Sahyadrica

...exploring nature in winter. Another year comes to an end. It was a year of exploring different places, discovering new creatures and new life, and gaining knowledge based on the memories and the experiences built over a few years. It was a long year, and I began learning many more things that I seemed to overlook in the past. And the curiosity started ever increasing as I looked in the dry thickets during autumn, when everything was slowing, distant and well hidden from sight. Snow on bare branches It is winter now, about time to bid farewell to 2009. The year had been warm and the snow far too less. The ground would have been covered in a foot of snow around this time they say, and when I look out through the window, there isn’t much snow at all. There, through the window I did see flakes of snow lingering in the air. The air itself was thin and fair, and the weather old and cold. The trees were bare and except the conifers, only flecks of little grass were green. The landsc...

Sciurus carolinensis A common mammal of the neighborhood in Canada, it is seen scurrying on parapets and on top of houses, on pine trees and maples. I spent a pleasant time photographing and video-shooting these squirrels. Here is one of her stance where she curiously and slyly gave me a glance. It is a squirrel native to Eastern and Midwestern USA and southerly Canada. It was introduced in UK and has largely displaced the native Red Squirrel (S. vulgaris). The Gray Squirrel shares its distribution with Fox Squirrel, which is often confused to be a Gray Squirrel. - Wikipedia From my observations, I found these squirrels fairly common in Mississauga – a suburb of Toronto, and came across several but rather uncommon melanistic forms. The melanistic forms were more conspicuous compared to the common, ordinary squirrels. I also found them to be timid as compared to the latter. On a contrary, in London ON, I saw a healthy population of the melanistic Eastern Gray Squirrels, about three in...

Sanjay Gandhi National Park - 4th July 2009 A place like none other, SGNP is every naturalists' fantasy. It is the only known forest to be surrounded by a megacity - Mumbai. Being in the city does have many problems, like encroachment, illegal business of liquor etc., poaching and deforestation, but this is the last resort for the wildest of animals to be seen in Mumbai today. It is not a place for couples, and picnickers. It’s high time they move out and busy themselves in manmade gardens, and it's certainly not a place to live in. As more and more people flock to SGNP, they leave behind a load of garbage behind them. This is happening for real and there is no stopping it. Even the signs of "do not pollute" are not heeded by such people. Will slamming a fine stop them from littering? I went there to cherish the environment, the monsoon, flora and fauna, and collect some plastic littering on the forest floor. I succeeded in collecting some! Like anybody (yes som...