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.

The monsoons are back and so are the lush fresh greens, the ticks are gone and the leeches are here.

The frogs start out calling for their mates, Alice night frog (Nyctibatrachus cf. aliciae) waits for its mate

Millions of butterflies start migrating from the wet, cold ghats to the warmer plains and thousands end up getting killed on the road.

A road passing through a forest almosts fragments the forest into two, causing road kills and also fragmenting the habitat. Each day hundreds of animals, thousands of insects and amphibians get killed on the road all over India. You can read up further on the study done on insect roadkills here and amphibian roadkills here

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

Here’s another nice photo-article by Karthik, again its urban wildlifing!

The lead actors sing most songs in the movie themselves and how about 80% of the songs in the musical being sung and recorded live on the shoot with ambient noise! A very new approach to un-can traditional studio recording and add elements of reality. Try and catch the director’s commentary on the DVD, where she talks about how each song renders more character and meaning to the movie.

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.

What he told me then, about 3 years back is suddenly making a lot of sense. In the last 4 years of my life I’ve focused quite a bit on my career and my development as a successful individual. All through overlooking some finer aspects of life, and self-development is one of them. When I say self-development I mean development as a personality, giving importance to growing as a human, understanding the importance of being a better human being. The last few weeks of my life has been a path to many self-discoveries, as I went low on my career for a bit and focussed on other aspects of life and it has helped me to a great extent as I realize what is that I’ve missed so far. And each time I look at people who are really happy, I realize it’s this balance between all the bands of life that’s making them happy, not just career or not just personality. Well I am on this path, are you?