Corbett National Park - Part 3

It's been over a year but I can still smell the mist of that wet morning. This forest felt strangely different from the southern Indian forests which I was accustomed to. It was not just the landscape - that was the most obvious difference....I felt a far subtler difference. The mornings in our forests were calm, nevertheless they had a constant musical chitter-chatter going on in the background that made one feel energetic, the chirp and chatter of birds, the furious rustling of leaves as shadowy langurs slid from tree to tree, the swish of bushes as invisible deer and boar moved noiselessly, one can hear the silent yet profound buzz of the forest. Here in these himalayan forests there was a silence that I hadn't known before. As we stopped for tea near a resthouse, I could see redstarts hopping on the ground, lapwings gliding in a distance, kingfishers huddled up in a quiet corner on a tree, macaques silently looking into the far unknown....there was a quiet that was hypnotic. Even the raindrops fell silently as if they wanted to contribute their bit to the magical calm.

The safari continued and the day got darker. A Sambhar doe strolled lazily on the jeep track. I grinned with delight - Sambhar are one of my favourites and it's a feast to the eyes to see them out in the open. In the dense southern Indian forests they are hidden in thick bushes all the time. Antlers and the nose are the most one gets to see of them! Here was a doe walking a few feet ahead of us without a care in the world! What more could I ask for!But there were more to come.....the land was dipping down and lifting up alternately...so we got to see birds and animals from the top of ridges and down from valleys....another Sambhar appeared on a ridge next to us amongst the trees....this was the closest I had got to a Sambhar...I turned to my right, she was only a few feet away from me, lifted the camera and realised the utter futility of this - there was next to no light anywhere around the doe! But I was too excited to give up...I clicked furiously and to my utter surprise I found a black-and-white image of a silhouette of the deer on my LCD screen! This had turned out better than how it would have been in good light!



A herd of spotted deer moved randomly in a distance.....a young fawn was left behind and he didn't seem to mind it...a red jungle fowl hopped out of view....a lone langur posed on a beautifully shaped tree trunk...the jeep moved slowly on.....it was soothing to see that none of these forest denizens seemed perturbed by our intrusion.


We spotted a shikra meditating on a branch.....a male.....he was surveying the area with his sharp red eyes....our presence elicited no reaction, nor did the furious shutter sounds....whoosh...he flew past us and settled on the ground...a hunt...he seemed to have captured something...his tiny frame seemed buried in the thick dry-leaf carpet..whether he missed the target or whether he caught his prey and swallowed it in no time, I had no way of knowing. He was back on his watchpost in a while and we moved on.


This was proving to be very promising...a lot of first-timers....and it was only getting better...

Hi!

Hello friends,

What with studies and approaching exams I am finding it terribly difficult to blog at the moment. So I am posting this picture from my Corbett trip, the report of which I am yet to complete.

Hope to start writing soon!

Corbett National Park - Part 2

This was the most anticipated part of the trip for me really. I had been looking forward to the first safari from the time I was told of the itinerary of the entire trip. The itinerary went like this - after we arrived at Ramnagar, we were to be taken to the Bijrani range of Corbett NP for a safari which would last till half past nine. We would then proceed towards the Dhikala range after breakfast. Dhikala was where our accommodation was booked for two nights and three days and was a good two-plus hour journey through the forest from Ramnagar. When Sant planned up the itinerary he realised that travelling from Ramnagar to Dhikala would deprive us of an entire morning of productive photography and of a safari too. So his resourceful mind thought of this ingenious idea - to go on a safari as soon as we got down from the train and check into the rest house later. This was the first ever time we had done a safari with all our baggage and with no time to even ready our equipment, so it was, no doubt, fuel for excitement!

Before we left Bangalore Harsh checked the weather forecast for the area which we were to visit and found the signs not too promising. Exactly on the days of our visit we had a good healthy downpour of rains predicted, which made us quite anxious. And our anxious selves were welcomed in Ramnagar not only by the quiet and kind Salim but also by an overcast sky, much to our dismay.We observed the narrow yet clean streets of Ramnagar from the Gypsy and remarked how typically like a hill station the town was. In a matter of few minutes we had reached the gates of Bijrani. After a few initial formalities, a guide joined us and we set off to explore the forest that was a living memory of the legendary Jim Corbett.

