Column: Nature feature

We witness a beautiful aerial stream of butterflies between March and May, and once again between September and November. These butterflies are not, like other wildlife, only to be found in the forests; you can often see them floating around you, and past you, as you walk in the city.  The most common butterflies that migrate twice a year are the Blue Tiger, and the Common Crow. The Common Crow is a dark brown, almost black butterfly; but the Blue Tiger is a blue jewel!  You can see them clustering on some plants even in uncultivated fields. The butterflies migrate…

Last month, I’d discussed spiders. I then thought about the creatures that use them as prey, and this reminded me of the Wasp-and-Spider drama that I witnessed. About four years ago, I made this post about the Spider or Pompilid Wasp organising food for her yet unborn children, by stunning and burying a Yellow-thighed Tarantula or the Indian Ornamental Spider.  Well, her story repeated itself while we were at the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. This Spider Wasp had already stunned the Tarantula by the time we saw it. Unhappy with the first site she had chosen, she dug it out of the…

Websites? I mean, the homes of those that make homes of silk… that is, spiders. We’ve all seen spider webs around us: in the house, in the garden...and indeed, so synonymous is clearing spiders’ homes with our idea of keeping house well, that even when we talk about clearing our minds, we say, “let’s clear the cobwebs”. However, a closer look at these “websites” show they are marvels of engineering, strength and resilience. Spiders spin webs out of the silk that they produce, which passes out of their spinnerets. But the actual “architecture” of spider webs can vary very widely.…

If we are apathetic to Nature today, and view the natural world as being something separate from our daily existence, certainly there was a time when it was not so. Much of our rich mythology deals with rivers, trees, and other natural features, and indeed, our ancients imagined mythical beings which combined several features of living creatures. We all know Narasimha, the half-man, half-lion avatar of Vishnu, but Bangalore, and Kannada culture, in particular, has some interesting depictions of some other mythological beings. As a woman who regularly uses Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses, (which means that I travel…

The very word 'Tarantula' is something that strikes dread into most of our hearts. We’ve all heard the horror stories of 'evil' arachnnids delivering fatal bites. However, though they may be deadly Tarantulas elsewhere, the ones we have nearby are generally more wary of us than we are of them, and do not bite until they are extremely disturbed. Tarantulas comprise a group of very large and often hairy arachnids belonging to the Theraphosidae familyof spiders. Their large size and hairy appearance, combine to give most of us a dread of them. But they have some very interesting features! Tarantulas do spin…

May 10th 2015, was celebrated as Global Big Day, when, all over the world, birders tried to document as many species of birds as they could in 24 hours.  However, in India, we also  observed Endemic Bird Day on the same date. It’s not every country that can count a lot of endemic birds; we are lucky to have many of them! What are endemic birds? Like any other species of living creatures, endemics are those which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. (we take the south of Asia as the area.)  The tally in India, this year, was 567,…

Do they not look delightful Perched upon the wire, Chatting together Against the sky? When I see the same birds Through the twisted wire Of bird-cages, penned up... I ask..why? (Picture of Munias in a bird cage from the FB page of Gopakumar Namboothiri, with his permission) Why can we not just admire? The flower set upon the bush Or smiling from its tree? Why do we need to cage and tie down beings That look so much better, when they are free? The first photo was taken on Bannerghatta Road, near the Police Station; the second in a house…

Most of us shudder at the sight of spiders, but they are really fascinating creatures. Did you know that most spiders are solitary... and cannibalistic? Many female spiders eat the males after mating! However, there are some spiders that are more sociable. One variety called Social Spiders, spin whole "apartment" complexes, which can cover large areas, like long stretches of this barbed wire fence: Or over plants, as you can see here: However, there is another group of spiders which are commonly called Harvestmen or Daddy Long-legs (they have long, thin legs)! Scientifically their name is Opiliones, but they are also…

Organising a plant/tree/insects walk in the Arekere Reserve Forest was as interesting as taking a group for a birding or wildlife trail... In fact, it was more so, indeed, because a very knowledgeable and enthusisastic group came all the way from R T Nagar! It was a walk where all of us pitched in with what we knew.. and it wasn't even a walk, it was a slow inching forward, looking around and down, instead of the "up" of a birding trail. The Forest Department (the blue/green boards are theirs) has gone to town with the slogans, nailing them to…

When we observe water birds, we find that they have many different varieties of fishing for food, and here's one of the most interesting. The birds in my photographs are Painted Storks, beautiful birds which you will see in almost all large lakes of Bangalore. I took these photos at Kaikondrahalli Lake, on November 23rd, 2014. Here's a Stork, standing in the water, getting ready to look for its breakfast. The eye is already cast down in concentration. As the birds look for fish under the water, they raise one wing and hold it just above their head level. This…