Marine drive walkway

Juhu chowpatty

Sunset at Juhu chowpatty

No trip to Mumbai is complete without Masala Pav

And ofcourse the famous colas

Ganapati immersion procession

Boys who take the Ganapati for the immersion

The old and new, mills that make way for malls – Phoenix mall

Contrasting worlds

Madh island, the escapade from the bustling city

The ever growing city and its needs… The sealink

Also the new Nikon D7000 has been proving extremely good. Great image quality and amazing video. Been working on some new video projects with it which should be out soon.

Here is a brilliant example of evolution. What you see is a caterpillar of the butterfly Blue Mormon, its very difficult for caterpillars to survive to become butterflies, given their susceptibility to predators. But this caterpillar in particular has developed different strategies to survive.

The eyes you see are false eyes and helps the caterpillar look like a snake. The face in totality looks similar to a snake, you would think this is enough to keep the predators at bay. But wait until you watch the video below.

This is how the caterpillar behaves when it senses threat, it pops out a ‘Y’ shaped organ that resembles a snake’s tongue. Called Osmeterium looks like a snake’s tongue to prevent a predator attack. That’s not all, this organ emits smelly compounds believed to be pheromones which are highly pungent in nature even to humans.

Click the play button to hear the call of the Whistling Trush

For the first time I’ve submitted some photographs to a competition. I hope they take into consideration all the above mentioned factors and have the right people from the field to judge. I guess I shouldn’t turn too cynical without even giving it a shot

After a really long wait, I finally managed to be there at the right place at the right time to photograph the Baby King Cobras which had just hatched in a nest close to Agumbe.

I also made a short trip to Nagarhole where 2 leopard cubs abandoned in a sugarcane field close to the Nagarhole forest by the mother and have been rescued by the forest department.

The one question that came across my mind each time I saw them was “What’s their future?”

King Cobra babies are about 30cms when born and do have venom glands from birth. They are usually born during the monsoon months of august/september in the wild western ghats. The forests of Agumbe are one among the last habitats left for them.

The Agumbe Rainforest Research Station headed by Gowrishankar has been key in protecting and safeguarding the nests of the King Cobra. Gowri’s team has been monitoring nests and making sure no human activity disturbs them. In this photograph you can see the barricade they’ve built to make sure the nest is safe. You can see Gowri removing the hatchlings from the nest so that they are safely released. The King Cobra is the only snake in the world to build a nest and she abandons the nest before the eggs hatch.

Survival rate of the hatchlings is quite low given factors such as natural predators and availability of food, adding an element of human disturbance and intrusion will only make their survival so much more difficult.

The leopard cubs which were rescued from the sugarcane field have another story to tell. The villagers say the mother leopard had 4 cubs and while escaping on seeing the villagers, it abandoned 2 cubs in the field (probably in a state of confusion). Animals don’t like to get out of the forest, but we are not leaving them much of a choice by encroaching what little forests they have. The mother of the cubs might have wandered into the fields in search of food or in search of space and territory. The mother and the cubs are lucky to have escaped unharmed, but that’s not the case always. You can read Kalyan‘s blog about other incidences involving leopard-human conflict here and here

The Leopard cubs have been fortunately saved, but the question that poses a bigger problem is whether to release them in the wild or raise them in captivity. The answer is not simple. Since the cubs haven’t learnt the way of the wild from their mother and survival on their own might be difficult, releasing them in the wild might not be a feasible option and raising them in captivity might be the only option.

While as uncertain as their futures might look, there are still green warriors protecting them, be it Gowri’s team or the forest department. While its not possible for everyone to go out into the field and save them, being aware of the situation and making others around aware is certainly a big step.

It was the morning safari and after a good session with a pack of 12 wild dogs marching along the safari jeeps for a good 3kms on the main road, we entered the forest track. We stopped when we heard loud alarm calls, we knew we were really close to the cat. We went ahead a little more and took a left cut on the track. When we were all looking into the thicket, Jeevan the naturalist pointed at the leopard running in front of us on the track and only few of us saw it. Then we went further and then we saw the guy hiding in the bushes on the left, given the undergrowth is high after the rains, it was hard to spot anything.

Then the driver said “another leopard!” and I didn’t see it then because I was busy shooting. But when I came and saw the pictures, yes there was another leopard lurking in the back!

After that we did see the second leopard trailing the first one through out but in the thicket. We also figured that the one in the front was male and the other female. Then the male decided to dash on to the road

Then he waited on the road for a while, hoping that the female would join

When she didn’t turn up, he gave up and sat posing on the slight open patch next to the road and that’s when I got the portrait shots

Then we saw the female walk behind him and ofcourse he faithfully followed and we lost track of both

Light was low because the sun wasn’t around and photography was hard, but I enjoyed every bit of it! Also this time I got very close shots of wild dogs, will post soon…

I will still cross post to LJ until it works.

Also I haven’t put up any images lately though I’ve shot a ton. Here’s one for starters

In the summers, elephants spend a lot of time close to water. When we came to a waterhole expecting a tiger, we saw this guy playing without a care in the world. He was no farther than 200ft.

Leaf birds are one of the most difficult birds to photograph because of the green foliage it roosts in and its own color which blends with the background. Lucky to have it sitting like this.

See here if you can spot the same bird