Jim Corbett (1875 - 1955) was born, in Naini Tal in the Kumaon region of the Himalayas, of Irish parents who had moved to India in 1862. He is considered a saint by the locals of Kumaon who know him for his deep love for the wildlife of the area, particularly the big cats and his efforts in educating the villagers and tribals of the region about wildlife. A hunting enthusiast in his younger days, Corbett evolved to become one of the first conservationists India has seen. He is well-known for his books on man-eating tigers and leopards and his efforts at putting an end single-handedly to these threats that claimed hundreds of human lives and terrorised the area for years on end. However, few people know that Jim Corbett was responsible in convincing the British government to declare the forests of Kumaon as a protected reserve to ensure the well-being of the wildlife in the area. Following his request, the government set up the first national park and called it Hailey National Park, after Lord Malcolm Hailey, the then Governor of the province. The park was renamed after Jim Corbett in fond memory of the pioneer of wildlife conservation, in 1956.

The sky showed all signs of bursting open on us at any moment. I prayed quietly all the time for the rain-gods to be kind to us at least during safaris. Although experiencing rain in a forest is thrilling, we were worried about our equipment and photography and feared that we may not get to see any animals if it rained. I looked all around trying to imbue my mind with the colours of the forest. The place looked heavenly - to say the least. While southern India had traversed half-way through summer, the extreme north of India - the Himalayan foothills - was just warming up for it. The river beds looked dry. Vast stretches of white stones,pebbles and rocks served as a proof for the roaring, energetic monstrous river that flowed with full zest during monsoons.

What we now saw were thin crawling strips of glimmering water flowing with a silent rhythm, that sounded like the whispers of a mother cradling her child to sleep.





The trees showed mixed reactions to the onset of summer - there were some huge giants standing tall and as dry as the river beds, stretching out their open branches to the sky as though to say,"well, summer will be here any time now and I am not the one to be taken by surprise, you know.I'm ready".Experience,I suppose.


Then there were some lean and tall trees which looked like they wanted to follow the steps of these elderly giants, but weren't too sure about letting go of their beautiful leaves. So they seemed to have struck a middle ground. They had turned their leaves into all shades of brown - yellowish-brown, greenish-brown,reddish-brown....the next best thing to turning bone-dry.I had a feeling that they were demonstrating to me, the all-too common fear of "letting go".



Then there were some young, small shrub-like trees covered with lush, bright green leaves all over, that leaned towards the flowing water like fair Narcissus who admired his own reflections in the water and almost forgot himself. I almost felt a sense of concern towards these young dreamers - I wanted to walk up to them, wake them out of their reverie and tell them,"Listen, summer's coming, you know. I think you ought to be preparing yourselves." But the trees already seemed to sense what I felt and giggled and replied to me,"We had a fantastic festive time with Spring.We are still revelling in the memories. We aren't too fussed about Scary Summer, he can come and go as he likes." Well, perhaps they were right. Summer was welcome here. More than in any other parts of India I had seen.

A long-awaited trip to Corbett National Park - Part 1

It had been nearly two years since I had wanted to see India's first National Park - the Corbett National Park. For reasons purely circumstantial, every time we planned a wildlife trip I had to cancel my participation, which left a feeling of inexpressible disappointment in me. The wait for a 'next time' is never consoling.

This April, however, was different. Things happened swiftly and before I knew I had agreed to join my friends on a trip to Corbett NP and things were arranged to the hilt. All there was left for me to do was to wait excitedly for the trip to begin. Two friends of mine - Sant and Harsh - had taken great care to ensure the plans were laid out perfectly and flawlessly.

So, on a fine Thursday afternoon I found myself eagerly proceeding towards a plane that would take us to Delhi (about 1700 km away) in just a couple of hours. That was indeed the best part of the journey because our wait to see the park was cut down greatly by this super-swift bird-like invention meant to make 'the world beyond the skies' a reality to humans.

By half-past six we had reached Delhi and we had another four hours before we could get ourselves aboard the train to Ramnagar - the closest railway station to the NP. We reached the Old Delhi station and began to look around for a suitable shelter which presented itself to us in the form of a busy restaurant inside the premises of the railway station.We decided to have an early meal here and rid ourselves of worries over feeding for the night. At 11 pm, we were already on our way to our oldest national park and also on our way to a deep sleep in our berths in an air-conditioned railway compartment which seemed to be filled with like-minded tourists who shared our destination.

