South India Via NYC

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Before moving to India in 2010, my search for the perfect Indian restaurant, in North America and Europe and anywhere else Indian expats were numerous, was a constant. Now, when I travel outside India, my culinary quests are inverted; I never search for Indian while traveling. But Pete Wells makes me think I should rethink next time I am in New York City:

Pondicheri Makes Indian Flavors an All-Day Affair

By PETE WELLS

“This is the first place you’ve taken me where I’d come back and spend my own money,” a friend said in the middle of lunch at Pondicheri. He is highly sensitive to pretension and unjustified expense, so whenever I take him along on one of my hunting parties, I try to pick something with a high ratio of flavor to price. At Pondicheri, I finally hit his sweet spot. Continue reading →

Birding from VdF: Sierra de la Laguna

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Sierra de la Laguna and its highest point, El Picacho, as seen from SJD International Airport

Check out my last post for an introduction to this series and to read about the San José Estuary.

Down here at the tip of Baja California Sur, some part of the Sierra de la Laguna mountain range can be seen pretty much from anywhere with a good view inland. In fact, when you land in the Cabos airport, it feels next-door. When we were last here at Villa del Faro in July, Jocelyn wrote about some spots in the southern region of the Sierra Biosphere Reserve, and for our second trip last week, we visited the north (the middle is the most mountainous, with no access roads that we know of, just 6-hour hiking trails).

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Great Brothers

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Frank Craighead, left, with a goshawk, and John Craighead, right, with a peregrine falcon, in the late nineteen-thirties.

It is rare that we link to remembrances or obituaries in these pages, but the rare occasions are typically when it was someone(s) who we did not know about and realize we should have. This seems to me to be one of those cases where I can recommend the short read about two superstars of the best variety. It starts with a melancholy air, but gets bright and is worth reading to the end:

REMEMBERING THE CRAIGHEADS, PIONEERS OF WILDLIFE BIOLOGY

By

At dawn on Sunday, September 18th, a blanket of clouds hung over the tawny grass mountainsides around Missoula, Montana. The cottonwoods had begun to turn yellow. Continue reading →

Paris Gardens

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By the year 2020, the City of Paris wants to add 100 hectares of vertical gardens and roofs, with a third dedicated to urban agriculture.The Vertical Gardens by Patric Blanc / Flickr

Greening La Ville Lumière is as good a new objective as we can think of for a city that already has alot going for it (thanks to EcoWatch for the story):

Paris Becomes One of the Most Garden-Friendly Cities in the World

Lorraine Chow

Earlier this summer, Paris quietly passed a new law encouraging residents to help green the City of Light by planting their own urban gardens. Continue reading →

The Great Iguana Comeback

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The Jamaican rock iguana, a critically endangered species, is making a comeback. Robin Moore

We love comeback stories! Here is a great one from an island country that was featured in these pages much more last year, and we miss hearing about the place:

Jamaican Rock Iguanas Get a Shot at a New Home in the Wild

By JOANNA KLEIN

Meet the Jamaican rock iguana. Its scaly body stretches around two feet long, tail not included. Slate blue spikes stick up along its spine, and a saggy sac of loose skin wraps around its head like a hoodless cowl. When cornered, it strikes with its front claws — one reportedly ripped an eye from a dog. Continue reading →

Sundrop Farms, Harnessing Seawater & Solar

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Thanks to EcoWatch for this:

World’s First Farm to Use Solar Power and Seawater Opens in Australia

Kristin Falzon

Sundrop Farms, a tomato production facility that is the first agricultural system of its kind in the world, celebrated its grand opening in Port Augusta, South Australia, Thursday.

Continue reading →

Honeybees, Workers, Unite

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Every now and then a podcast changes my view on something important. Sometimes I cannot tell exactly what shifted my view–case in point is the podcast below which is full of facts I already knew, and if you have been following our site at all in recent years you would have seen dozens of posts covering many of these same facts. But somehow the personal touch of the two guests on this podcast intensified my view of the importance of bees in general, honeybees in particular, and our responsibility for finding a path to a future where bees can survive:

How Honeybees — and Humans — Are Being Stung by Environmental Problems

It’s just a tiny insect, but the humble honeybee has a huge impact on our way of life. Aside from providing honey, honeybees are responsible for pollinating a majority of the crops consumed in the United States and around the world, from blueberry patches in Maine to almond groves in California. But honeybees are facing both natural and manmade threats that are killing them by the millions. A major result of these threats — colony collapse disorder — is already being felt in the beekeeping industry, which has reported astounding losses in recent years. Continue reading →

Bravo, Romania

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Romania’s government has taken action to protect its large carnivores from trophy hunters.iStock

There was a time when we found portions of the hunting-to-support-conservation argument compelling. Our view is getting more and more firm against it. We applaud a small country teeming with wildlife for taking a firm stand:

Wildlife Advocates Celebrate: Romania Bans Trophy Hunting

By Alicia Graef

In a surprise move that has wildlife advocates cheering, Romania’s government has taken action to protect its large carnivores from trophy hunters.

