કાળિયું કુતરુ, કાણિયું કબુતર and I

કાળિયું કુતરુ (Black dog): A Black dog that one day decided that she will spend most of its time in my front yard, actually sitting as near as main door as possible. However, as its decision didn't go well with me, after long and difficult negotiations, it now sits few feet away in a way that it doesnt come in a way or directly visible standing at the door.

કાણિયું કબુતર (One eyed Pigeon): A Collered dove baby arrived at my home some 5+ weeks back when it was some 11-12 old. It was delivered at home by kids who found him on the gound, injured, broken nest hanging in a tree nearby. It had lost its one eye, had non major looking injury on head but was a strong, solid, happy baby not showing signs of tragedy it had gone through on its behaviour. Its parents too readily fed him for next 4-5 days as I carried him back and forth to where its nest was.

I: yours truly.

First 3 - 4 days: I was really scared of કાળિયું and always tried hiding baby dove from it as I carried it to/from its parents. It was however soon became apparent how clumsy my attempts were and that the dog almost always saw it in my hands.

next 1-2 days: both of us (કાળિયું and me) knew that hiding was ineffective still both were most at ease at pretending it was hidden.

Next few days: I gave up pretending and the dog was in big trouble. it was very scared of the strange situation and would run away at sight of the baby dove - even stopped sitting at his hard negotiated place.

next few days: Now it was dog who started to compromise with the situation. soon, it accepted the baby as one of the family and would even pass by it within few inches. this situation however was still unsatisfactory. I wanted my baby dove to learn to fear dogs. after all, not all dogs will be as good to him as કાળિયું.

few days later: કાણિયું found dog running directly above its head and before it could recover, dog came back and crossed it in reverse direction. કાણિયું appeared to be scared. and I thought correct reactions are in place now.

two days ago, when I was thinking of writing above, as I momentarily dropped my guard, found another female dog and my idiot baby dove sniffing each other in an exercise to getting to know each other leaving me where I started - Absolutely scared.

A tale of three species

Last Sunday afternoon around 5 pm Comman Myna distress call fell on my ears. I was sitting outside with the reason that is keeping me offline for last few weeks. My ability to recognise and respond to the call was affected somewhat as brain was pre-engaged with current duty but even then it did not result in delay more than couple of seconds when I could not dismiss the calls as routine alert calls by Myna - even though I could not think beyond what if not routine alert calls indicating presence of some predator not of immediate danger to them, I needed to respond. go and check.

I call Mom, handover my duty to her and run towards the tree where Mynas were in problem. they have their nest in that Gulmohar tree only few meters away. I see there was an animal high up there - rather, I could not see the animal high up there. No, it was not that high, actually I was wearing my reading glasses. (Few months back, while trying to take macro shots, I ended up scratching and making one of the correct number (fiber) glasses nearly opaque, and since then instead of buying a new glass, I am trying to reduce my number to current reading glasses to save 400 rupees. so unless I need to respond to such distress calls, use reading glasses all the time.). All I could make out was, there was some animal in high up tree cavity. I could not see properly and could not decide what to do - I ran back home to change glasses. I pick up glasses and also make an error I should be ashamed of. I thought it was already too late to help Mynas if their nest cavity was within reach of the animal and picked up camera to record what animal that was. (I should have remembered something useful to threaten the raider rather than remembering camera). Mom however didnt make that mistake and asked me to get the long bamboo stick too. all these took not more than few moments and I was there again in front of the tree with correct glasses, camera and bamboo stick. 

What struck me instantly was - what level of predator I WAS. ..or at least how powerful species I belong to. So far I was looking at the episode from Myna and my perspective but as I reach there and see the animal was already on its way down from Neem tree next to where it was originally, I suddenly see things from his perspective. It was escaping the scene as fast as it could - why? because one human - who cant leave ground to reach him that high on tree- came, could not even see him properly and went back as fast as it came without doing anything. and still that being tentatively seen by human created a big risk for it from which it needed to flee asap.

I managed to capture couple of shots before it manged to reach ground and run at full speed away from me.

hope to be back soon

I had ended previous post saying there were no points in guessing theme for May archives post - what I could not guess then that the May may never come.

Variety of factors kept me offline and may continue to do so for few more days. However, now that I can be online enough to leave a note, thought should say I and this blog still exist and hope to be back soon.

Myopia - an update

Remember my Myopia reduction Post of last January? Well, I had ended that post with lot of conservativeness saying so far I had no evidence of things other than ageing at play, but that didn't mean I lost optimism about future and hoped things to turn out better than only ageing would dictate. Specially the doctor's categorical assertion saying my myopia won't reduce further felt like a strong indicator to me that it would, and that it would reduce sooner and faster rather than later and slower. No, its not that I always take short-cut to knowledge by assuming things would be opposite of what the doctors say nor do I disregard sensible things they say just because they are saying it – in fact, I was there actively seeking his help. Isn't it? Its just that as I tried to understand myopia and its reduction with age, it became increasingly clear that the doctor's response was not that my numbers wont reduce further, instead, it was to be interpreted as he didn't know why my numbers had reduced in first place and because he didn't understand that, he ruled out further decrease. thankfully, he could not change past just because he didn't understand it. and thankfully not even future will change just because of that.

Well, in any case I was convinced that more I can take near-stress off, good for my eyes, whether it translates to reduction in myopia or not. So, I had made  a reading glass with one less diopter correction and more simplified number (I dropped cylindrical component altogether).

At January beginning, corrective powers I used wear (incorrect for few months at least): (-10.25, -1.0), (-10, -0.75)

New Numbers I got in January last year: (-8.75, -0.5), (-8.75, -0.5)

Self prescribed reading glasses I hoped to use: (-8.0), (-8.0)

Now, I did find my reading glasses showing computer screen well but I mostly forgot to put them on and when did, after few mins they started becoming uncomfortable and started giving headache. I kept checking my unaided near/far focus distance for some three four months but seeing no further improvement, slowly enthusiasm died down. I forgot the reading glasses as well.

Sometime in October, I remembered my reading glasses. Searched for it and put it on expecting it to feel uncomfortable as before or more so as I hadn't used it now for few months (My brain had taken a good 2 months to fully adjust to correct numbers from incorrect ones in January). I put it on and.. things some 2 meters away also appeared in perfect focus. Which meant there was at least 0.5 reduction in number, now down to -8.5 at least.

Next day, noticing that I had actually forgot to switch back from reading glasses, I decide to check unaided focus distance. There indeed was an improvement. Over next three days, vision through -8 glasses continued to improve, easily surpassing that through now obsolete (and disorienting if I put it on) previous glasses. This instant adjustment to new glasses as against previous experience was I think due to the fact that brain had spent some time learning to co-ordinate with these numbers previously. Which meant that getting a reading glass was good idea not only to keep near stress off (which unfortunately I didn't do much) but also to introduce next lower number to brain well in time so that at the time of actual switching, adaptation time is minimal. And btw, so far accommodation has not suffered with improvement in Myopia. So even if its just ageing effect at work, good ageing is working and bad ageing is on hold :-)

P.S. Okay, I know this is not very useful post. I should write more sensible one talking about what things I think might have contributed to betterment I am seeing. But one, I think its still early to start talking about those things as ageing still may be the biggest explanatory factor (and I don't wish reader discount other factors saying 'not significant impact') and two, there are many probable things that might have contributed. So, I need to list them down properly – will do it when I come back with next update talking about next improvement.

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.