Summer update - Three

Finally! it feels no less than an achievement to be able to click on 'New Post' this time. Its not unusual to happen this in Summer given my laptop doesn't enjoy working at high temperatures and not much possibility of photographs too, but this long gap was aided by one of the longest net outage I experienced with only few hours of working net in last three weeks. Coming to the Summer update, my fears in last update indeed came true and those rains in Summers ensured that clouds were not welcomed in time and Summer continues when it should have been Monsoon by now. and that means Birding still is all about looking out of window and talking to regular visitors and not much more. Here are some of them.

Highlight of this summer I would say are two Magpie Robin Juvs. Absolutely lovely and very playful, watching them is reward enough to not complain about the Summer.

Despite delayed monsoon, this summer fortunately wasn't too bad for us at least. One, heat was moderate and even better, it wasn't very humid - which meant we could use this time evaporative cooler to some degree. Interestingly, it wasn't just us. Being inquisitive most creature around, this squirrel also discovered its benefits. Actually cooler is not perfectly fitted and there is some leakage of cool air outside. Squirrel found that out and it regularly enjoyed cool air by positioning itself on the window appropriately.

Meanwhile, Not all directions appeared hot dry and colourless as in shots above. There were opportunities to find beauty in both shades of green and more flashy colours.

Usually its Golden Oriole that gives us company and it was around this season too. but what gave better photo opportunity was this black hooded that is not seen so regularly.

Let me conclude this collection of 'outside my window' shots and hopefully Summer has also ended with few minutes of rain today evening.

Summer update - Two

Okay, these shots are not about Summer update related. Its just that I wanted to start with some colourful shots. 

I actually find it difficult to include bright coloured shots of different subjects in a post even when I like each shot individually, if colours arent in very much harmony, when together they create lot of visual conflict. I am trying a work around of separating them by some text so that both doesn't occupy screen at once and brain also doesn't jump from one colour to another straight away. that is why text in previous post was between two Sunrise shots and so is this text.

In below shot, actually I was attracted to this bright thorn (Spine actually as it was part of leaf, wikipedia tells me) and that mite is just at the right place purely by chance. as with my all shots with mites, I saw it only after it was in frame. 

Coming to the Summer update, correct title should have been an update of Summer that isn't. for almost last one week, reality felt like no less than a dream. Dark clouds, some rain followed by cool and refreshing breeze for a week was amazing but at the same time, I hope this relief now isn't indication of problems with monsoon ahead.

Keeping with the season, damselflies of all different colours and sizes are back. yet to take a good shot though.

Also around are those jumping spiders I never get tired of shooting. I see them in less numbers though compared to last year.

On birds front, saw this happy lapwing pair. at first I thought one of them, who was making large circle in front of other and then landing in a way that other had to save itself by ducking was a manner of fight but later their happy dance made it clear that it was some courtship ritual and not fight.

Photo is not good as is taken from a distance but I did not have much option as going nearer might have meant they going away and more importantly, standing under the Sun wasn't an option even if they didn't mind me standing at 10ft.

Then, I had an encounter with this completely unexpected and never seen before visitor. As I came out of front door when it was already dark outside, I sensed some movement just two three feet away on ground. Couldnt see properly but it appeared like thick short snake. I was almost sure it wont be a snake as all my previous encounters with them were of the individuals that moved very swiftly and wary of humans while this something, if there was anything at all in first place was there unmoving as I tried to see what shape it was. I then got a small torch and it was indeed a snake. When after another minute or two I finally remembered that I can take a shot with flash and came back with camera, snake was still there, but moving slowly now.

Eryx johnii

Eryx johnii - Red Sand Boa

Naming this snake was yet again an experience that makes me realise that what probably I don't lack so much in intelligence is made up by lack of presence of mind. Basically my Identification effort progressed like this. Before I start: "wow, this is a new snake. how it looks like having heads at both ends! let me try to find its ID." -- spend unreasonably long time looking at snake pictures where this species is also present but cant make up my mind -- taking a break from trying to find ID, I google after all what does that snake which is called a two headed snake (Do-muha in Hindi) looks like.

