Sighting the pink-browed rosefinch at Mukteshwar
It was my first vacation in the hills of Uttarakhand. From my terrace room in the Ojaswi Himalayan resort in Mukteshwar, I spotted the whole Himalayan range of peaks. Getting up early in the morning to spot…
The frisky Himalayan Bulbul: Punk with a mohawk
We decided to spend a quiet vacation in Mukteshwar in Uttarakhand. This time we steered clear of ‘spot-hopping’. Preferred to take it slow and watch the magnificent Himalayan peaks from my room. But then the bird watching…
The Adorable Giant Pandas
Ever since I got to know that I would be spending a few days in Macau this summer, I began reading all I could from the internet. And I got really excited at the prospect of finally…
The ‘tantalising’ painted storks
The word ‘tantalise’ means ‘desirable but just out of reach’. This word is derived from the Greek mythological figure Tantalus. As the legend goes, Tantalus is a son of Zeus who is an evil doer. In one…
On the tiger trail in Tadoba
Tadoba is Maharashtra’s oldest and largest national park. I had lived on the edge of the Tadoba forest for over six years of my life. The magazine area of the ordnance factory campus where we lived, was…
The cacophonous red-naped ibis
Since the new year, every dawn, I hear a series of loud cacophonic screams near my house. These begin as harsh squealing sounds and then get louder almost to the extent of trumpeting. And I know who…
The Black-necked Stork: A near-threatened species
Only recently there was a hue and cry in the papers about a black-necked stork which was spotted with a ring around its beak in a wetland outside Delhi. Black-necked storks are large birds, which are classified as…
The Rhinos of Kaziranga
Reminded of Ogden Nash’s poem, The Rhinoceros: The Rhino is a homely beast,For human eyes he’s not a feast,But you and I will never knowWhy Nature chose to make him so.Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,I’ll stare at…
Pallas’s fish eagle: Spotting a nest
In Kaziranga, last year, we spotted a nest. Was it empty? Empty nest? No, two white heads bobbed up. Hey! There is a couple inside! Eagles! Which one? This is Pallas’s fish eagle, a species classified as ‘vulnerable’ in…
