Chirps of a Forest Bird

  It was back in my 4th grade. I was walking back from school. Suddenly a flock of different birds passed over my head shouting loudly. There were 2-3 woodpeckers, bee-eaters, and 4 other types of birds. I wondered, how birds of different species can become a flock… They weren’t fighting at all. Instead, they were flying and resting on trees for some seconds and flying again. After I reached home, I asked my father about it. He said it was called mixed hunting. A (rowdy) bird called Drongo chased all these birds and created a group of various birds and hunted with them! For the 9-year-old me, Drongo was a dominating bird who is rude to other birds… But now, these drongos are my favorite. Especially racket-tailed drongo – which has long tail streamers and ivory black feathers. After learning about group hunting, I read several books and articles about drongos which made me see them as villains of the bird society. These birds are extremely clever. They can mimic other birds’ calls a...

  You might be wondering why this banyan tree is talking. Well, because it is time to talk. I’ve been in this world for almost 200 years. I was born in the Asiatic cholera pandemic time. And now I am dying in the time of covid pandemic time. Between these two pandemics, I’ve seen amazing changes. I’ve been the witness to many historical incidents. I’ve seen your growth, your developments, disruptions, your success, and your failures… Ah, it feels like, yesterday, you humans invented your first airplanes. But now, thousands of planes fly over my head every day. When I was born, this place was a complete forest. I had so many friends to talk with. Now, I’m alone. Around me, there are shops, malls, and huge buildings. It was just yesterday, you were arguing whether plants are lives or not. But now, you are developing devices to talk with plants! It feels like yesterday, you people were talking about first space travel. Now, I’m hearing things about living on Mars. You developed very f...

  Since I was a kid, my father used to tell me the stories of camera trapping the wild animals and many of his own experiences with them. I’ve heard tons of stories by him, especially about big cats. In his stories, there was one thing in common – forest officers. When I was 11, a pair of trap cameras came home. We used to fix them in the forest almost every day. Every winter, we find one or two camera trap footages and several leopard pugmarks near our house. My grandmother always tells a lot of stories about leopards killing puppies. The stories of dogs and calves who went missing mysteriously… also with all these stories, Keneth Andreson’s stories about man-eating tigers are always my favorite. My father showed me a lot of videos about camera trapping and tigers and big cats. This is how I started to like big cats. After listning to all the big cat stories, yesterday I watched an amazing movie on amazon prime called ‘Sherni’ which means tigress in Hindi. It mainly revolves aroun...

 ಅದು ಆಗಸ್ಟ್ ತಿಂಗಳಿನ ಸಮಯ. ಅಪ್ಪ ಮತ್ತು ನಾನು ರಾತ್ರಿ ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೋ ಹೋಗಿದ್ದವರು ಮನೆಗೆ ಹಿಂದಿರುಗುತ್ತಿದೆವು. ಕಾಡಿನ ಆ ರಸ್ತೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಪ್ಪ  ಇದ್ದಕ್ಕಿದ್ದಂತೆ ಕಾರು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿ ಎಲ್ಲ ಲೈಟ್ ಗಳನ್ನು ಆಫ್ ಮಾಡಿ, ಒಂದು ಮರದ ಬುಡ  ನೋಡುತ್ತಿರಲು ಹೇಳಿದರು. ನನಗೆ ಮೊದಲು ಆ ಮರವನ್ನು ನೋಡಿದಾಗ ಏನೂ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಕೆಲವು ನಿಮಿಷಗಳ ನಂತರ ಅದು  ಹಸಿರು ಬಣ್ಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಹೊಳೆಯಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿತು.ಫೋಟೋ ತೆಗೆಯಲು ಹೋದರೆ ಫ್ಲಾಶ್ ಲೈಟ್  ನ ಬೆಳಕಿಗೆ ಏನೂ ಕಾಣಲೆ ಇಲ್ಲ. ನಂತರ ತಿಳಿದದ್ದೇನೆಂದರೆ ಅದು ಹೊಳೆಯುವ fungus. ಇದು ಮಳೆಗಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಕಾಡುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಬೆಳೆಯುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂದು.  ಎಷ್ಟು ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯವಲ್ಲವೇ? ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ bioluminescence ಜೀವಿಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳಲ್ಲಿಯೋ, ಅಥವಾ ಟಿವಿಯಲ್ಲೊ ನೋಡಿರುತ್ತೇವೆ. bioluminescence ಎಂದರೆ ಜೀವಿಗಳು ನೈಸರ್ಗಿಕವಾಗಿ  ತಮ್ಮಲ್ಲಿ ಬೆಳಕನ್ನು ಹೊಮ್ಮಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದು ಎನ್ನಬಹುದು. ಇವು ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯವಾಗಿ ರಾಸಾಯನಿಕ ಕ್ರೀಯೆಯ ಕಾರಣದಿಂದಲೇ ಆಗುತ್ತವೆ. ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಮಿಂಚುಹುಳ (firefly )ಗಳನ್ನು ನೋಡಿರುತ್ತೇವೆ. ಕೆಲವು ಜೆಲ್ಲಿ ಫಿಶ್ಗಳು, ಸಮುದ್ರ ಜೀವಿಗಳು ಸಹ ಇದನ್ನು ಬಳಸುತ್ತವೆ. ಅವು ತಮ್ಮ  ಸಂಗಾತಿಯ ಹುಡುಕಾಟಕಾಗಿಯೇನೋ ಈ ಗುಣವನ್ನು ಬೆಳೆಸಿಕೊಂಡಿವೆ. ಆದರೆ ಈ fungi ಗಳು? ಇವಕ್ಕೆ ಅಂತಹ ಯಾವುದೇ ಕೆಲಸವಿಲ್ಲ. ವಿಕಾಸವಾದದ ಪ್ರಕಾರ  ಇವು ಈ ರೀತಿ...

