Sahyadrica

Photographing moths in the central Western Ghats. Light curtains are the best way to explore moth diversity. Many years ago, I used to wait for moths to enter my urban home through the old casement windows, and hover over to photograph them on an incandescent light. It feels so long ago; today, those windows have changed to the sliding ones, coupled with a netted window that keeps most insects out – even when it is open, the only ones to sneak in are mosquitoes all year round. Moths that would visit were of various sizes and colours. Mind you, my house is in the middle of one of the most densely populated cities in India. Seeing any insect here was allowed due to proximity to the remnant copse comprising of mangroves, gardens and urban farms – and, perhaps more so, vegetable wholesale markets – more on the latter in a while. Moths from years ago: Top Underwings: Thyas coronata and Achaea janata ; Bottom Hawkmoths: Theretra alecto and Agrius convolvuli . From the Underwings to Hawkmot...

The salt-sprinkled chocolate browns of the estuarine mudflats are criss-crossed by the prints of carbon-black tyres. The wind is crisp, and the recurring whoop-whoop-whoop of the enormous ghostly wind turbines is ubiquitous, occasionally punctuated by sounds of trucks that trod on the pathless mudflats to reach the nearest salt port. On this truck-trodden path, we look for signs of a particular bird that blends well with the grey-brown landscape, the MacQueen’s Bustard, a rare winter migrant. It is nowhere to be found, but along sparse grasses, pale green in colour, are tracks of various birds imprinted on a layer of fine, seemingly frozen crust of sand. One of which belongs to this bird. The smaller tracks belong to, we think, Desert Warblers; those small, hypersensitive brown birds seen probing the grass strands for tiny morsels during early winters. The largest of all, the three-toed prints, belong to the Common Crane, we acknowledge without a doubt. We saw them graze in a small ...