Trails of Nature - 2

Dear friends,

Today you are welcome for birding in my own courtyard. There is a window in my study overlooking a combined bush of Hibiscus and Ixora. I never found both these plants interesting, but in the afternoon they are frequented by some visitors for nectar.

On separate days I could click Mr and Mrs Loten's Sunbird. These birds are 10-12 cm long and seen extensively in Southern Peninsular India and Srilanka. They feed on tiny insects and are often seen hovering around flowers for nectar. Their long bill distinguishes them from Purple Sunbird.

The male birds are glossy purple colored with grey brown belly. He was closely followed by his girl at that time. They must be having a nest nearby which I couldn't find (they flew off hastily sensing my intrusion).

The females lack the purple color altogether. They are yellowish brown with yellowish underparts.

It seems the female enjoyed the photoshoot with me! Look how she is posing for me.

The breeding season is Nov to March in India (Wiki information), the nest is often seen as a suspended bag of cobwebs, twigs and grass.

Look out for them in your garden and I am sure you will find them.

Trails of Nature - 1

Dear friends,

Do you know me?

I am a Malayan Tapir, right now living in Singapore Zoo.

Mine is an endangered species mostly owing to the loss of habitat, rainforests . We are extremely sensitive to changes in our environment especially due to human habitation.

We are herbivores mammals. One reason for our extinction is due to the fact that the females reproduce only once in 2 years and the gestational period is quite long - 12-13 months. Most of the times it is a single baby.

The babies look plump and cute with stripes and spots over the body that they are called walking watermelons. The spots help them for camouflage.

We have a trunk that is formed by fused nose and upperlip. It gives us a powerful sense of smell.

We are good swimmers as well as runners inspite of some 200-300 kg body weight. We manage to escape from most of the predators except one, that is human beings!

Many organisations have been formed to protect us from extinction like Tapir specialist group. This picture has been saved from tapirs.org to show you the other tapirs.

One last word from me, SAVE RAIN FORESTS..... and save the many homeless unfortunates including me and my family.
Thanks for stopping by.

Trails of Nature

I love nature, don't you?

I am starting of series where I introduce to you a little bit of nature. It might be a flower, a bird, an animal or anything that is intricately related to nature. My photographs are taken by my companion cam Mr. Nike - the Nikon P 100 , and forgive us if they do not come upto your standards. If you are up for a bit of fun you are welcome aboard, I shall take you to new nature trails.

PS: Not necessarily jungle safaris, but also shots from my own courtyard, zoo,parks and wherever green comes to life. I shall meet you with nature trails on all Wednesdays.

My Rain Drenched Singapore Trip

We are back after our first Singapore visit. Yes, it is the first one and hopefully there will be more. Though the purpose of the visit was to write an exam it was much awaited and much planned for months. We were literally thrilled right from boarding the flight till our return.

We expected so many things to be seen in Singapore. Much to our dismay the last thing we expected and what we found was simply RAIN. Well, Mr. Sun decided to take a short break and we were welcomed at the airport by a downpour. After the exams we had exactly 2 days and one night at leisure for sight seeing. Nevertheless we made the best of the trip and as soon as we returned to the sunny hometown my husband has started his search for 'vacancies in Singapore'. So you can imagine how we feel.

To summarize the tours, on Day 1 we went to Singapore zoo and Night Safari. On day 2 we visited the fun packed Sentosa island. I will be back with details soon. Hope you will find time to visit me.

What is the best birthday gift you ever received?

Today is my birthday and I sit in my room reminiscing the Kodai trip of last year. Kodai is a hill station located in the Palani hills, Dindigal district, Tamil Nadu. To my pleasant surprise the trip coincided with my birthday.

Though I am a late riser I was woken up well before sunrise by the chirping of tiny birds heard over the balcony. I opened the windows to see this amazing sunrise through the Palani hills and rushed for the camera to take pictures. What could be a better gift than this marvelous scene ravishing my eyes on my birthday?

Today morning I peep out of the window to see that sun is already up. The rays of sun infiltrate through green leaves of the innumerable trees in my neighbor's courtyard. The gleaming young leaves of this gooseberry tree caught my eyes and here it is.

I thank God for the simple gifts that he shower upon us everyday; they make our life worth living.