I slept badly, owing to my anxiety of missing our station. At half past four I really could not take it any more. I looked at the time and asked the train attendant how long it would be to reach Ramnagar. He confirmed that I still had an hour to go and that he would inform us when we arrived there.

At half past five, we bid farewell to a Belgian couple who had shared our compartment with us and proceeded to the gate where a guide named Salim was waiting to pick us up in his Gypsy. Our first safari in Corbett NP was about to begin.

A Tribute

I was reading Gitanjali, a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore, one of the greatest poets India has seen and was so utterly moved by the emotions expressed in the poems - if ever it was possible to make poetry so visually alive and vibrating with energy, then this is it!

A humble photo-tribute to the great poet...



Thou art the sky and thou art the nest
as well.

O thou beautiful, there in the nest
it is thy love that encloses the soul
with colours and sounds and odours.

There comes the morning with
the golden basket in her right hand
bearing the wreath of beauty, silently
to crown the earth.

And there comes the evening over
the lonely meadows deserted by
herds, through trackless paths,
carrying cool draughts of peace in her
golden pitcher from the western
ocean of rest.

But there, where spreads the
infinite sky for the soul to take her
flight in, reigns the stainless white
radiance. There is no day nor night,
nor form nor colour, and never, never
a word.

(Poem 67 - Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore)

-------------------------------------------------------

THIS is my delight, thus to wait and
watch at the wayside where shadow
chases light and the rain comes in the
wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from
unknown skies, greet me and speed
along the road. My heart is glad
within, and the breath of the passing
breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here
before my door, and I know that of a
sudden the happy moment will arrive
when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I
sing all alone. In the meanwhile the
air is filling with the perfume of
promise.

(Poem 44 - Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore)

Unnoticed

One of the wild flowers that stays so close to the ground that one would hardly know it exists......

In Search of Colours

An image that I took in a park....probably it would be hard to believe that the subject is a hibiscus leaf, when I looked at the leaf it looked quite extraordinary. For one it was quite narrow and small unlike the usual broad leaves that hibiscus plants flaunt. Secondly, it was a leaf that was on the verge of being shed, so the colours were yellow-red making the tiny leaf look like a flame. This gave me the idea of composing the image vertically. Taken at 1/1600 of a second at f7.1 at ISO 200 in glorious morning light.

Snakes - My changing perceptions

"Curious creatures - snakes!" That was the first reaction of my approximately 10-year-old mind at the thought of these reptiles. I don't remember having ever thought of them when I was younger than 10 years.I pitied them for not having the convenience of well-developed legs and I shuddered when I imagined myself being forced to crawl on my tummy! Later at school, I learned from Lamarck's theory that snakes lost their legs simply because they did not deem it necessary to employ the beautiful (I am not so sure of that, though) legs God had bestowed on them! Impertinent! So they eventually lost their legs! (So it seems they deserved it after all). I just hoped, for their sake, that they didn't regret it too much and moved on with life or shall I say, "crawled on" with life?

Well, these were just passing thoughts about snakes and they didn't occur to me very frequently, so I moved on with my life until we moved into a house in the country. With three farms in the neighbourhood, the surroundings were simply picturesque. I was enjoying my proximity to nature and especially to birds - when I realised that living in the country doesn't take you close only to beautiful birds but also to its predators - snakes! We had many encounters with rat snakes and cobras, which for some reason used to choose our window sills to bask in the sun! I wasn't scared exactly, but I couldn't help feeling startled when I stepped out of the house to see a large snake curled up on the porch or seeing the shape of a snake through the glass pane of the window. The most memorable incidents involving snakes are when my cat used to follow the snakes around and try picking a fight with them! I would call out to him anxiously, worried about the cat getting bitten, but with the hunting instincts roused he would pay as much attention to me as he would to a hunted mouse begging him to spare its life! Thankfully, my cat always attempted to attack the snakes from the tail end and the snakes invariably escaped by sliding into the nearest hole! Relieved, I would have a good laugh looking at the perplexed expression on the kitty's face!