  25th May, 2050 ”Why Areca nuts in our farms aren’t growing ?” I asked. ”I don’t know..” My big brother, Mahesh sighed. I am Mira , a 9 year old girl from the farming background. But now, me and my 3 friends were wondering why there no enough crops in their farms. From last year. the whole area didn’t had enough crops to feed on. What happened? ”Let’s find out! Let’s go and ask someone” Ramu suggested. He seemed pretty excited. ”What are you going ask anyway?” Chaitra asked, crossing her arms. ”Let us see what they say” Mahesh said. Chaitra nodded. We all went to find the best person to answer – our grandmother. After searching for a while, we finally found her! You know where she is? Near the Mango tree! But this year, we don’t have any mangoes. There are three other people with her. They looked like they were some officers. What she’s doing there anyway? ”Grandma?” Chaitra called. Grandma turned at us. The officer-looking people turned too. What they are doing here? ”What are yo...

  ಯಾವುದೋ ದೂರದೇಶದಿಂದ ಬಂದು ನಮ್ಮವರಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದಾಗಿ ನಮ್ಮವರಂತೆ ಇದ್ದು ಮರಳಿದವರು ಹಲವರಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಗೆ  ಹೀಗೆ ಬರುವ ಹಲವಾರು ವಿಧ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳು, ಪ್ರವಾಸಿಗರು, ಸಂಶೋಧಕರು ಮುಂತಾದವರಲ್ಲಿ ಹಲವರು ನಮ್ಮವರಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಒಂದಾಗಿದದು ನಮ್ಮವರೇ ಎನಿಸುವಷ್ಟು ಆಪ್ತರಾಗಿರುವವರೂ ಇದ್ದಾರೆ. ಅಂತವರಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆಲವರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ  ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಇದೆಯಷ್ಟೆ.  Photo by Sayan Nath on Unsplash Lisa Andresen :  ಈಕೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಂದಿದ್ದು ತನ್ನ m.sc  thesisನ ಕೆಲಸಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಭಾರತಕ್ಕೆ ತನ್ನ ಸಬಾಟಿಕಲ್ ಗಾಗಿ ಮೊದಲೂ  ಬಂದಿದ್ದ ಇವಳು ಕುಂದಾಪುರದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದಿದ್ದಳು.  ಬಂದಿದ್ದು 2018 ರ ಅಂತ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ  ಅಂದರೆ ಡಿಸೆಂಬರ್ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ. ಇಂದಿಗೂ ನಮ್ಮ ಕುಟುಂಬದ ಜೊತೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಸಂಪರ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿರುವವರಲ್ಲಿ ಲೀಸಾ ಕೂಡಾ ಒಬ್ಬಳು. ಇವಳು ಬಂದ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಊರಲ್ಲಿ ಯಕ್ಷಗಾನ , ತಾಳಮದ್ದಳೆಯ ಸಮಯ. ಶಾಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕ್ರಿಸ್ಮಸ್ ದಿನವೇ ಗ್ರಾಮೋತ್ಸವ ಹಾಗೂ  ಕಲಿಕೋತ್ಸವವೂ ಇತ್ತು. ಅಂದು  ಎಲ್ಲರ ಜೊತೆಗೂ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಚಟುವಟಿಕೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿಯೂ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದ್ದಳು. ಮೋಜೀನ ಆಟದ ಸ್ಪರ್ಧೆಯೊಂದರಲ್ಲಿ  ಊರಿನವರ ಪರವವಾಗಿ ಆಟವಾಡಿ ಒಂದು ಬಹುಮಾನವನ್ನೂ ಗೆದ್ದುಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದಳು. ಈಗಲೂ ಕ್ರಿಸ್ಮಸ್ ದಿನದಂಡು ನಮಗೆ  ಒಂದು ಪತ್ರದೊಂದಿಗೆ ಏನಾದರೂ chocolate ಅಥವಾ ಮತ್ತೇನಾದರೂ ಉಡುಗೊರೆಯನ್ನ...

Once, when I was in 6 th grade , I went to some inter school competion. There were children of my age talking in sign language. I was curious how they understand each other. Again, in the same year we visited a speech and hearing treatment centre. I was so sad to see  very young people struggling to learn sugn language. And this year, I finished reading an amazing book called - Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly . She was also a sign language interpreter. After reading this book, I really want to learn sign language! This book is an inspirational book for people of all all ages.  Here's the synopsis by the author : From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she’s the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she’s not very smart. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be. When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Ir...