Tag: wildlife

Nature

cat and its lair…

Indian desert cat, Tal Chappar, Rajasthan, India

the cat is a contradictory phenomenon, a pet you don’t really own, an existence that baffles Schrödinger, symbolic of witches or exuding the air of a wiseman… if the canine is warmth of attachment, the feline is cold of detachment… bereft of anxiety, it basks in the aloofness that comes with predatory instincts… the cat, …

Nature

on pensive birds…

Grey heron (Ardea cinerea)

pensive are the avifauna that predate… especially at dawn or dusk, when not hunting for food, there’s an expression on their face that is enlightened yet forlorn at the same time… once saturated with crocs, we started scouting the banks of Chambal, and ruminated on a grey heron and an Egyptian vulture that were relatively …

Nature

on crocs of Chambal…

crocs in Chambal River, India

crocs, in a sense, are a perfect faunal representation of the landscape of Chambal… there’s an overarching sense of the sedate punctuated by violent outbursts of activity… badlands – geography seeping into the society… serrations in the terrain and caste divides… law of the land that once caved in to dacoity, dregs of which still …

Mountains, Nature

Wistfulness and birds in the mountains…

Wistfulness of birds... Plumbeous water redstart (Phoenicurus fuliginosus), female

Wistfulness is a state of poetic realms, tinges of sweet sorrow sprinkled over the cocoon of contentment… so it feels rather amusing when one manifests it on to animals (in the guise of anthropomorphism) at first, but it makes at sense at times, when formal discourses on solutions to the evolution of evolution and genes …

Nature

On elephant, unexpressed…

Elephant in Corbett National Park, India

Pachyderms, especially the elephant, much closer to humans that any other of their brethren, are a placid kind, a tad too much for their own good it seems at times, trudging countless miles without the frills and tantrums of well-provisioned wayfarers, if one were to think of a living analogy for taking it in one’s …

Nature

a lizard yarn…

Predatory instincts work on an interesting dichotomy – stealth builds upon the slowest of movements and translates into a narrative of high speed leaving hardly any space between the transition… with the agamids, ‘tis the slow, tentative footsteps contrasted with a ferocious tongue, a tentative rustle between the bushes, never hastening when in attack… for …

Nature

On monsoons and mating rituals…

As the sky grows overcast, ‘tis time for the shrill, raspy chatters of Baya weavers to fill up the tree tops, yet another one of those elaborate and enchanting courtship rituals of the avifaunal kingdom… the seemingly fickle constructs of grass it calls a nest swaying at the slightest of breeze yet sturdy enough to …