From Bandipur diary 2010 - 3

If you have missed out the earlier parts, you can read it here- Part 1 and part 2


Jungle Safari

By 3.30pm we got ready and rushed to get Safari tickets. There were 2 options- one was to go by bus at Rs.190 per head. Then the next is Jeep Safari at Rs.2000 and double rate if you are a foreigner. We didnt need much time to chose. We were not exactly interested in being chased by a herd of elephants or a tiger who suddenly decided to eat man for a change and opted for the bus ride.

The bus that guaranteed a bumpy ride if not the possibility of seeing many wild animals.

There were plenty of monkeys around the place, more in number than men, all addicted to Lays and Kurkure. They are being potato chips fed and spoiled by man for generations aganist the rule of mother nature.

They were arrogant,naughty yet affectionate.


The safari began sharp at 4’o clock, thanks to Karnataka govt. We were warned that we may not see any interesting creatures at all, and that we will be returned safely in 45 min time no matter what we manage to see. So the Safari began after the driver was able to hush down the loud noices of children.

Spotted deers were seen in plenty- the favourite food item of the mighty tigers of Indian forests

Then we saw a group of Bisons or Gaur. They are hugely muscular pure vegetarians, a variety of wild cattle. They were having a small party at that time in mud.

Disturbed by our intrusions and shrieks of children they decided to split off and we had to continue with our ride.

His majesty was too busy having an early supper. He concentrated mainly on his diet till he got distracted by the shouts of children.

Now the driver cum guide of the bus was angry and he warned these kids as they were spoiling the fun of co-travelers and wild animals.

Mighty elephant families were seen in plenty. After seeing the captivated animals in town it is a relief to know that free ones do exist in forests.

Finally a tiger in sight. Now everyone was curious to know whether it was alive or just a dummy!!

Well, it was an insult to him and he turned his face to prove himself.

The driver was contented now that we had spotted enough animals for 190 rupees worth and he turned and drove back nonstop. The ride was fun but put a lot of pressure in my ear labyrinthes. I was giddy and quite happy when the ride ended.

Special mention : on our way back to resort we saw wild boar twice. First time, we had an argument and John was not convinced that it was wild boar, it was only an ordinary pig. The fellow escaped our sight and I didnt get to photograph him. The second one turned out to be shy and was very fast. John was convinced this time, still I couldnt get to shoot him. As a big fan of Asterix and Obelix comics the disappointment was huge for me. The Indian wild boars are smaller than European ones and you will get some information here.

We made it on time for tea in the resort. I took this photo as a memoir for the nice time spent there and the photo was John's idea(clicked with fill in flash).

The next day we left the place in the morning with a lot of nice memories. Our special thanks to Karnataka Govt

From Bandipur diary 2010 - 2

You can read the part 1 here

I woke up to a wonderful day in Bushbetta. I opened the door in the morning to hear birds chirping and monkeys squeaking with delight. There is always breeze. Sometimes gentle caressing your cheeks, sometimes strong enough to hug you tight. We could see plenty of tiny birds around, many of them unfamiliar to us. These days urbanization is making the small birds extinct for they are losing their habitat. I began bird watching right away clicking them with my ultrazoom Nikon coolpix P100. As you can see the image quality is not so great, but few of the birds were good enough to pose for me in a nice way.

The red whiskered bulbul

Now I was really losing my patience. Shooting tiny birds without a tripod is really frustrating. There were plenty of robins and other tiny birds which skillfully evaded my camera. We went to have our breakfast at 9.30am. The tables were relatively empty by the time we finished our breakfast. We were surprised to see a lot of winged beauties chirping in the nearby table fearlessly. They had come for the left overs and were not bothered by the shooing of the waiter boys. I rushed to the sight for some quick snaps and the boys had to wait to clean up till I was done.

After breakfast we loitered around the resort for sometime and then decided to go for a drive to the nearby villages.

All I wanted was to see sunflower fields and John drove a few kilometers to find them. I voraciously shot a lot of pictures till he was bored.

They stood majestically facing the sun in unison, an impressive sight.

Several other crops were there including onion. We were stopped many times by boys waving frantically at us to buy onion. Soon we were back to the resort for lunch and a short break. Jungle safari was due by 3.30pm. I resumed bird watching from the balcony and John took a short break.

I will be back with the rest of my stories soon, till then Bye....