butterfly eggs

One morning, determined to take a shot and having failed to get at any of the target subjects, I tried to capture one of the most uninteresting and most common butterfly flying. Butterfly landed on a plant and I waited for it to fly again. few seconds, more.. and more. it wouldn't fly. now it started to get puzzling as to why it sat there so long. I pay attention. it was doing something I didn't understand. I take a shot, magnify and understood why it was sitting there for so very long. Here is part of the video I managed to take after this.

in case, like me you too are not fond of playing videos, here is the photo as well. By no means it can be called rare sighting, but I saw a butterfly laying eggs for the first time. and now I also know these most frequently sighted eggs are that of butterfly.

Had a session or two with macro lens too in last few weeks, photographed my own backyard migrant visitor and watched 'you cant miss them if its March' bird i.e. Hornbill. It was eating away my papaya leaves. Also one morning sighted a Redstart - it chose exactly unlit positions in otherwise brightly sunlit frames, but still, it was nice to see it.

and yes, I had a chance to shoot Sun, Moon and a bird in one frame.

Some photos this time

For more than a year now, my walks with camera and resultant shots have kind of disappeared. I dont see much to photograph and slowly camera stopped accompanying me. This week however was very good light, some human manaaged flowers are already flowering and last week's slight rain did help kick start insect life that was no where to be seen given absence of rain for nearly last six months. I managed few shots too.

Meanwhile, I saw a super tiny spider running on screen as I was writing this post and by the time I end, notice whatever they are, are in very large numbers and by now everywhere on laptop, inside keyboard... appears to be coming out from the wooden bed on which i have put laptop. or probably they are mites or worse termites? This bed is lying outside just next to termite infested branch that had fallen few days back.. and its no good news then. need macro camera to find out. okay, let me publish this first.

My soil (dis)connect

I have some few sq feet land around home and initially I had thought I could grow some vegetables etc there. Over last five six years I have now learned that land is filled with small bricks pieces and stones, it has termite and/or termite like thing that I think doesnt allow some of the things to grow, if something still manages to sprout, my dear Mor finishes it off diligently and just in very rare case something grows to be few inches tall, its likely to be run over/damaged by dogs, humans. Combine these conditions with my complete disconnect with soil - I do things like planting few years old seeds, do it in random season, have no clue of soil or water requirement of anything I try to grow etc. and I am so settled with my ignorance and failures that it just doesn't occur to me that there is an option to try to improve, to learn.

All these however, doesn't always discourage me from randomly wanting to grow something or other. To not unnecessarily waste my energy, early last year I started to put all the seeds in one or two pots and water them randomly thinking if something does come up, I will re-plant.

Around late June/ early July there were lots and lots of yellow rain lilies around. I simply love those flowers scattered on the ground.  I went around collecting seeds - timing was perfect and I managed to get hundreds, actually thousands of them. I added as many possible to a pot and scattered remaining seeds all around. it rained everyday after that so watering was not an issue. A week later, while inspecting pot surface with my unaided eye (which had advantage of built in +9 dioptre magnification given my myopia), I saw some sprouts coming up. over next two weeks, Hundreds of  young rain lilly plants were growing in the Pot as well as all around. Just as I declared it a success story, plants on ground started disappearing - I still dont know what happened to them but within days, the pot was the only place they still had survived. - yet another failed experiment..

Anyway, while collecting lilly seeds, I had found dried out fruits of Rose on a big Rose plant and took one or two home out of curiosity and also try to plant it. Mom turned out slightly less ignorant and told me that you don't plant rose seeds. I google and find it true - except that someone had given elaborate process if you really wanted to grow it from seeds. I do the first step or half- sock the cleaned seeds for some two hours in some hot or cold water, and then put them in my two pots standing under the Sun of July, Pots had, true to the season, managed to grow some fungus at that time. Rose growing tips I just read said how important it was to protect rose seeds from fungus, keep it in cold etc and still it gave very low probability that it will sprout..

Next month, I add some papaya seeds, then some other seeds, then Karela seeds, etc. in same pots, all the while keeping a watch if something does grow - but all I found growing occasionally was one or the other weed. and then, something changed. Two young Karela plants had come up. I replanted both, and both survived. After some more time, there were half a dozen Papaya plants growing in those pots. also re-planted and survived.

Encouraged, I put what I hoped were Gotu Kola seeds. I was very eager to see the herb growing and everyday kept looking out for any signs of it growing. One day, I see something that was different from weeds I had seen before. - they were two of them. Didnt look like Gotu Kola mature leaves but probably first young leaves could be different? I started watering it everyday - Gotu kola needs lots of water. More leaves.. but leaf shape didnt show any convergence to Gotu Kola. It certainly wasn't Gotu Kola and I was disappointed but still confused. what was it?