Having seen snakes more often than before, my feeling of pity and amusement towards snakes somehow gradually turned into a feeling of repulsion. Their unblinking eyes and their glistening scales and the stealthy way of slithering into bushes somehow failed to impress me and I resented their intrusion into the grounds around our house. Nevertheless, I cannot remember ever being 'scared' of snakes.

A couple of years later, for some curious reason that I haven't figured out, I started having regular nightmares. Every nightmare was different in its details but all of them had one common theme - a snake crawling up on me and threatening to strike or strangle me! I had these regularly every night when I went to sleep and had me invariably waking up terrified and puzzled! These nightmares plagued me for a few years until I was absolutely terrified of even the name! I hated the idea of being terrified of snakes as all my education in natural history advised me against it. I knew that like any other creature on earth, snakes were perfectly innocent creatures struggling for their own survival and by no means, keen to harm anyone if it did not get them food for the day. It took me a long time to overcome my phobia - when I did, I reverted to my previous state of disliking them and I always thought it would remain so - I could never imagine myself getting to like them!

And now came an unexpected incident which triggered an interest in me for these creatures - I was taking a stroll in Lalbagh - a beautiful garden near my house - when all of a sudden I saw some movement behind the pots in the nursery and instinctively I knew that it was a snake! I jumped on to the lane next to the road and ran towards the nursery - simply because I had my camera in my hand and knew I could get some pictures of a rare subject. :-) Just goes to show how a person can lose one’s head when there’s a camera in hand. :-)

Thankfully, the nursery was fenced, so I stood outside the fence and looked through it to find there were two snakes (not one) that were spiraled together and were thrashing about the whole place and my jaw dropped at the sight of this….I kept clicking as much as I could and felt thankful that there was a fence between the snakes and me – they looked quite fierce, the way they were beating each other to the ground with the such vigour!

Slowly a crowd gathered behind me and I could hear whispers “snakes dancing” to which I could but smile a little.True they looked quite graceful, but their ferocity could be hardly associated with anything as fine as dancing! For the first time as I stood watching the scene, I thought snakes looked interesting. I felt fascinated by this “dance” of theirs and wondered at their indifference to the crowd that was watching them.

The first thing I did when I reached home was to process the pictures and put them up on a nature forum online. And everybody seemed to agree with my opinion that it was a mating ritual of rat snakes that I had seen. However after a few days, a couple of people mentioned in their comments that it was not a mating ritual, but a “combat dance” that male rat snakes indulged in frequently to establish their dominance over the territory and over the female snakes within it.

I was even more intrigued by it and so googled the topic to find that it was true and I had indeed witnessed a combat dance between two male snakes! I felt so incredibly lucky to have witnessed so rare and so natural an event so unexpectedly. This incident helped in creating an interest in these creatures that I had feared and abhorred so much. I am still far away from admiring their beauty as some people do, but I am now for the first time in my life curious and interested in snakes and keen to learn about them. Really, the best way to learn about nature it seems, is by being close to nature!

Light and darkness

Whilst looking for subjects to photograph in a park yesterday afternoon,I was captivated by how the sunlight had lit up just one side of the leaf.The side against the light was totally dark. Thought of just capturing that bit of the leaf and it turned out like this.............

"Mundane" subjects

As I have been taking images, I am slowly beginning to realise the wonderful opportunities that the usual things around provide us with.The so-called mundane subjects which are so often neglected can be seen with different perspectives and portrayed in images with a different view. I just took a couple of images of grass blades and I was surprised at what I got!




I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. - Walt Whitman

Wild and pretty

Some wild flowers that go unnoticed.....

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. - James Russell Lowell

Subtlety

A Plumbago flower.......

Blog Makeover

Well....I just felt a need for change and thought a good makeover for my blog would perhaps be a good idea. And since I have been writing predominantly about nature and wildlife, I thought I might as well adopt the name I had given to my other photoblog on Wordpress.

By the way, I hadn't realised that it's been a year since I started blogging!.....:-)

Why bother saving tigers?

