Whistler on the roof...

Hi folks,

He believed in starting early as, to borrow an old saw, the early riser gets the worm (but hey, the early worm gets eaten!).

 The whistling by our window began at four in the morning. Initially, I thought it was a dream - well, it couldn't be my husband Subbu who had suddenly decided to serenade me all over again after 17 years. In the fourth decade of my life, I’m hardly entitled to catcalls and whistles from road side Romeos, I guess...

The rather mellifluous intruder persisted with his vast repertoire of whistles through the misty morning at the beautiful Topslip tree house, in the Anamalai Wildlife Sanctuary. The mysterious mist refused to leave us, but through the haze, I caught a quick glimpse of the imp - a brilliant blue bird with iridescence on his forehead and on the wings. He fixed me with one eye, while the other was firmly focused on a stunning Indonesian Moon Moth perched on our window sill (whom we promptly nicknamed Ikraan, after the dazzling ‘bird’ in the movie Avatar).

As I neared the window he flew onto the neighbouring tree house. A furtive glance at me, and he decided I was worth another whistle. Hey, it is true life begins at forty, and I was being serenaded by the Malabar Whistling Thrush (MWT)!

I decided to play along ... Well, a li’l flirtation was not one of the deadly sins, I hoped! I hid behind the curtains and promptly saw the MWT's curiosity get the better of him. He came back to our window and wooed me again. A softer and long drawn whistle, almost set to a Hindi film song, or was it just my imagination..?

Nothing better than a strange admirer to arouse jealousy in a harried husband! Subbu’s quicksilver action would have done a Commando proud, as he lunged to shoot the poor bird. Ever ready with his SLR, he snapped away, clicking some fabulous shots of this wonderful bird.....

As we walked through the early morning mist towards the decrepit canteen for breakfast, we were unsure if we should have left Ikraan so close to its nemesis, the MWT. On our return, sadly, we discovered that my dawn paramour had devoured the beautiful 'Ikraan', leaving behind only its tail.

I have kept the marvellous tail as a bookmark in my bird guide featuring the MWT, as a grim reminder that life can be beautiful and heart-rending on the same page!!! 

The Hibernation ends!

Like all self-respecting beasts, Green-indians were enjoying a well deserved hibernation from the harsh climes of the blogosphere. We're now back with that mad look in the eye (we're dentists, after all!), and with a bagful of wildlife images from the pristine wildernesses of our country. One of the earliest Chinese imports was a saying which went, "one picture is worth ten thousand words", and we've decided to happily sacrifice our zeal for churning out text at the altar of laziness. What will follow on a regular basis (promises, promises...) is blatant exhibitionism....oops, sorry, an exhibition of images we've liked from our sojourns.

We begin the series with a dazzling beauty from the dark world of moths - an unexpected guest to our lodgings at Topslip, Anaimalai.

It was a dark, misty January morning outside our treetop hut at Topslip, Anaimalai, Tamil Nadu, and the dense fog threatened to disrupt our quest for wildlife. We peeped desultorily out of the window, and one of the most breathtaking sights greeted us: a moth of unparalleled beauty, with iridiscent colours and streamers which prompted us to nickname him "Ikraan" after the eponymous creature from James Cameron's Avatar.

Experts in the field helped us identify him as Sonthannaxia maenas, a relative of the Indonesian Moon Moth, but would you mind if we continue calling him Ikraan?

A chat by any other name..............

During our Greater Rann of Kutch trip in Jan 2009, we had finally diagnosed a bird in the Naliya grassland as a Common Stonechat. Adesh Shivkar called us up last week with the results of his research - the bird we had seen was a Stoliczka's Bushchat, and we can now add one more to our tally for the GRK trip (not to mention a lifer for us!)