Saturday, December 13, 2008

My Question

Why is it that humans do not have a natural predator?

Friday, December 12, 2008

Tuesday 9-12-2008

Shilondha has a special place in my heart as I first learnt birding here, moreover it’s an easy trail not too tiring and always full of surprises.
Taking prior permission from the forest officials, seven of us (me, neeta, Saurabh, Prasad, Preyas, Pramod and Vikram) started birding at around 8:30-9:00. With fours Pr (ayer)’s in the group our prayers for good sightings came true. The very first sighting was of little green bee-eaters, 3-4 of them proving the early bird gets the bee adage. Next was a Loten’s sunbird, a rich shimmering purple, on his favorite bamboo perch just as one enters shilondha. The next sighting that put roses on our cheeks was of Common Rosefinches, one male and two females eating seeds on a tree. Oblivious to our presence we admired them for at least 15 minutes. Scaly Breasted Munia’s were bountiful and we saw 20-30 of them through the whole trail.
Walking ahead I saw a yellow pansy, the yellow very bright sunshiny with contrasting dark blue and black, it looked like an artists colour dish. Chestnut Shouldered Petronia’s were also seen, puffed yellow chest reflecting sunlight.
Swifts in thousands were seen in one small patch of the sky, invisible to naked eye but for two raptors heading straight towards them, gave away their presence. This was and amazing sight, none of us having seen something like this before, we all oohed and aahed at them.
A very good side-effect of not allowing people to enter shilondha is not only increased bird activity but also mammal activity. We were lucky to sight a hare, its lair just adjoining the trail camouflaged in a fallen bamboo thicket.
We sat near the third stream, which is mostly dried up but still has a little water tinkling away and a small shallow pool. A lot of butterflies came to mud-puddle and sunbathe. I saw a Gaudy Baron only for the second time in my life, first having seen it four years ago on shilondha trail itself near the first stream. It’s a very beautiful butterfly true to its name very gaudy, its colors flash like nothing you have quite seen in your life and it’s quite rare. It made us run after it but Saurabh and Preyas managed to get a few good pictures. It soon disappeared having got fed up of our attention I presume. Also seen were a Common Baron and a Tawny Coster butterfly. Minute Lycaenids flit near the cool moist mud looking like small pieces of paper fluttering in the wind.
Around 11:30-12:00, the raptors arrived; a Steppe Eagle flew quite low gradually gaining altitude with help of thermals while an Indian Spotted eagle flew just a notch above him.
On our way back we came across a mixed hunting flock of 2-3 Tickell’s Blue Flycatchers, a very cute looking Grey Headed Canary Flycatcher, Black Naped Blue Monarch female and one un-idid Warbler. I have somehow always managed to miss seeing a Tickell’s Blue before today, just missing it by a few trees, but today we all saw this gorgeous bird to our heart’s content while it danced away in the branches. All in all some very satisfying sightings.
Weary of a long day but with hearts full of a morning well spent we returned to our homes (atleast I did)

Monday, December 8, 2008

Today morning i read in TOI about a gentleman in pune, a retired engineer who after getting fed up by the electricity dept of pune, who have for four months kept a whole village in dark by not repairing a faulty transformer, made a miniature windmill for home use. He created the whole thing from scratch taking help of a fellow engineer and today is the proud owner of a windmill which powers all his light and fan fixtures, all for Rs. 25,000, a very laudable effort. Would love to own one of those babies myself one day.
Also I was wondering, can a miniature fan be attached to the front of rickshaws and a small inverter ( maybe in future with nanomics in power, invisible to the eye?) to power the ricks? I feel a little guilty every time i hire a rick especially when travelling alone, can my vision be worked on? I would love to see golf cart sized vehicles which could be hired and driven individually or by a driver, running on either windmill or solar energy.
( http://www.homewindmill.org )



Portuguese built the Vasai or Bassein fort in the 15th century, it covers a vast area and it is said that in olden days encompassed seven villages. But the Portuguese in their wildest dreams must never have imagined the ruinous state it is in today. The beautiful architecture of old is visible in few places. Majority of the area is wilderness, traces of a mango orchard are also seen, the trees so heavily laden with orchids we rechristened them as orchid trees.

Between all of this a jarring image welcomes you, right in the middle of nowhere is a society, the buildings a drab yellow and in complete contrast to the magnificent fort. Also the shoddy cementing of the beautiful sandstone walls in the name of restoration by the archaeological department is heartbreaking.

But the wilderness also has it own beauty, at one place stand the two remaining walls of a once huge hall and in this overgrown, moist and shady corner striped tiger butterflies gather in huge numbers. We were a little early in season and they were in lesser numbers than we saw last year but I still cannot shake off the wondrous feeling of seeing so many of them congregating at one small patch that time forgot.

The butterflies are so perfectly camouflaged that at first sight there's nothing there but just as I stepped in the patch, in that one moment the place transformed into paradise. A cloud of butterflies rose on tinsely wings with dark tiger stripes and floated a few feet above ground and as suddenly as they had come they disappeared in the undergrowth and now i see them holding onto old vines like dried leaves...

