Love Is In The Air

Showing Off His Feathers

Colour No Bar - No Apartheid Amongst The Pigeons

Billy Coo

Oh I Love You So

Memories of Yercaud - 2003

Yercaud Lakeside

A pine branch bows to meet the lake

Rippling water 

Boating on Yercaud Lake

The clouds roll into the hills

Time to sit and stare

Coming closer

Closing in

Play of sun and shade

A sunlit valley in the centre

Monkey business

Human beings arrive to inhabit the hills

Yercaud Observatory

Humans worse than monkeys

Destructive nature of humans in full evidence - Mining in the hills

Some of my favourite pictures in black and white

Under the canopy of a coconut tree

A play of light and shade - my balcony at home

An exquisite display as viewed from close quarters

Reflected glory - Brooklyn Botanical Garden - NY

Organically home grown bananas

Home grown mangoes

The king of all he surveys

A lake near Richmond (Indiana)

Pristine beauty - untouched by the muck around

Shivasamudram - panoramic view

Shivasamudram - Majestic sight

Sculpted trees in the Sculpture Park near Princeton

The Red Whiskered Bulbul

Have been tantalized by these beautiful calls.  It is a real sight to see 3 to 4 of them dancing and prancing about on the trees.  They are so active.  However, one decided to pose for a picture and here it is.

Red Whiskered Bulbul

The aviary in and around my house

These birds are driving me to distraction.  As they hop from branch to branch, tree to tree, they keep chirping and calling so enticingly, I keep running every few minutes from window to window to balcony back to window trying to catch these elusive creatures, camera in hand.

I have already posted a picture of a white cheeked barbet taken from my balcony as well as a video of a purple sunbird hopping around.

Purple Sunbird

Today I have a still picture of a very small greenish brown bird.  This bird is very hard to catch as it is very well camouflaged and extremely active.  It hardly sits still for a few seconds. I am told this is the green munia or the green avadavat.  Got it after great difficulty today. 

Green Munia / Green Avadavat

Here is one more beauty in all its vivid colours.

Brahminy Kite

Well, the story does not end there.  It is of course wonderful to have rare birds calling out on the tree just outside my window.  But it is also interesting to see what surpirses my old time friends - the pigeons spring on me. 

Two days ago, I saw a couple of pigeons sitting in one of the empty pots in my balcony garden.  By the time I tried to click them, one flew away.  I quipped to my domestic help that pigeons were growing in my pots.  She took a look inside and whoa - what a surprise.  Just check it out for yourselves.

Sunbird songs

Looks like I am in luck.  I have always loved looking at birds, but never really spared much time or attention to the different varieties that inhabit my surroundings.  Put it down to lack of time, too many preoccupations or just no particular reason.

Suddenly I find myself with a lot of time on my hands and a fascination with my camera.  And as if the whole universe decided to connive in my favour, a whole lot of new birds are arriving in the colony.  It just happens that all these factors - availability of time, a peaceful mind, arrival of new birds has suddenly spurred my interest and shall now try to get to know more about the ones that present themselves to me.

I don't think it would require any great stretch of imagination to believe me when I say, it is a real treat to rediscover Nature in all her glory and to derive joy out of these simple pleasures handed out on a platter to me even as I sit inside the confines of my home.

So here is one of those musical as well as optical treats that I revelled in yesterday.  This is a purple sunbird.

The elusive visitor

For quite a few weeks now I have been hearing all sorts of new bird calls that I have not heard before.  Our housing complex is in the pathway of flights taking off and landing at what was the old airport.  I wonder if this is the result of the airport being moved out of the city - more varieties of birds making their appearance.

Of these, one bird in particular has a very loud, throaty call that resembles the croaking of a frog.  It is fascinating to hear them calling to each other in a very conversational manner from one tree to the other.  Although they sounded very close at hand, I was not able to spot them for quite a while.

Then one day I saw a blur of green whizzing past and thought it was a parrot.  A few days later, I spotted a dash of green on the branch of a tree outside my window.  I looked - and there it was - but it was no parrot.  It had a strange combination of colours which I had never seen before.

When I posted the picture on a site and asked if anyone could identify the bird, I was told it was a white cheeked barbet.  Kudos to the person who could identify the bird from such a hazy picture taken in such bright light that the picture did not do justice to Nature's art.  The position of the bird did not allow me to get the right colours of the beak etc.

Well, today finally, I managed to capture one of these birds which keep darting from tree to tree, hardly sitting in one place for too long.  This bird mercifully perched itself in full view and gave me a very good pose which helped me get its colours in their fullest glory.

