Sahyadrica

First Saturday of September is celebrated as International Vulture Awareness Day ( www.vultureday.org ; it was celebrated on September 6, 2014 this year) to raise awareness concerning vultures, and especially their threateningly declining numbers. An article exploring the rapid decline of vultures of India was published in The Hitavada’s Insight supplement, which I am reproducing here with some elaborations. You can read the online version here or here . Insight, The Hitavada Sunday, September 7, 2014 The Plight of India’s Vultures When was the last time you saw a vulture soaring high in the sky? We asked every forest guard and every villager we met as we traversed through the forest villages of Kanha Tiger Reserve, and their answers were all exactly the same: many, many years ago. Only a handful of forest guards see vultures soaring in the skies today, and all of them mostly in the core-zone of Kanha Tiger Reserve, far from any human interventions where they feed on carca...

Such fairness have I ever seen, On tender stilts and blades like steel Of greens and yellows, of red-tipped reeds Standing boldly in rain, gently swaying in breeze. What name do they call you, Whose song do you sing, Do you speak of the aging seasons, Have you a message in your wisps woven? “ They call me Kaans, or Kansh, and Kasha I sing of the clouds that retreat beyond And I speak of the sun, glaring over the plains And I rise to bid farewell to the last shimmer of rains .” Kaans - Saccharum spontaneum Kaans ( Saccharum spontaneum ) is probably the most beautiful grass of central India. One can see fields of their fair-spikelet swaying in the cool monsoon breeze in meadows and paddy fields, as if someone planted them there to adorn the green monochromes of rice. The flower-heads of Kaans fly through the air as the season ages, dispersing seeds and claiming new territories Their blooming is said to indicate that the end of monsoon is near. B...