Andaman - The wild side

"Heavy rains lash Chennai, airport closed" screamed the headlines in the news.  My mind went back a a few days, when I had been in Chennai on my way to Port Blair.  A silent prayer was on my lips, thanking God that I had made it.

Ladakh – Where Heaven and Earth meet

Ladakh - A land of extremes, one of the few places on earth where one can get sun burnt and frost bitten on the same day , where sand dunes meet snow capped peaks and the hills defy gravity*.

Bhadra in Action - A photo essay

kuk kaya kaya kuk ...

The call of the grey jungle fowl welcomed us to the River Tern Lodge at Bhadra wildlife sanctuary.

Situated right next to the Bhadra dam, the rooms in the lodge have a spectacular view of the backwaters.  River terns (the presence of which has given the lodge its name), striated swallows, doves provide ample opportunities for "arm-chair birding" from the room.  On the farther shores, an elephant or even a black panther may make a surprise appearance 

Room with a view	Striated swallow

Tadoba – Into the Forests of Kipling’s Jungle Book

Telia cubs in water

“Welcome to the Real Land of Tigers” – so proclaims the banner at the Moharli Gate of Tadoba-Andheri National Park.  Our first safari justified this statement.  We saw more tigers – five, in fact - than any other animal.

Gudavi – Malnad’s Hidden Wonderland

Black headed ibis

Deep within Malnad *, where the district of Shimoga meets Uttara Kannada district, there exists a seasonal lake surrounded by dense forest.  Every year, from August to November, this lake plays host to hundreds of nesting ibises and egrets.  The lake and a portion of the surrounding forest form the Gudavi Bird sanctuary.

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

A cub making its way to mother

Imagine a heavily wooded valley with you on one side and a family of tigers, feeding on a kill, on the other.   This was the scene which greeted us on our first safari into Bandhavgarh.  A few minutes later, the mother tigress’s call reverberated through the jungle, making the cubs – which had wandered off – to move back towards the kill and reminding us of where we were.  We were in Tiger Country.

Ranganathittu - A Birder's Paradise

On the banks of river Cauvery lies a gem of a bird sanctuary.  Though less than a square kilometer in area, Ranganathittu has a very high bird count, both in species and in numbers.  In spring and summer, aquatic birds like spoonbills, river terns, open bill storks, pelicans, painted storks nest in small islands in the river, while terrestrial birds like Tickell's blue fly catcher, fan-tail flycatchers, peafowls, tailor birds flitter about on the river bank.

Rann of Kutch: Desert of Life 2

Greater Rann of Kutch

A journey of around 6 hours from Rann Riders brought us to Nakhatrana where our stay was arranged in Centre for Desert and Ocean.  Our days here were to be spent exploring the Banni grasslands.

The Banni grasslands of Greater Rann of Kutch are very different from the dried up landscape of Little Rann of Kutch.  Due to volcanic activity in the distant past, a few rocky hills litter the land.  There is even a rock, by the name of bird rock, where one can find red-tailed wheat ears.  Most of the grassland is covered by pock marks caused by thousands of cranes digging the ground for dried tubers.

Rann of Kutch: Desert of Life 1

Little Rann of Kutch

Kutch Landscapes

On first impression, the Rann of Kutch is a vast, arid landscape, apparently devoid of all life.  As far as the eye can see, the sun baked landscape stretches out without a mountain or a hill to break the monotony.  Only the mirages playing on the horizon give a false impression of the presence of life saving water.  But, spend some time here, and that mirage may well turn out to be thousands of flamingos feeding in a still surviving lake.

How One became Many

A Photo Essay

This is the story of a single common mormon pupa that metamorphosed into many wasps – a tale of parasites and opportunists.
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The One

Common mormon pupa hanging from coriander leaf

Dodging and Burning - An Overview

A while back, I had been to Ranganthittu to photograph the river terns.  For those who don't know where Ranganthittu is, it is a bird sanctuary comprising of a cluster of islands in Cauvery river, near Mysore.  A lot of birds - openbills, painted storks, pelicans, river terns ... - come here to breed.  The river terns, in particular, nest on a small rock in the middle of the river.

The lighting conditions in Ranganthittu are not exactly optimum.  One can never get all the elements in the image properly exposed.  When the bird is exposed properly, the rocks, covered with guano, become hopelessly over exposed.  When the exposure is based on the rocks, the bird becomes underexposed.  To add to the complication, the river tern is a predominantly black and white (silvery grey to be exact) bird, making the exposure even more difficult.

Weaver Ants: From Nest to Nest

Sometime back, a colony of weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) decided to grace my home by constructing a nest on a hibiscus plant in my backyard.  I spent many a happy hour observing these fascinating little creatures as they went about their daily business of constructing their nest, gathering food, maintaining their gardens of homopterans (sucking insects that feed on plant juices)…

Marching ants

A Weekend in the Rainforest

From the polluted streets of Bengaluru, I decided to head out into the forests of Agumbe to attend the Rainforest Exploratory Workshop conducted by ARRS (Agumbe Rainforest Research Station).  The research station is nestled within the pristine rain forests of the Western Ghats.

A View of the research station.