This post first appeared on Snow Leopard Trust’s blog. Our team in India’s Spiti Valley was treated to an extraordinary sighting of the elusive Ghost of the Mountain on a recent field visit. For Research Associate Ajay Bijoor, it was the first encounter with the cat he’s dedicated his life and career to. Read his account of […]
WORKSHOP | Ecological restoration: Principles, practice, and monitoring
Dates: 1-5 May 2017 (excluding arrival and departure dates) Location: NCF rainforest restoration research station, Valparai, Anamalai Hills, Tamil Nadu, India Lead instructors: Dr T R Shankar Raman, Dr Anand Osuri and Dr Divya Mudappa Ecological restoration of fragmented and degraded habitats can play an important role in conserving biodiversity and improving the supply of […]
When termites take wing
by Abinand Reddy The summer had beaten the valley. Everything looked thirsty – the animals and trees. Even the ground looked parched. Except for the occasional rustling of the tired and dusty leaves, the valley stood still. The calls of birds and squirrels weren’t to be heard today. Maybe they had found a nice shady […]
The land of travelling falcons
by Swati Sidhu The sunlight was weakening and the cool of an advancing night was creeping into the air. We stopped to ask a young man where we were. “In Tyrso”, he replied. Marshall, Nick, and I had been driving for three hours and had watched the road gradually deteriorate the further we got […]
What is it about fig trees?
They have a magical hold over me. It happens every time. I see a fig tree — it doesn’t matter what type of fig tree – I stop, I stare, and then I smile. I veer right toward it as if on autopilot and stand up close to the ttrk. Under the canopy of the […]
The fall of a squirrel
by Suhel Quader I was in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, named after the beautiful river that flows through it. In October, the trees in the forest were already beginning to shed their leaves, and the landscape looked brown and drab. Except, that is, the part of the sanctuary through which the river flows. The silver […]
Musings on Madras Museum
I visited the Zoology section of Madras Government Museum in 2014 and found that it to be an interesting place. As a wildlife biologist, I found the Natural history section very interesting as well as important for education and scientific reasons. Several collections displayed in this section are of historical importance, such as the rare […]
Sing me a folktale
The calls and songs for birds are beautiful and distinctive, and are the subject of folklore in different parts of India. There are various interesting folklores based on some of the bird calls and songs. In some parts of Tamil Nadu, the Common Hawk Cuckoo is called Akka Kuyil (Akka means elder sister and Kuyil […]
Reconnecting children with the natural world—Q&A with Suhel Quader
The natural world is magical. And if you’ve spent even a little time by a clear, whispering river as you patter your bare feet on smooth pebbles, or watched a spider delicately weave its web as it glistens with dew and trembles gently in the wind, or experienced the deep sense of calm that observing […]
Birds that call their names
Imagine having our names based on the shape of our nose, our hairstyle, our body color, or based on the way we speak and behave! It would be funny and possibly even horrible, don’t you think? Fortunately our parents did not do that. But this is exactly what ornithologists did while naming most of the […]