A few weeks back was Father’s day. When my daughters wished me with a lovely card they had made, it got me thinking. There are so many hard at work dads in the natural world as well whose efforts go quite unnoticed. They carry on with their paternal duties without expecting any appreciation in return. These highly motivated and dedicated fathers deserve every bit of praise and it was time to hail them too....
Nights in a rainforest are far from being a silent affair. The whole forest seems to come alive as the darkness sets in. While the day time performers of a musical symphony are the cicadas, the nights belong to the crickets. And if it is monsoon season, the multitude of frogs chime in with their vocal contributions. The rhythmic music of crickets accompanied by the high pitched tones of the frogs, the spooky calls of a nightjar or an owl, the gurgling sounds of the many streams breaking through their rocky paths, the soft, chill breeze blowing through the leaves and branches of tall trees, among many others, are what characterise a rainforest night....
In nature, the predator-prey dynamics is always wonderful to witness, be it a tiger bringing down a sambar or a gaur, a pack of wild dogs chasing down their prey, on a smaller scale, a jumping spider stealthily stalking its prey, or a snake, snapping up its prey with its lightning fast strike. All these are true adrenaline pumping moments. Moments which get etched in the viewer’s mind and stay on for a long time to come....
Southern Flying Lizard, more commonly known as the Draco, are amazing reptiles found across the Western Ghats and other hill forests of southern India. They have this unique ability to glide from tree to tree , something akin to flying, thus getting their name. They are most commonly seen climbing up on tree trunks amidst something like the arecanut plantations. A Draco’s day begins just as the light of morning sun starts streaming in through the canopy....
Lifer, a lifer man !…, said Shreeram, when I pointed him to a little insect flying around on the leaves while we were descending towards the famed and beautiful Jogi Gundi falls in Agumbe. It was very interesting to think of an insect as a lifer (Lifer, being, something that one sees for the first time in their life. ). Have heard that term many a times, among birders, ( I call myself, one too… :-) ), but heard it for the first time in the context of insects....