A friend very kindly hinted to me yesterday that it was all ok to go on and on about "saving tigers because we need them" but very few people would even know why we need them!Loving tigers passionately for what they are, I had somehow overlooked the fact that humans need to know the WHYs for everything they do and don't do. And as Kate very rightly pointed out in her comment, tigers aren't here just to give tourists a good time!
A British tourist recently told me how farmers in Britain are having to shoot Red Deer and Muntjac (Barking Deer) to control their population, because they have no large predators! Now, we in India are blessed with tigers, leopards, wild dogs, wolves and so many other small predators, all of which play a great role in maintaining the ecological balance. But then, when we have so many predators, why do we need tigers? Tigers are the largest big cats in the world and so are easily one of the largest predators too. And since India has a vast variety of herbivores which come in all shapes and sizes, including Gaur (commonly known as the Indian Bison), wild buffaloes, Sambhar deer (weighing up to nearly 250 kilos) we do need a large-sized predator that can keep a check on the prey population and keep our forests healthy.

For all the people of India who consider themselves patriotic, there is a great reason to have tigers alive. The tiger is our national animal and it is a shame to call ourselves patriotic if all we can show towards an animal so inseparably linked to our country's heritage, nothing but apathy. Project Tiger - an initiative to save the wild tigers of India was set up in 1973 when the tiger numbers had reached an alarming 1200! 35 years later, we have 1400 tigers left in the wild. Should we pat ourselves for the excellent job done in holding on to the 1000 and odd tigers?

Having talked about the reason we need tigers, I believe that it's a shame to ponder over "why" we need an animal to be alive. Why does any creature have to justify its right to live? Humans have turned themselves into tyrants of the worst kind by questioning the material worth of all creatures and deciding on the basis of this material worth whether the animal deserves to live or not. I for one, am horrified to be witnessing our wild tigers vanishing before our very eyes!

Do we deserve our tigers?

Why are we so indifferent to the brutal killings of our tigers? Why do we so carelessly ignore the rapid disappearance of our "national animal"? We care about who wins a cricket match, we care about our favourite celebrities being showered with awards, but not really for an animal that represents India's rich wildlife heritage! In the little experience I have had of wildlife tourism in India, I see that every tourist who comes to Indian jungles wants to see a tiger - a wild tiger! But the percentage of those tourists who really knew about the situation of wild tigers in India was almost nil! In my initial days as a naturalist, I found it absolutely shocking! I almost wanted to ask every tourist, "You want to see a tiger on your safari, but do you know how many tigers are left in India? And how many tigers are being poached even as we speak?" I had a difficult time restraining myself from snapping back when people spoke of wild tigers as show-pieces kept for the entertainment of tourists!Worse, we have had people asking me why we don't carry guns on safaris to ensure our safety,"just in case a tiger attacked us"!

Unbelievable as it may seem, I have prayed several times during my safaris, for tigers not to be seen.....because we don't really deserve tigers!

People who think tigers are for our entertainment, tigers are man-eaters and hence to be terrified of, tigers are to be poached or worse to be ignored, don't really deserve tigers!Tigers are just too beautiful for our ugly attitudes!



Less than 1500 tigers left in the Indian jungles, but do we really care?

We fail to realise that if we manage to save our tigers, we are not doing anyone a favour but ourselves.If tigers go extinct, it does not really matter to the tigers - they won't be around to brood over it - but we must realise that we give ourselves a raw deal by losing so magnificent an animal.

Why must we save our tigers? Not because they need our sympathy, but because we need them!

NDTV and Sanctuary Asia has been running a campaign to save the tigers, requesting people to sign online petitions to influence policy-makers to take immediate action and remedial measures to save our tigers.

NDTV - Save the Tiger Campaign

Sanctuary Asia - Save the Tiger Campaign

When I had signed the petition the number of people who had supported the campaign was 16000 and odd. A week later I find that the number has only crawled up to 23000+. Phew! No wonder tigers are in trouble!




So I am still wondering, do we really deserve our tigers?

Misty Morning Experiences

Winter is not exactly my favourite season, but I like the effect winter has on photography. :-)

I have had many 'a misty morning experience' as I call it, this winter.

For a start, it feels so magical to be outdoors on chilly mornings to watch birds.



But my best 'misty morning experience' wasn't about birds..... I was on a boat safari one morning in January on the backwaters of Kabini and it was so foggy that the driver and I could hardly find our way into the forest. The guests in the boat looked anxious and even asked us if we could manage to find our way, but our concern was different. We were anxious that we wouldn't get to see any animals owing to the cold and damp mist that enveloped the forest. There were plenty of birds about but the people in the boat were hardly interested in them and our one target was to find an elephant!An elephant sighting was the least we could ask for as no other animal except an elephant would venture near the water on that cold a morning. I hoped to see an elephant as the Giant bamboos all around the water are a huge temptation to the gentle giants.