I would have concluded this post with red sand boa positioned as high point of this summer update but.. two days back, looking out of window, mom calls me and claims something is running around out there. As I see, there indeed was a tiny ball so well camouflaged over ground, running around. I could only think of it as francolin baby - except that if it was one, I expected it to be running along with its five six siblings behind their parents and not alone like this. a better look with 400mm quickly made it clear that its body language was that of a confident adult and not any juv plus, it looked like a quail! Now okay, I have never seen a quail, but aren't they much bigger? turning some pages of book gives the ID. its a buttonquail - a small bird that looks like quail but isn't.

Cloudy low-light day and restless bird meant shots weren't as good, but it didn't matter that much.

Barred Buttonquail (Female)

as a bonus, I got to see this big rat snake that was passing by. Buttonquail was not afraid of him and walked to reach as close as few inches of it's tail.

Sunrise

Sunrises are beautiful no matter if its a Sunrise where clouds are engaged in a losing battle to obstruct the Sun or if its a rising Sun whose strength makes it impossible to stare at it even as its coming over the horizon, Sun that makes what was considered huge at previous instant appear insignificant against itself. Sharing two such Sunrises I was lucky to capture.

As I hold my breath to tomorrow's Sunrise along with millions others, I hope I will be lucky to witness yet another rise that wont only brighten my own country but would also spread light to whole world as no one lives in isolation these days.

Some Spiders

Ok, I know I am overdoing it, but.. I am starting with same statement one last time. that is, for last two months, my time, and more than that attention was diverted away from nature. On one of such days, I notice an Ant, a big black variety walking on laptop ridge. I wondered what it was doing there - they are found in home but never saw one leaving ground to climb to tables, laptop. Anyhow, I quickly ignored it thinking it must have lost its way and is trying to get back through here. But before I managed to read few lines, ant was walking in reverse direction. It crossed the phone and took the wire route to laptop. It must have measured the center point of screen quite accurately as I watched it taking its position just above laptop camera and standing there. to me, its body language appeared to declare it was reviewing its kingdom standing there - something that didn't go too well with my concept of laptop ownership resting with myself. I think, I must have found an answer myself without any help but just then, the ant fell off the ridge and it dropped - for few inches after which the fall was arrested by a silk thread. So, yes, my apprehension was right. It wasn't any ant but an ant mimicking spider who I cant guess how reached here but surely had accepted it as its new home and was comfortable owning this new world.

For a change, I took a shot with flash on as its measuring phone.

I took the spider outside and left it there. it showed no confusion and walked towards dry leaves.

and.. I was so very excited when I saw an ant mimicking spider for the first time a year ago!

Another spider who lives on outer wall of the home.

Talking of spiders, I have accumulated some spider shots as they were around in amazing numbers. So let me make it a spider shots post then.

Below spiders came up suddenly and then, there were dozens, hundreds and soon thousands of them.

Seen not very frequently are these ones.

I saw below spider and this kind of web for the first time..it looked similar to me to tree trunk spiders but given this one was on a web, it must be different and I am feeling too lazy to find out its (or any) name. P.S. ok, it doesn't look like tree trunk spider - I was too lazy to click and see old shots of tree trunk spider yesterday but today morning did manage to walk to one in real life and see the difference.

Below spiders are always found sleeping. ok yes, I should have checked if they are nocturnal spiders and that's why they are always seen inactive during the day.

and few others..

Summer update - One

I remembered reading about a concept called neural inertia – how brain resists shifting between conscious and unconscious states. Remembered it now as it looks like my mind is experiencing some kind of inertia – it had wandered to broader human world due to general election and attempts to bring it back to immediate world of flora and fauna existing around me had been proving unsuccessful. I was immersed in words on computer screen and ever growing chorus of birds that 40+ degree of temperature usually brings with it was still being filtered out as irrelevant noise by brain. Some powerful pull to change my focus was needed and that probably could have been done only by one of the birds around. Common Myna – yes, they are common but no one can beat them in power, sweetness, continuous enthusiasm – specially in this season. so, I did find myself looking through view finder finally. One member each from two pairs was locked in fight and other member was yet to decide if it should start fight or watch one that was going on. After last year, I now know not to worry about them as they fight – they not only don’t harm each other, after 2 – 3 days, they will be best friends again. yet, after few seconds of watching the battle that had turned completely one sided, I couldn't stop doing what I do always. Scolded and separated them and came back. If I had taken shots, they would have been indistinguishable from those taken last year. When it comes to breeding season fights however, most notable (and probably not well explained too) fight I have seen till date was also last year, that of Female Magpie Robins. (link deliberately is of mobile site - normal flickr is becoming more and more user unfriendly and difficult to understand - I see that mobile site at least is somewhat like original flickr where you can see photo, description and comments.)

