inspiration enough to walk the Himalaya, or the Nilgiris
Remembering Roger Tory Peterson
Every time you thumb through a field guide to nature, say a little prayer to Roger Tory Peterson. His path-breaking field guides breathed life into birding.
Download the August calendar-wallpaper
This Scaly-Breasted Munia (Lonchura punctulata) is yours to download and keep as a calendar wallpaper (for desktops, laptops and iPads) . But only if you are a member of the Green Ogre community. It’s not hard to become one. Just sign up!
Encounter – Plumbeous Water Redstart
Married to foaming mountain streams, the Plumbeous Water Redstart is a constant companion to the trekker in the Himalaya. As cattle egrets are to grazing bovids, mynahs to figs, and flowerpeckers to Singapore cherries, Plumbeous Water Redstarts (Rhyacornis fuliginosa) are married to Himalayan streams.
Encounter: The Black-and-Orange Flycatcher
In a Nilgiri forest cloaked with moss, the adorable and confiding Black-and-Orange Flycatcher sets the woods — and your imagination — aflame.
Encounter – Yellow-billed Blue Magpie
After every birding trip there is always one bird that occupies our thoughts after we return. For me, it was the Yellow-billed Blue Magpie As a voracious reader of Tintin, my first impression of a magpie was a rather plain, pied bird with a needle-like beak (thanks to the illustrations).…
Nature’s palette at Birdpur
Winter’s officially out the door, but we still entertain memories of a January morning in Bharatpur amid winged angels and wicked vandals Accompanied by the creaking of the cycle rickshaw’s suspension, the eerie silhouettes created by the dense fog eclipsing the post meridian sun presented a negative portent right out…
What Little Grebes learn at Sunday School
Family entertainment for this family of Little Grebes might be, in all seriousness, a training session for the future. Notes from a morning well spent… Early one Sunday morning, a fortnight after I got my new lens, I headed out to Madiwala Lake. Roaming around, I encountered a family of…
Encounter: God, Darwin, Ali and the Blue-capped Rock Thrush
In the foggy ruins of time, most memories can get blurred, or muddied entirely. But not a birder’s remembrance of a cherished bird. Every time I see the Blue-capped Rock Thrush, I am reminded of myself at twelve, a scruffy, itchy pilgrim gazing in rapture at a sprite, a vision, a gift of the forest. It’s a story that involves God, Darwin and Salim Ali — all playing significant bit-parts.
Two hoots in a deserted quarry
My love of owls has made me peer into abandoned quarries, tree hollows, rafters of old barns, and dilapidated houses. Last year, I watched three Indian Eagle Owl chicks grow from featherballs to subadults. We waited a whole year to publish this report, assured that they are now relatively safe…
Encounter: Large-tailed Nightjar
When the dim, shadowy silence of the leaf-litter suddenly takes wing, it’s either a ghost or a nightjar that sets your heart racing. Our search that began in the hunt for a peacock feather took us to the adorable Large-tailed Nightjar The Large Tailed Nightjar wrapped up in silence. Notice the…
The next time you ignore a drongo…
A birding lesson from the field: Don’t pass up a drongo — or any black bird with a forked tail Towards the end of our Parambikulam tramway trek, as I dragged my weary feet past a tree on which was perched a dark bird with a telltale fork at the…
Download the December wallpaper
December is seven days old and we’ve been sluggish. Blame it on the cold! Here’s our last wallpaper of the year. May the lemony yellowness of this Oriental White-eye light up your holidays. Seasons Greetings! Photo: Sandeep Somasekharan DOWNLOAD THIS PHOTO TO USE AS A WALLPAPER FOR YOUR DESKTOP OR…
Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher: An Afternoon Haiku
What could be common to a tiny forest bird and a temple statuette that embodies grace, beauty and wild power? Having looked at a small group of 4-5 highly energetic and extremely acrobatic birds with small grey heads, small straight sharp beaks, large black eyes and yellow bodies, I looked…