From my balcony

It is amazing to be able to see such birds right in the centre of a major city.

Travel to Mahabalipuram

I guess a drive from Bangalore to Chennai may not exactly be the most original or exotic drive in the world, but this was the first time I went by road to Chennai. Although I have visited Yercaud and Yelagiri by road in the past many years ago, when the highway was just built, this was a different experience altogether.

We (hubby and I) set off at a fairly reasonable hour - 8 in the morning (a good, sound sleep certainly enhances the experience of a long drive). We hit the office going traffic near the Madivala market. But that was not too bad. We were at the head of a traffic jam, so were not too badly hit. We drove quite uneventfully down to Shoolagiri where we stopped to fuel the car as well as ourselves   . The road was pretty good, the weather bracing and the sun not too hot. 

The road was dotted with boards warning drivers to drive slow. These boards on the road merit a separate blog by themselves. The warnings are very clear. Apart from warnings, they are a good source of amusement while drivingalong. (Unfortunately we did not stop to photograph them ).

"Truck lay-bye" 

"If you drive, don't drink. If you drink, don't drive" (no nonsense there - very clear) 

"Be careful, big pothole ahead (was imagining boards in Bangalore saying "Be careful, short stretch of road ahead"! )

"Fast drive is last drive"

But the winner was a board which said :

"Safety gears are between the ears"  

We must give it to whoever has put up these boards - the engineers????? In which case they must be a pretty gifted and creative lot.

This reminded of the boards along the Jammu-Srinagar highway which I had seen in 1977. They were very catchy - so much so as to stay in my memory (which is siftier than the sand on a beach) after so many years. They read

"This is not a race or rally, drive slow and enjoy Kashmir valley", "Drive slow, your family needs you". 

I remember dad and myself reading all these boards along the way and enjoying ourselves.

From there on the highway was undergoing 6 laning right upto Krishnagiri, so we had to drive carefully.

The drive was so beautiful, that we missed the turning to Chennai and went straight down along the Salem highway for about 30 kms with BH wondering why the road was so green - apparently after the turn near Krishnagiri, it is quite barren.

Well, we had all the time in the world and the scenery was far too beautiful to regret the loss of time and extra drive. In fact seeing that the road led to Kanya Kumari, I secretly wished we could abandon the previous plan and drive down to KK. Anyway, neither of us is given to such sudden whims, nor did we have so much time to manage that. Anyway it was a great pleasure watching the green environs around - a real treat to the eye. Distant hills, coconut groves, a lake with birds dotted the way all along.  Well, a lesson learnt there - the journey is an integral part of the holiday experience, getting to the destination another part of it.  (What is any story without a moral, eh?)

Eventually we made our way back to the right turning leading to Chennai. What a drastic change in scenery. Amazing to think that just a few kilometers away and the scenery could be so markedly different. 

After that the drive was pretty routine. We stopped over at Vellore for refuelling (our own tanks that is ) and then carried on. I curled up on the back seat for a while to rest my petulant back and slept till we got to Sriperumbadur. (The road was pretty bad compared to the beautiful highway till Vellore). Got up in time to see the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial on the way. (Seems so unreal to think of him getting blown up so violently). Anyway, after that it was pretty slow going with huge Hyundai trucks trundling along one after the other. (One of them had "Garib Rath" written behind it as if to convince potential robbers that they did not have any precious cargo aboard" It would be nice if all the Garibs in our country could have Hyundai cars.) 

Reached Chennai in the evening to find the weather very pleasant and bracing.

Went two days later to Mahabalipuram. Personally was not so enamoured by the ECR - may be the heat and my travel sickness coloured my perspective in a deep shade of grey. 

However after reaching Mahabalipuram, had a wonderful time playing on the beach, walking through the water along the beach, gathering sea shells. There was a particular kind of long, conical shell which was plentiful, but unfortunately all of them seemed to be inhabited with some sea creature. So listened to hubby dear (for a change) as well as to my conscience and returned to the sea what belonged to the sea. Was lucky however to find one single one which was abandoned.

We did not go to the Shore Temple, but walked up close along the beach and got some nice pics. Was surprised to see so many people swimming in the sea and wished I had gone prepared for one myself. Well, good reason to go again.  

Had a wonderful buffet lunch at the resort there (Continental, Mexican and Indian dishes). Then while the seniors (hubby, my cousin and her husband)  relaxed post lunch, this not yet so senior went back to play in the water, messed around and eventually very reluctantly got out to go back home.