By Ragoo Rao, Ethologist Go Fly a Kite” is a phrase in English, which we use sometimes to tell a child or a teenager, to do, when we find them too interfering into our adult matters. Flying a Kite is considered a juvenile fancy (No it is not, I think a lot of old people…
By Ragoo Rao, Ethologist Hebbal Lake, a lake nestled in the midst of a bustling industrial area, a lake that was perennial and never went dry, a lake that hosted plenty of migratory birds, a lake that set several first and only sightings of many birds, a lake that had a good inflow of storm…
By Ragoo Rao, Ethologist [Pic. by SOM reader H.S. Sreeranjini] Tzeee….Tzeeee….Tzeeeee… the familiar sound of the grey and black bird, the size of a Sparrow, quite often mistaken for the male House Sparrow, is that of Cinereous Tit – Parus Cinereous. Until recent times, called as the Great Tit – Parus major, it has now…
By Ragoo Rao, Ethologist This is the repetitive, monotonous, steady sound, one hears in a grove of trees, or a single standing heavy tree, that gives the bird that makes this sound, the name Coppersmith Barbet – Megalaima haemacephala as known in the Ornithological world. In yesteryears, when the metal copper was manually beaten into…
Mysore/Mysuru: Tomorrow is World Sparrow Day-2020. It is a day for the house sparrow — to convey the message of conservation of sparrows and other common birds and also is a day of celebration to appreciate the beauty of the common biodiversity which we take so much for granted. The house sparrow was once the…
By Ragoo Rao, Ethologist Next time you go out birding, watch for Pelicans, the pirates. They may not brandish knives, cutlasses, ropes or guzzle liquor. But they’re out there, lounging in the leafy shade or plying the winds, just waiting to pounce on passing treasures. Piracy or ‘kleptoparasitism’ — to use the technical term —…
Oriental White Eye (Zosterops Palpebrosus) is a tiny greenish yellow bird with a prominent white ring around its eye, thus gaining its name. These are generally seen in a flock of five or more birds actively hunting for tiny insects on the shrubs, bushes and foliage of trees. They subsist largely on flower nectar and…
The Pied Kingfisher – Ceryle rudis, as it is called in Ornithology, is a Real King of all the Kingfishers. As the name suggests, Kingfishers are masters at hunting fish. There are in all about 90 species of Kingfishers, out of which 12 are found in India and 8 are found in South India and…
This is an Intermediate Egret – Mesophoyx intermedia, a member of the Ardeidae family of Egrets. The bird is in breeding plumage, with flowing Mantle Plumes. The Feathery Plumes give it the name Egret — “Aigrettes” meaning flowing soft feathers in French and Old English. These birds were hunted down in this plumage, to get…
These are Malabar Pied Hornbills – Anthracoceros coronatus — One of the ten Horn-bill species of the country, captured at Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary, a birdwatchers paradise in Uttara Kannada district, by one of SOM readers Naveen Raja from Vidyashankar Nagar, Mysuru. Large birds with disproportionately large beaks with a Cascade over the beak, hence the…
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