However all our search yielded no result at all and we were feeling slightly disappointed as we steered into a little inlet of water (where we usually see elephants hanging around) and all that we saw was sheets of mist over the water. We were almost about to return when suddenly on the water surface we saw this......


An elephant's trunk emerging out of the water!I almost shouted out in surprised delight! A whole massive elephant inside the water on a cold winter morning (it was about half-past seven)! We waited for a few seconds to see if the rest of the body would emerge....we were also slightly anxious about our proximity to the elephant because it would have taken no time at all really for the elephant to emerge out of water right next to our boat and since we were inside an inlet, we were quite literally cornered!

After a few seconds, the rest of the body began to appear on the water surface and the elephant showed himself very slowly as though he was reluctant to get out of the water where he seemed to be perfectly enjoying himself!



What surprised me is that he must have heard us from miles away and yet he was so nonchalant about our presence even after we got so close...and we had a delightful time watching him slowly get up and reach out to the bamboos in a casual manner, chewing bamboo shoots lazily.....





After we left the place I felt so grateful to the beautiful tusker for allowing us to share his tranquil moments with us! This has been one of the best wildlife moments I have experienced so far and I feel so unbelievably lucky!

The Big Five of the Backwaters of Kabini

The Big Five of the birds that I have been able to photograph in the last month, that is. Kabini is so rich in bird-life that I may need a few years to photograph all the species that inhabit the area, but the water-birds are relatively easier to photograph. So here's my collection.....

The Grey Heron.....with a huge wing-span!

The Woolly-necked stork, another of my favourite birds...


A Great Cormorant taking off.....

An Osprey waiting over the water one morning....


Two Brahminy Kites on a misty morning.....

These are the most common ones but not really the biggest of the whole lot that one can find....I hope to put up pictures of some really good-looking eagles in Kabini, which easily surpass the Kites and Ospreys in size and appearance, but that's for another day.

Back to Kabini

At the end of a long, frustrating wait to get back into the jungles, especially when my strenuous work life was getting to me badly - luck struck! And how? Simply out of the blue, I got an offer to work as a naturalist in a wildlife resort!I was thrilled, to say the least.

So off I was to Kabini - one of my favourite wildlife destinations and this time I was to stay there for as long as I liked!

A safari a day into the jungles and a blissful time all day by the backwaters watching birds and experiencing a beautiful sunset at the end of the day - I couldn't have asked for anything more, really.

Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

A short one-day trip to Ranganathittu came as a great relief amidst all the stressful time I was going through at work. Very few birds could be sighted as it wasnt exactly the right time of the year to be there - all we saw were a group of white ibises. But the place was simply beautiful!



Added to the joy was that I found some very rare flowers....entirely unexpected as I had gone there looking for rare birds! :-)




All in all, a great stress-buster of a trip!

The Fascinating World of Insects

Insect world is really fascinating, I discovered that after I came across a few colourful insects in my search for good subjects to photograph!

This bug was hanging at an awkward angle and his bright colour attracted my attention. When I stooped to the ground to take a picture, all his legs started dangling freely except one which was holding on to the twig. I assumed that he was sleeping, but was told later by a fellow-nature lover that this was a defence mechanism by these bugs who pretend to sleep when they sense danger approaching!

Jewel bug! I don't wonder why it's called that. :-)



Mexican Beetle.......Mother Nature's a true artist!

How small is small?

Beauty at Hebbal Lake

I found this beautiful flower at Hebbal Lake when I went there for bird-watching. I would like to dedicate this image to Silke and Wolfgang who have been so kind and encouraging to me!

My first day with a Macro Lens

I shall never forget today! After a long wait, I finally got myself a Tamron 90 mm Macro lens! Equipped with a DSLR and my precious lens, I set out to a park nearby to hunt for pictures. And these are some of the images I made today.

Pure Innocence

Pretty white cosmos flowers were dancing in the little garden outside our house one afternoon after a nice shower. So I thought I could make a picture of it....

This flower reminds me of the paintings that children usually make. A round, bright yellow core and simple white petals around. Perhaps the simplest pattern of a flower that one can think of. Yet, the flower is so appealing, that one can't really be bored of it.