Defying all odds against it, including the fact that it was me who was trying to grow it, those two plants were of Rose. While I was still celebrating them, there was a third one coming up in second pot.

and meanwhile, I am actually happy that I could grow nearly nothing on the land as per my will. as now, I have come to recognise some of the weeds that grew on its own. Bhringraj, Bhumi amala, Punarnava, Mahabala.. I actually needed all these and had no clue that they were chasing me all these years. and even if I didnt think I needed those, just knowing how wonderful herbs they are and that I somehow managed not to contribute to their destruction from their land is reason enough to be happy about it. and even more importantly, I have started seeing beauty of land with her own plants growing happily, supporting all the insects, birds and other life.

Also what I learned is, right way to live with plants and soil is no different from that of living with my other friends. (Don't ask me why I might have thought it to be any different in first place - I don't know answer to that.) I mean, when I say 'my babblers', 'my Mor', 'my squirrels'.. what I also mean is babblers, Mor, squirrels who call me 'their human' and that's the key to our connect. so if I happen to report a success story wrt to plants and soil in coming time, it will be success story of the plants and soil, not mine.

(anyone's)wealth+power+(less than required)intelligence = waste of time and energy

If you watch my multi species family for any length, benefits of being more powerful are clear. you get to eat fruits first, you can drink water whenever you want, no one challenges you (well, until you are not threat to their kids - in role of parents one can very well stand up against bigger species too). These things are true 'generally' but effective advantage of such power changes when non routine things like abundance of resources or inter-species interaction gets added. Say, even when there is no scarcity, most powerful may still spend considerable energy in protecting extra food while those in lower ranks manages to just eat and play.

Whatever said, its not easy not to hoard if you have something of value in your hand and cant spend/use it immediately. Our crows too do it regularly. They have a place in a tree trunk where they store extra food. A slight problem with that however is, everyone else too know of their hiding place. When you have a problem and an intelligent creature, you see an attempt to solve it. Few days back I saw a young crow doing exactly the same. hiding extra roti he had at an unlikely place. Very much on the ground. see the video. This one is little longer by my standards. its 1 minute 8 secs, some 11+ MB as uploaded.

I am not very hopeful of this strategy too being successful as many dogs pass by and there are lots of ants also - a big ant nest just nearby. but still, it was nice to see this crow trying out things differently. Even as his efforts to hoard, watch over and then eat those roties in future were certain to go waste and even not required given lack of scarcity, it was at least using his brain and learning new things.

Meanwhile, while I am at crows, here is a small peek into their old behaviour too. Till they realised that it simply wont work, they used to always try to take water home in summer (I used to keep water only in summer then - was quite stupid of me to think they need it only in summer, but learning curve doesn't apply only to crows, it applies to me too.). Its 10 sec. 1+ MB

Difficult rationality

I have a post that I started few days back less than half done. also in another I intend to share crow behaviour but havent overcome laziness so far and now am somewhat stuck with kind of unease and cant take my mind off the topic even after there is nothing more to 'think' about it, so why not write about it?

Yesterday, heard a sound that I couldn't recognise and it appeared to be coming from someone in either distress or an alert to some nearby danger. I walked in direction of sound. even before I locate the source, my interpretation of sound drifted more towards distress than to alert. soon I also saw the source. some small bird hanging on a tall tree (some kind of fig tree). Two crows were sitting nearby and fearing they will harm the bird caught in Plastic Kite thread, I made gestures asking them to go away. they did so but I soon realised they were actually only watching out of curiosity and I regretted my decision - could they actually be trying to find out way to help the bird?

Fortunately there was help at hand and the person were good at helping too. While I saw no way how that bird could be saved but one person climbed on roof below the tree with a long bamboo of I think some 20 feet, he attached burning incense like thing (burning not just at tip but few inches) at the front, targeted plastic thread with swiftness and precision and thread was cut. bird stuck midway and he pushed leaves/branch, bird fell to the ground. It wasn't a bird, it was a small fruit bat. I had not known they were around till then.

It took me 20-30 mins to slowly free his wing from multiple loops of that killer thread. towards the end, bat lost patience and tried to free itself from my grip, and bit my finger - only slightly though. I also managed to get a little scratch from his nail. though it slowed down remaining untangling process, finally it was done and despite one broken bone in the wing, one side of the wing damaged, it managed to fly in short bouts and climbed nearby banana tree. It covered itself in its wings and went to sleeping position - I admire its rationality. If I was him, I most probably would have stayed in panic mode and destroyed any remaining chances of recovery also.

