I want to dedicate this piece to birds I have seen in the hottest months of the year- May and June, in North India. My little homage to these little ones who have to brave dust-storms, drought, and apathy.
And here’s some poetry and pictures for these heroes!
*
Don’t miss the Ibis,
Heed the Hoopoe,
Turn for the Titar,
Peek at the Prinia,
And a little later,
You’ll see the Bee-eater,
Sharing water with the Sparrow,
And some more Titars.
*
Rauf Ali, wildlife biologist, was a dear friend. We lost him too soon to Cancer. I knew he was many things- ribald, jovial, talented and honest, but I didn’t know he was such a good writer! Rauf, I miss you!
I was honoured to review his memoirs for The Hindu. Don’t miss this book!
(Link to buy below).
Early on in his book, ecologist Rauf Ali writes on a langur monkey’s food-gathering techniques, which had “deep psychological insights” on people. At a temple in Agra, the langur would sweetly beg Indian tourists for food, which would result in a few peanuts. But when he saw a foreign tourist, the langur’s technique would change, and he would “charge at them screaming. Whereupon they would also scream, drop their peanuts and run!” This was, Rauf writes, straight-faced, his first encounter with racism.
For the rest of Running Away From Elephants, Rauf says it as it is — and how. He is ribald, keenly observant, and writes with deep affection for “boring” Slow Loris, “nasty” Bonnet Macaques, butting Blackbucks, lazy Gir lions and occasionally, drunk spies and excise officers. Unlike many wildlife conservationists, he has no cloying sentiment or moralising. And on his own life, spent between Andaman and Nicobar islands, Western Ghat rainforests, and Auroville, Pondicherry, he writes: “Forget the Gerald Durrell stories. Nobody dies in these stories, and nobody falls ill either. Field work in reality is, to paraphrase Claude Levi-Strauss, being cold, wet, hungry, tired, or more usually, all four at the same time, most of the time.”
Faced with several challenges (he studied wildlife through the 1970s and 80s, when this was unheard of, and he was often accused of being a CIA agent), university politics, recurring bouts of malaria, and a final, short tryst with cancer, Rauf went through life with Dionysian frenzy. The book is light-hearted, but that’s not to say the author takes his work lightly. He is hard on himself and his own knowledge. Indeed, this is that rare humorous book written not for humour’s sake, but with a thorough understanding of the subjects he takes on —rainforest ecology, how dams negatively impact forests, migratory birds, and monkeys.
Rauf was related to India’s Bird Man Salim Ali, and true to style, he writes a thoroughly funny character study. Salim was deaf in one ear, and when he had to avoid someone, he would turn his deaf ear towards the other, and keep nodding. He would go into paroxysms of rage if birds were not properly identified, but gave Rauf a lot of books. For many others, including this writer, Rauf was an untiring knowledge sharer. Rauf helped set up ecology studies at Pondicherry University, and broke fresh ground in the study of and advocacy against invasive species. Through this book, I also learn he is a fine writer. This book adds to India’s natural history writing in a way none has. Don’t miss it.
Running Away From Elephants; Rauf Ali,
Speaking Tiger Books,
₹499.
Buy it here.
Photo of Rauf Ali: internet.
Sunbirds are tiny, but mighty. Always on the move, ever on the look out for larger predators. The male glitters like stardust, and the female is like a pixie. Here’s my little pictorial ode to a Sunbird couple in Delhi.
Sunbirds
Sunshine, starbright,
Bedazzling glitter.
Iridiscent, Stardust-
You must stay forever,
In Delhi’s unworthy dust.
2018. All photos by Neha Sinha
Please do not use without permission.
On five years of our work on conserving the Amur Falcon in Nagaland- starring school children, bamboo dances, skits and song.
On his way to school this October, 13-year-old Seiminlen saw a ngeikang. He told the school’s eco-club that the first Amur falcon of the season had been spotted. The children gathered outside their school to watch, trying to count the birds, listening to their high-pitched calls. They perhaps didn’t know it, but these children have been at the forefront of bird conservation in the remote, hilly reaches of Nagaland.
Amur falcons fly in clouds over the Indian Northeast, particularly Nagaland and Manipur, where they migrate to from Siberia and China. These birds of prey — not much bigger than a pigeon — transform the landscape: they descend on paddy fields and forests, shrieking, darting, diving, in pursuit of dragonflies and termites and other bugs that make up their entirely insectivorous diet. In Doyang reservoir in Nagaland’s Wokha district, more than a million Amur falcons gather, the largest congregation of falcons in the world.