Somehow, everything about this flower reminds me about children - its tenderness, its simple beauty, the innocent look....probably the flower should be renamed as Innocence. :-)

Green, the colour of nature.

From the time I can remember, I have loved the colour green.I don't know if the reason for that lies in my fondness for nature. But whatever the reason is, I love the fact that I get to see the colour everywhere around me. I believe, green is the preferred colour of Nature, because it's found so abundantly almost everywhere. I know that there are many places on earth where there is hardly any green; places which are dominated entirely by colours like white, brown and blue. Yet, I would like to think that green is Nature's favourite. Green,to me, stands for life and energy. So it isn't surprising that in many cultures green is thought to symbolise prosperity.


I sometimes try to tell myself that everything in Nature is beautiful, one way or the other and that I shouldn't be partial about places that are green and ignore other beautiful places that lack trees and plants. I, however,have failed to convince myself. :-)


If I were to visit certain places on earth, which lack plant life, but are nevertheless beautiful, say for instance, snow capped peaks of mountains, deserts that look like oceans of sand, I will certainly appreciate the beauty, but I wouldn't feel at home. Looking at and being amidst greenery, brings me a sense of calm and peace like nothing else.



Observing nature, I have wondered how many different shades of green there are and how beautiful all of them look. There's the tender green of fresh, young leaves, the everyouthful brilliant green, the dark (almost blackish) shade of green and so on....From a blade of grass to unripe fruits hanging from branches of trees, every possible shade of green can be found in nature!

Green, looks good not just all by itself, but also when it combines with other colours forming interesting patterns!Yellow, red, pink, violet, purple, orange, blue and white flowers with green foliage as background look brilliant! I find it especially interesting when I see green mixing up with other colours within leaves! Here are a few interesting colour patterns I found in leaves...

The one above actually looks like a map rather than a leaf to me. :-)

And it's not just leaves that are green...there are birds, insects, frogs and snakes that are green too. But flowers in green? That's something I didn't know was possible until I saw a few myself!

Those are flower buds! The Orchid Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia) plant that I have at home gives out these green flower buds, which eventually will turn pink, but I think they look brilliant in green!

And those are Hydrangea flower buds, which will turn into a cluster of very pretty pink flowers, but they look delicious right now!

Here's a strange phenomenon! This is a Euphorbia flower which is a two-petalled one, but these two green buds have pierced right through the middle of the flower making the whole arrangement look like a multi-coloured and multi-petalled flower.

There are pistils of flowers that are green and the one above is a bright shade of fluorescent green that I love.

I see the surroundings gradually changing everyday and more grey sprouting up all over the place, which makes me very gloomy. My eyes take more strain than before in trying to catch interesting bits of green and to note their beauty. I dread to imagine the future that shows huge, grey buildings and brown dust blanketing all the green there is. A lot of people around me seem to be indifferent to the depleting greenery, but I know, that I, for one, would be smothered in a world scant of plant life! I am praying earnestly for a change, for a miracle that will reverse the damage that is being caused to our beautiful world!

Kabini - A Wildlife Paradise : Part 4

The next morning, the safari jeep was ready by six o’clock and we were more than ready to get going. The air outside was cool, with an ever so slight misty feeling, but with all the promises of turning into a hot and sunny day. As we walked up the paths towards the jeep, we found our friend of the previous day, an Oriental magpie Robin hopping on the ground. He was a fearless guy – no matter how close we got to him, he wouldn’t fly off, but hop quickly away, only to maintain distance. Our proximity did not seem to worry him at all, unlike the shy Forest Wagtail that was with the Magpie Robin on the previous afternoon. I am quite used to the other kinds of wagtails in the city – a pair of White browed Wagtails are regular visitors to my office garden, Grey and Yellow Wagtails are quite common in parks and gardens, but this forest variety was unfamiliar to me. I had never seen one before and when I first caught sight of this little bird, just a few feet away from me, I was delighted. I found this bird better looking than its cousins, despite my fondness of all the Wagtails. However, the Forest Wagtail wasn’t as obliging as the Magpie Robin, so one not-too-clear picture of this bird was all that we could get before he flew away, never to be seen again.

