Grasshoppers are intriguing, from living catapults that pleasantly pique a child’s curiosity to swarms of locusts that lay waste to agriculture, one of the pillars of human evolution, survivors par excellence that predate dinosaurs… there was this pumpkin vine at home this time around that had grew remarkably well, partly through the monsoons, and partly …
Tag: biodiversity
Bhyundar Khal, tripping billies
Reminiscences from Bhyundar Khal, a high altitude Himalayan trek in Uttarakhand connecting the Valley of Flowers to Gamshali village near Tibetan border
birds in the backyard…
Musings on backyard birds in the monsoons…
Housekeepers, the avian kind…
Housekeepers is what comes to mind when one looks at the smaller birds prancing about the terra firma or waiting pensively at the waterside… while the raptors and mammals go about their mauling, impaling, tearing and digging like teenagers, leaving a seeming mess in their wake, the little ones tend to go about their business …
On grouchy grasshoppers
Grasshoppers … the negligent fiddler of Aesop’s discourse on responsibility who suffers from its improvidence… an athletic pest that like many of its brethren flaunts a flashy disposition… mostly vegetarian unless forced to turn omnivorous… wearing a rather amused expression that permeates through those compound eyes and large jaws… Startles are how grasshoppers mostly interact …
Thrush, threshing…
Musings on Scaly thrush (Zoothera dauma), a secretive ground foraging bird common in the Himalayan region
A roller, roiled…
Musings on an Indian roller (Coracias benghalensis) with a broken beak, Tal Chappar, Rajasthan, India
Spring in the backyard…
Spring in the mountains, a time when the sun is finally emboldened enough to begin scrubbing away the vestiges of winter, the cold begins to lose its bite and the canopy starts humming to the wind… the brooding dark winter is a time to contemplate, whilst on the other side of the vernal equinox, ‘tis …
hawks and their winter haunts…
Musings on a Pallid Harrier and Eurasian sparrowhawk, Tal Chappar Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan, India
eagles – on lazy migrants and sly natives…
Musings on the the similarities and differences between Steppe & Tawny eagles, Tal Chhapar wildlife sanctuary, Rajasthan