This year, Doyang was designated an ‘Important Bird Area’. The birds leave India around December, and fly over the Indian Ocean towards Africa. This oceanic journey, satellite tagged birds have revealed, is made without a stop — usually in five days flat. After wintering in southern Africa, the falcons fly back towards Siberia.
Photo: Amur Falcons in Doyang reservoir Important Bird Area.
Seiminlen lives in Lilien village, swathed in forests, fields and criss-crossed by streams. To reach it, you have to cross the Manglou river, which swells after the rain. People carve houses out of wood and ply rather than concrete, and live in the veritable lap of nature. Nature is not always benign — the village is often lashed by heavy rain, its roads in a constant state of disrepair.
Road to somewhere
This village also happens to be an important pit stop for Amur falcons. But until not very long ago several villages close to the Doyang ‘Important Bird Area’ hunted the falcon for sport and for food. Hunting is illegal, but these areas have had established traditions of hunting. The hunts were often unsustainable — in October 2012, an estimated 10,000 birds were hunted every day, for 10 days, in Doyang during the migration season. Several hunted birds were discarded, and the forest department had to work round the clock to stop hunting through arrests and notices.
Thanks to eco-clubs
But there has recently been a game changer for the little raptor. And credit for this change, goes in large part to children of Lilien and the surrounding villages. Thanks to eco-clubs started by the Bombay Natural History Society and Nagaland Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Trust, students learnt to draw different kinds of fauna, look at wildlife around them, and most importantly, they learnt to name them. Soon, the children turned into advocates of conservation, especially of the Amur falcon. And soon, the attitudes of adults towards falcons changed too. The birds are no longer hunted in these parts: a sea change from previously held beliefs that Amur falcons came in inexhaustible numbers.
“Did you know animals go extinct?” 15-year-old Veineikim Hangsing asks her class at the Bongkolong eco-club. “Yes,” the students say solemnly.
In particular, the maps of Amur falcon migration fascinated the children. Many learnt about Russia for the first time. And about Africa. When they saw the migratory path of the falcon, the bird became a hero. Then they learnt the names of the insects the falcon ate. Soon, the students organised little skits about the falcon, and performed them at their villages.
The explosion of performance, music and dance that exists in Naga life has now found expression in eco-clubs. In the Pangti eco-club, students have penned a song for the Amur falcon, on the lines of the choir songs they sing. Eco-clubs are also run in Ahthibung and Jalukie villages. Over the years, more than 300 students have presented at community events in the area. Sometimes it is a skit with song. Sometimes, it is a bamboo dance — where dancers hop nimbly between criss-crossed bamboos that are moved to the beat of a drum. Often, the students depict traditional village songs and dances with conservation messages woven in. In Kuki, and sometimes in Nagamese, their message is to ‘pray’ for wild birds.
“I used to eat Amur falcons. They were tasty. A bit oily, but tasty,” says a 12-year-old boy from Sungro, who, like many other students once carried a catapult to hunt birds. “But now I really want them to reach Africa,” he says. “I want them to eat termites in Africa.”
This first appeared here.
Silently, vultures watch us.
Their quiet gaze is cautious.
As we lace their food with diclofenac,
they watch us.
As we race over wild forest wetlands,
they watch us.
They watch, but they don’t judge us.
They expunge and expire, with no fuss.
(Vultures at Pench tiger reserve, photo by me)
Sometimes when I look at wildlife or Nature, I am awe-struck, not fully able to describe my feelings. I wanted to put those wordless, swirling feelings into short strings of words; for that, Haikus seemed perfect.
I present six Haikus on the wildlife of India. More to follow!
1. A Haiku for the Aravallis, the world’s oldest mountain range; thought to harbour dinosaurs.
2. A Haiku for a wild leopard that mistakenly entered a school in Bangalore. Earlier post here. Cornered from all sides, the leopard was terrified, yet it was called a terror.
3. Another haiku for the same spirited leopard: he was called many things, almost labelled anti-national!
4. A haiku for a Black-necked Crane. These cranes come to India from Bhutan, and their habitat was slated to be submerged by a dam.
More about that in my op-ed here and my report here.
5. Haiku for a Kingfisher at the beginning of summer:
6. Whales are dying all over the world, beached ashore for a variety of reasons; like plastic ingestion and underwater noise. I wonder if we only notice these magnificent creatures when they come ashore to die.
Indian rap-rage Raftar has a song on Climate Change! Give it a listen!