My eyes wandered around on the lawn to see if I could spot the bird once more, but the Magpie Robin was all alone. We got on to the jeep, and drove on, with our hopes of wonderful sightings soaring higher every minute.

The wonderful thing about forests is the amount of surprises that they have in store for one who is willing to explore. One never knows what one’s going to see next. And if one is not ready and alert, so many rare birds and animals will go unseen and unnoticed, unless they happen to be too large to ignore – elephants, for instance. I remember, a couple of years ago, when I used to be in forests, I would never see as much as a sparrow; I later realised that it was because I didn’t know where or how to look. After a few self-taught lessons, I have learnt to be more alert. Kabini is a wonderful example of what a few watchful pairs of eyes can discern amidst the camouflage, what treasure can be hidden beneath the dry foliage.

A few minutes into the forest, we were pleasantly surprised to spot a Crested Serpent Eagle perched on a tall tree by the roadside. It was a rare sight – the eagle looked gorgeous and we stood there staring at it for quite some time. Not very far, we were surprised by another unusual sighting. This time, it was on the ground, obscured by the carpet of dry, brown leaves that had spread on the ground. There, perfectly hidden was a Common Hoopoe, with its beautiful fan-like crest, curved beak and pretty colours, hopping on the ground, picking up food all along. The guide told us that this bird spends almost all its life on the ground. I was amazed by its striking looks – although I had seen its pictures in bird books before, the real bird was nothing like the pictures. It was much prettier than I had thought.

Encouraged by two rare sightings at the beginning of the trip, our hopes of seeing more rare animals shot up. By the time we reached the river side, we were looking all around us, our eyes hardly blinking, for the fear of missing something. We didn’t have to strain ourselves, for there, right in front of us, was yet another rare bird, sitting on a tree stump, as if it had been waiting for us all morning. It was an Osprey! I almost cried out in delight. I had never in my wildest dreams imagined that I was going to see this bird in the wild! Although seen almost all over the world, this bird is difficult to spot in Indian forests. Mostly a winter visitor, Ospreys are found near water bodies mostly in April and May. I had recently watched a programme on television about the efforts being made to conserve Ospreys in England and was impressed by the beauty and the diving skills of these strikingly beautiful birds. It wasn’t even a week since I had watched this programme and here I was, actually looking at a live Osprey! I thanked my luck for the hundredth time during that trip!

We spent nearly ten minutes with the Osprey and quite reluctantly moved on. We found quite a few wild boars again and more bison herds which had come down to the river to quench their thirst. Looking at so many wild animals on a glorious summer morning by the tranquil riverside is a feeling that can be hardly described.

Finally, we came upon a herd of elephants that were grazing on bamboo shoots. We got closer to a few young ones, who got curious about us and started to sniff at us from a distance.

The jeep stopped near the edge of the river, where we had to get on to a coracle and go for a ride in the river. The coracle ride added nothing new to our animal sightings, although it was very interesting for a bird-watcher. We could see, on the other bank there was a peacock dancing with its feathers spread in its full glory. Unfortunately it was too far away and we could only see it clearly through a pair of binoculars and couldn’t get any pictures. The peacock danced tirelessly, displaying its splendid plumage, for almost half an hour!

Up in the sky, we spotted a few beautiful birds – spoonbills, river terns, spot billed ducks in flight. A black headed Ibis was waiting for its prey near the shores, a pond heron stood motionless, looking very innocent, waiting to dart into the water when a fish came too close. A Common Greenshank was wading in the shallow waters.

As we returned to the shores, there was a bison herd which just entered into the water for an early morning drink. One of them felt curious enough to turn and look at us, although his gaze was as nonchalant as it could get. There was a wild boar too, although he couldn’t care less for our presence.

As we drove through the forest again, a few young stags displayed curiosity, with in a more expressive manner than the bisons. With a few more bird sightings,mixed with a Malabar Giant Squirrel seen scampering about, the safari ended almost too soon.

Before we even realised it was time for us to leave Kabini. We started our return journey, promising ourselves that we would be back soon, as this trip was just too short. I had set out to Kabini thinking of nothing but elephants, but as I returned with rich wildlife experiences, I realised what a paradise Kabini is for the forest dwellers and what a haven for birds it is too! With my heartfelt wishes for the blissful Sanctuary to continue to remain so, I hope to return to Kabini again and again.