After washing my hand, applying turmeric, also applying antiseptic from nearby dispensary, I googled if bat bite is risky. and well, I was really scarred to read about rabies, other possible infections bats can carry. - well, the scratch and bite were only slight, and most probably I was more scared than required. actually, definitely my reaction was unwarranted - by now, I have a feeling that rarely anything may apply to my innocent little fruit eating bat. plus, he appeared very healthy- both physically as well as mentally. plus GoI guildlines I found on net stated that in India there was no information on risk from bat and exposure to it can be ignored. even in my worried state, or probably more because of that, I hoped one day to make myself as calm and as rational as the bat. tough target, but worth the efforts - if I can make to it.

Meanwhile, despite the very low perceived risk and lack of information, I finally decided to err on cautious side. will take rabies vaccine starting later today- and now really worried about if that process will go on fine or not.. - I live in part of India where fake medicine are known to exist in the system, skilled and trained manpower is a nearly non existent concept at social level, and even otherwise, I dont really classify myself as very fit person and do fear allopathic medicines in general. but apart from all these, greater problem is within myself. Not able to let useless and unhelpful worrying thoughts go away is something purely I have to find solution for. and if I can take inspiration from the bat wrt to that, probably all these short-term problems will be a small cost for a bigger gain.

My bokeh better than yours?

I always had this simple knowledge that people with high myopia see considerably worse compare to those with small, insignificant numbers like -1,-2,-3.. and somehow this 'considerably worse' was sufficient differentiation for me. Earlier this year however when I tried to understand myopia better after it had decreased for the first time in my life, I found myself confronted with numbers that appeared strange. Say, with some -10.5 numbers my far focus point was around 9.5 cm and after a substantial decrease to -9, it was some 11.2 cm. Really? That 'Significant' improvement I was so happy about meant additional focus range of less than 1 cm? And that way, even those with not high myopia, say with -3 number would not be able to focus beyond 33 cm – it absolutely didn't sound as great advantage over -9 as I had always thought!

Okay, even as those numbers did confuse me, I knew I wasn't as wrong as the numbers made it out. So, the difference didn't come from far focus distance, which was a factor but only a small one, the real difference came from 'out of focus' quality of world beyond that far focus point. But how to quantify that? And even if I may find some number that can describe OOF quality (which I haven't found so far if there is), how do I 'see' how it might look like? ok, answer is rather simple actually.

i.e. If my current number is -9 and if that reduces to -7, world at large will look as in/out of focus as it is currently at half a meter. And, to someone with -3 numbers world appears as much in focus as things appear at some 17 cm to me. Sounds more like how I understood it originally.

ok, it doesn't give idea about VA and in general viewing comfort, but still I find it somewhat useful to understand approximately how normal or more normal eyes compared to mine see the world or to understand how I can expect it to appear with further myopia reduction or to understand one of the quite irritating behaviour of those with insignificant numbers when they waste own and others time because they cant find something, cant see things properly and in the end say, ok, let me put on glasses, so that I can see.

Happy Babblers

I guess you know my love for babblers in general and for my babblers in particulars. They perhaps are most talked about individuals over here too. Given their discipline, sincerity and playfulness, its rarely I find they are overdoing something. But for last two days I did notice something that didn't fit in very well. Why one of them must act like a child. (they do go mad with joy in breeding season when their fledgling successfully leaves nest and they themselves don't act much different than their kid – but breeding season is over long time back so I didn't think on those lines.) and why another one was continuously – whole day, without a break, making sounds from somewhere nearby.

Yesterday I was standing outside and hear the babbler calling repeatedly from the tree behind. Turn around to look at it, and I instantly got two answers about what I was looking at. First and main answer - a Babbler baby and secondary, an informative answer - a Cuckoo. Okay, it did take a fraction of second to integrate these two answers but to my credit, I did it fairly quickly. As I watched this unusual addition to my multi-species family for next few mins, I got to see/understand something in a way I hadn't before. This babbler baby appeared to me only a babbler baby – it had body size much like parents (so far at least), had body language like parents, it sounded like parents and above all, it WAS a baby of its babbler parents. Before yesterday, I always had only 'victimising' aspect associated with brood parasitism but my babblers and their cuckoo baby appeared nothing more or nothing less than any other innocent baby preparing to take on world with help of its parents and proud parents happily and diligently taking care of their baby. I simply could not associate the word 'victim' with happy parents and baby in front of me.

Couple of shots and a small video.