Last week, the Environment Ministry announced a total ban on trophy hunting of brown bears, wolves, lynx and and other wild cats, which is expected to save thousands of animals from being killed. Continue reading →

Conservation, Nature & Culture

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Ping Zhu

A writer who captures the nuanced relationship between conservation of nature and culture has our attention:

The Lost Cultures of Whales

By SHANE GERO

Aboard the Balaena, Caribbean — I am alone on deck, my headphones filled with the sounds of the deep ocean. I have been tracking the sperm whales since 4 a.m. Now the island of Dominica imposes its dark shape in front of the rising sun.

“We have whales!” I shout down to Hal Whitehead, who founded the Dominica Sperm Whale Project with me a decade ago. He puts the kettle on and asks who it is as he comes on deck. Continue reading →

New Life For Paper Maps

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If you are old enough to remember regularly using postal services, as in letters printed on paper, placed in paper envelopes with stamp(s) affixed, then you can appreciate the assumption that paper maps are on their way out just like old fashioned letter-writing and sending. This article on the BBC website catches our attention for a counter-intuitive finding:

Why Paper Road Maps Won’t Die

In an age of Google Maps and GPS, paper maps sales are on the rebound

How did we manage to get from point A to B before GPS and navigation apps — especially when such journeys were long distances? Continue reading →

Underwater Pollination

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Image: Brigitta van Tussenbroek

We try to learn something new each day, and when we do, we pass it along here. Thanks to Conservation magazine for this one:

THE NEW UNDERWATER WORLD OF POLLINATION

Even at this relatively late stage in Earth’s exploration, it’s still possible to discover phenomena that are widespread, ecologically important, and—frankly—beautiful. Continue reading →

National Park of the Week: Banff National Park, Canada

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Peyto Lake, one of the many lakes in Banff. Image via authentikcanada.com

Established in 1883 by three railway workers who discovered a natural hot spring on the slopes of the Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park is Canada’s first national park and the birthplace of the world’s first national park service. Located in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, the park boasts more than a thousand picture-perfect glaciers and glacier-fed lakes, Castleground Caves (the country’s largest cave system), and several national historic sites. It also encompasses Banff, the highest town in Canada at an elevation of 4,540 ft, which makes it feasible and convenient to enjoy the sights over a period of days (which you will surely want to do).

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A Stay in History

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The Cooke House in Virginia Beach, Va., built in 1959. Credit Dave Chance Photography

Earlier this year when I wrote about the Art Institute of Chicago’s Airbnb listing of their reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous Arles bedroom I thought that was the pinnacle of Airbnb cool.

Staying at a home designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright seems equally as fun but far more expansive then the 19th century artist’s exuberantly painted bedroom – taking in the view for starters.

The Cooke House in Virginia Beach, Va., built in 1959, is one of Wright’s last commissioned works. It’s a hemicycle-shaped dwelling made of brick with a vast windowed living area overlooking a lake. Continue reading →

Arctic Bumblebees

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Superb science journalism:

Six Scientists, 1,000 Miles, One
Prize: The Arctic Bumblebee

A team of researchers scours the wilds of northern Alaska for Bombus polaris, a big bee that has adapted to the cold and that can teach them more about the effects of climate change.

By JAMES GORMAN

DALTON HIGHWAY, Alaska — “To bees, time is honey.”

— Bernd Heinrich, “Bumblebee Economics”

Hollis and Bren Woodard capturing bees next to the Alaskan pipeline. Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

One hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, by the side of a dusty road, two women in anti-mosquito head nets peer at a queen bumblebee buzzing furiously in a plastic tube.

“I think it’s the biggest bumblebee I’ve caught in my life!” Kristal Watrous says. Continue reading →

Stromatolites & You

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We humans are part of a very tiny slice of history, whereas in Western Australia we can have a glimpse at a big slice of history. It is humbling, and at the same time inspiring. As good science journalism should be. We are not too proud to admit that these had completely escaped our attention until just now:

The natural wonder that holds the key to the origins of life – and warns of its destruction

Stromatolite-building bacteria once ruled the Earth, then changed its climate so much they nearly became extinct. Michael Slezak visits the world’s largest surviving colony in Hamelin pool, Western Australia

Just shy of the westernmost tip of the Australian continent lies a pool that provides an unparalleled window into the origins of life on Earth. In its warm, briny waters a biological process takes place that began just as the continents were starting to form.

It is this very process that made the abundance of life on the planet possible and studying it today promises insights into how life began as well as what the Earth was like 3.7bn years ago. Continue reading →