Its such a dreamlike sequence i wanted to make sure the butterflies are for real and tried to catch one on my outstretched Palm, it dodged so beautifully almost as if passing right through my hand, kinda makes one wonder...

I don't want to give away the exact location of this magical place ( never having gone on my own always with friends who know the way), but even if you do come across this treasured patch that the butterflies love, please tread softly on this hallowed ground and keep our secret safe.

Friday, December 5, 2008


Tuesday, June 10, 2008
On the eve of World Environment Day we decided to organise a signature campaign outside Borivli stn (w). Very early on 5th june me, Gaurav, Shreyas, Ketaki, Ovee, Nimesh, Mrs poonam, Akruti, Aishwarya, Karan and the littlest one Mrs poonam' son met outside the stn with posters, placards and a little bit of skepticism never having done something like this before. We stood just outside the entrance so tht all the commuters passing by could see us. For the nxt 2 hrs (7-9 a.m) that we stood, we interacted with people from all walks of life. We wished one and all Happy Environment Day, all of them were hurrying to catch a train, some responded with nods, some wished us back, some walked by us as if we were invisible। We received a lot of positive responses, people stopped despite getting late, talked to us, signed the forms (save trees, save frogs), most of thm asked to be contactd for more info and were ready to participate in future activities. The main attractors were the small girls Akruti and Aishwarya, they ran everywhere with great gusto, wished all the women and literally dragged them to sign the forms and no one could resist their charms. All in all it was a fun and succesful campaign, we received around 100 signatures per campaign. We thank everyone for a gr8 response

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Monday, December 1, 2008

Winter's tale of Tunga

On Sunday 30th Nov, SPROUTS had a winter trail at Tungareshwar, Vasai. Around 10 of us joined for the trail and had quite a few sightings. Rosy Pastors were seen near Vasai stn itself, having a breakfast of freshly baked sunlight and some very noisy conversations with each other. We reached Tunga at around 8-8:15 and started our trail with calls of Greenish Warbler and Red Whiskered Bulbul's. It was quite cloudy and we were scared that id'ing the bird would be difficult, nonetheless just as we entered the forest hardly 20 mins distance away we found a nice mixed hunting flock. The first birds sighted were 3 Racket Tailed Drongo's looking quite handsome in black tails, a Paradise Flycatcher female made the next entry. There were quite a few birds and initially it was tough trying to decide which bird to observe, all of us were crying excitedly to each other to look at this or that bird, it’s something different. We had a good sighting of Black Headed Cuckooshrike but had a tough time id'ing it as there were a lot of White Bellied Drongo's around making us wonder if it was a cuckooshrike we just saw or drongo until Anand confirmed the sighting, few of us also saw a Large Cuckooshrike. A Black hooded Oriole peooed away while Scarlet Minivets added colour to the grey day. A beautiful Black Rumped flameback flew from one tree to another while a Rufous Treepie gave us a very short glimpse of his back. A Black Naped Blue Monarch female confused us for a while never quite revealing herself fully making some of us think she was a verditer flycatcher untill we got a good glimspse of her and the mystery was solved. In between all this excitement Anand, Varun and Sangeeta sighted a tree shrew which the rest of missed sorely, we went near the tree where she was seen but no luck. One of the last sightings was of a Common Woodshrike. After all this excitement there was a lull till the end of the trail, we moved out of the area and started walking on the main path now paying more attention to the food in our bags rather than the binocs in our hands. The raptors were missing due to cloud cover and the only 1 or 2 we did see were very tough to id, though one of them could possibly have been a short toed snake eagle.
There still was a little water in the streams and we decided to sit near one on the huge boulders to finish off the rest of the food and accrodingly climbed down a small valley to be near a stream wich had a checkered keelback making trips to the surface to breathe air, whirligig beetles tired of whirling in the water and a very fat golden eyed bullfrog meditating on the rocks . While sitting there eating slice cakes and other goodies we discussed a few problems plaguing tungareshwar. Tunga has more of evergreen trees and its topography is quite diffn from sanjay gandhi national park, those of us who have been to SGNP can make out this difference rightaway. SGNP also has too many exotic trees while tunga somehow has a old world feel with the very tall and dense trees and land sloping upwards. We came to know that tungareshwar has 2-3 temples inside and also an illegal ashram in the inner parts. Due to this there is a lot of human activity what with people incesstantly turning up on foot, on noisy bikes, rickety rickshaws , cars and buses whcih honk away with merry abandon. Tungareshwar has a very beautiful forest and if not maintained well we could loose it to careless devotees who come to partake of its spirituality without paying attention to its natural beauty. On our way out we collected a lot of plastics, thermocol plates and also glass which was strewn everywhere on the boulders, a parting gift of the many visitors who dont have much else to give to this already beautiful place.