So its Summer now. Gulmohar are not too short of its peak glory, Golden shower flowers however are showing somewhat hesitant start. Monitor Lizard is back in the backyard, Oriole’s super sweet and loud calls are difficult to ignore – even when you are reading election news, but male Koel so far isn't even calling regularly leave alone calling at frequency where you think of filing a PIL against them, and female Koel hasn't made debut in backyard yet which looks strange. Barbet, Asian pied starling, Magpie Robin, White throated kingfisher, both bulbuls, treepie, drongo, and only today morning, chestnut tailed starlings have returned while one of the most notable absentee is Hornbill – with which I had started my first summer series two years back. That was both the worst and best Summer I have been through so far. Best because of what I found outside my window, and worst because of what brought so many birds there – limitless heat. If you have joined me at blogger and haven’t been through that old series, you may want to have a look at it here. 

I think I just heard female Koel outside briefly and.. its only a day and half before final round of polling begins..

Just another post

No fresh shots or story to share so thought of sharing some unrelated old shots not covered earlier. that way I will be able to keep up with my usual post frequency in this lean period too..

Last year this time, I was only thinking of getting a macro lens and was reading reviews, looking at other's macro shots to understand both what macro world is actually and which lens is good. One subject I came across often (by non macro photographers, but I didn't realise it then) was a fly shot and looking at those photos I had promised myself that I will never take a fly shot if I get macro lens. However, to my surprise, I found that flies come in not so ugly forms too. I am not very confident of telling flies from bees always though.

 

Something else that I had found sometime back.

I wonder if someday I will be able to witness a snake shedding its skin or at least an insect coming out of its exoskeleton.. till now, best exoskeleton I saw with no hint of emergent insect anywhere was this.

When I had shifted here (to blogger), I had thought most of my posts would be just collection of not necessarily related photos. Now, I find writing this post difficult - for, I don't have any story to tell, its just some random shots and that too unconnected. Anyways, last of the unconnected dots is the tree below, actually its fruits. Haven't managed to find ID of the tree so far.

As I keep saying, I am unfortunately an urban person, who is fortunate enough to be near to nature at present. Now, I do find Babblers to Butterflies and Green Pigeon to spiders to talk to and also manage doing it quite effectively at times, my urban background still gives itself away very easily when it comes to flora. I think someone who has grown up with nature would have developed sense of caution and fear of eating unknown fruits. finding a new fruit, he/she wouldn't think of tasting it right away... but for me, I had to struggle hard to remind myself to be cautious when I saw this fruit. I saw some fruits fallen on ground and noticed the tree. Fruits appeared very attractive but weightless and hollow inside. and they indeed were almost weightless.. but not exactly hollow. they were filled with pink sponge like thing.

I was very tempted to taste one.. and I found one local person passing by who assured me that though people don't eat them, it was ok to eat one if I was curious enough. It was somewhat sour. . not bad actually. Not sure what exactly made me so interested in them but I thoroughly enjoyed finding this new and strange fruit and even taste it :-)

Asking for a Sun

After what looked like monsoon in extended winter's disguise, last month weather caught up with calendar, filling nearly month and a half lag in matter of few days. It meant that my reactions to Sun didn't go through usual transformations like - No Sun :-(  -  Wow, Sun!  -  ok, Sun.  -  Oh! Sun :-(  -  Sun? forget it, I have regained wisdom to stay in shadows instead of trying to blame Sun. 

No, this post is not about complaining about Sun rather, its time to witness euphoria with which nature is celebrating grand comeback of the fiery God. In last month, trees completed shedding their old leaves, mostly last few remaining but if some were holding to most of theirs, they had to really hurry, and that process covered the ground with dry leaves, walking on which I quite enjoy. Actually, ground covered with dry leaves also help to understand how much of world we perceive through ears - in most cases you don't need to look to know what species is walking outside your window and if its just passing by, searching for food or stopping for water or standing there wanting to get noticed. 

With Sun on its side, life doesn't waste even a moment. Trees starts renewing themselves with all new leaves or show off by briefly substituting flowers for leaves. insects start showing up again but even before you see them, you can tell they are there with thousands of spiders everywhere where none were seen before. One after the other, different coloured butterflies start filling the scene. 

Staying in shade, somewhat struggling to keep up with sudden 10-15 degree rise in shade temperature - now almost touching 40 degrees Celsius, as I look at the surrounding suddenly turned so vibrant, I try to think - which is better strategy? Become strong enough to carry on in all weathers like we do or make best of a niche climate and don't bother about existing (or existing in full force) in others. Sure there are advantages and drawbacks in both strategies, some I can imagine and there will be many others too - possibly a topic I can google some day in detail. at present, my personal preference however goes to latter. I prefer second option not for any scientific reasons but just because I like it more. life around us that chose the second approach has many strategies like migrating, overwintering or waiting in form of a seed when climate is adverse. I was however by now not exactly thinking about existence and activity of life forms in different seasons..

I have been spending much less time watching birds and bugs as lot of attention had been diverted to human world over past some time. However, now I have reached that point where I wish 16th May comes as soon as possible. Yes, I too have hopes and wishes for what I want from that day, but at the same time, when I wish we get what to me looks like we don't deserve, I don't sound too proud to myself. and, is it even possible to get what we don't deserve? Few days back, I was talking to a friend and this point comes up. I am offered help to come out of this not being able to proudly ask for a good government - "don't we become deserving if we vote for it? If we vote a good government in power, we deserve a good government. Right?" I disagreed with that argument very strongly but somehow failed to explain my reaction at that time.

It wasn't that difficult to see later why I didn't think that being intelligent enough to know which government is good and being clever enough to vote for it isn't enough to make one deserving. Don't we need to be non corrupt to deserve an honest government? Don't we have to stop refusing to maintain healthy lifestyle, stop being examples of shortcut seekers to next generation, stop asking for free lunches, be willing to work sincerely for what we get paid and pay taxes, not make our momentary conveniences most important deciding criteria for our activities and need to care about environment, pollution, rules and regulations etc etc, to deserve an honest, corruption free, efficient government that tries to provide excellent healthcare facilities, rich education, excellent law and order conditions, clean air and water and preserves biodiversity, natural heritage.. ? Can we opt to do none of these and still become deserving just by casting a clever vote? No, I am not undermining importance of Vote, my argument is, Vote is tool to exercise power, not create it. Power must be created first within the voters by they being what they want to see in government. Democracy is about getting representative government, isn't it? It is this point that doesn't allow me to be proud about my wish from 16th May. 

Not being very happy with Points faced while thinking about human world, my mind migrates to thinking about Nature again. Nature thankfully doesn't have ANY point. It appears to have patterns though. We see oscillations, cycles, cascading effects, phase transitions, and above all, what looks completely opposite to concept of patterns - Randomness everywhere. Vibrant life in front of my eyes was there because Sun was there, and, many of the Nature’s patterns had contributed in Sun being there. I never thought in terms of Sun being there because insects, plants, ..everyone rejoicing Sun's presence ‘deserved’ it. Also, while nature appears to love multiplications, it doesn't seem to like summations much. If I cant always talk about whole by summing its parts, specially for living things, should I look at society as purely sum of individuals? and even if I want some crude simplification as approximately equating society to Sum of individuals, shouldn't it be weighted Sum at least? weights changing with climate in which the society exists. Some individuals and ideas existing in full force and others overwintering at certain time and opposite being true for different climate. Can’t a strong, good and able government along with right cocktail of other factors including chance factor be like change of season or even a climate change to society akin to Sun in the sky for life on earth? 

And, good point is, with this way of looking at things, waiting for 16th May becomes a game of judging probabilities - if a whole cycle has completed or not, if its time for next oscillation or not or just waiting to see which random number turns up. No difficult psychology involved there - except that there will be a sense of happiness or otherwise. for, I do wish for a specific outcome. I want a Sun in my sky.