Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat
Bird of the Day: Sociable Lapwing
Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat
Bird of the Day: Black Kite
Bokkapuram, Tamil Nadu
Because Coffee is ‘Human’
Selecting beans for export in India.PHOTO: Sebastiao Salgado
Coffee fields in Brazil during flowering season. PHOTO: Sebastiao Salgado
A coffee picker in Tanzania’s Rift Valley. PHOTO: Sebastiao Salgado
For those who believe life begins after coffee, the story of its origin will definitely sound familiar. Coffee grown worldwide can trace its heritage to the ancient coffee forests on the Ethiopian plateau, where legend says the goat herder Kaldi first discovered the potential of these beloved beans. It is said that Kaldi discovered coffee after noticing that his goats, upon eating berries from a certain tree, became so energetic that they did not want to sleep at night. Kaldi reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery who made a drink with the berries and discovered that it kept him alert for the long hours of evening prayer. The abbot shared his discovery with the other monks at the monastery, and slowly knowledge of the energizing berries began to spread.
Now photographer Sebastiao Salgado takes readers deep into that grind with his latest collection, The Scent of a Dream: Travels in the World of Coffee that looks at the landscapes and labors behind the $100-billion-a-year business in ten countries around the globe.
Bird of the Day: Long-tailed Minivet
Bhimtal, Uttarakhand
Bird of the Day: Greater Yellow-naped Woodpecker
Binsar, Uttarakhand
Bird of the Day: Purple-rumped Sunbird
female – Bokkapuram, Tamil Nadu
Sheepdogs Active in Wildlife Conservation Yet Again
Phillip Root with the Maremma sheepdogs of Middle Island, Australia. The dogs were introduced there in 2006 to protect the little penguin, a native species. Credit David Maurice Smith for The New York Times
A few years ago, we shared the story of an effort by the Cheetah Conservation Fund in South Africa as part of their Cheetah Outreach project that involved Anatolian shepherd dogs. The idea was to help livestock owners raise the sheepdogs to guard their herds and therefore not feel the need to kill cheetahs that might see the sheep as potential prey. This program has worked out well, and now we’re hearing from the New York Times about another success story in Australia, although in this case the sheepdogs aren’t protecting livestock: they’re guarding the Little Penguin on Middle Island, Victoria from the introduced red fox.
‘Massacred,’ read the banner headline in the local newspaper — just the single word, as if describing an act of war. Below it was a photo of dead penguins and other birds, the latest casualties in Australia’s long history of imported species’ decimating native wildlife.
Foxes killed 180 penguins in that particular episode, in October 2004. But the toll on Middle Island, off Victoria State in southern Australia, kept rising. By 2005, the small island’s penguin population, which had once numbered 800, was below 10.
What Warm Temperatures in the Sub-Arctic Mean
A field near harvest time at Meyers Farm in Bethel, Alaska, can now grow crops like cabbage outside in the ground, due to rising temperatures. PHOTO: Daysha Eaton/KYUK
Farming in the Arctic? Well, it can be done. The reasons are many. For one, the climate is changing: Arctic temperatures over the past 100 years have increased at almost twice the global average.
On a misty fjord in Greenland, just miles from the planet’s second largest body of ice, Sten Pedersen is growing strawberries. Yellowknife, a Canadian city 320 miles below the Arctic Circle, hosted a farmers market this summer. And a greenhouse in Iqaluit, the capital of the vast Canadian Inuit territory of Nunavut, is producing spinach, kale, peppers and tomatoes. The frozen tundra of the Arctic is experiencing something of an agriculture boom. More
Bird of the Day: Lesser Whistling Duck
Barnawapara Wildlife Sanctuary, Chhattisgarh
The Whale that just kept swimming … away
A wild Omura’s whale (Credit: Salvatore Cerchio et al/Royal Society Open Science)
Whales are the largest aquatic mammals on Earth, so it’s hard to believe that the first official sighting of the Omura’s Whales only happened recently near Madagascar. In 2003 Japanese scientists identified this whale as a new species; however, it was based on skeletal specimens and genetic tests.
Bird of the Day: Spot-bellied Eagle Owl – Adult and Juvenile
Photo credit: Pallavi Kaiwar
Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Karnataka
When A Legend Fades Away
Stories about the Yeti date back thousands of years, especially in the Himalayan nations. Legends say it can be seen only when it comes down from the high mountains to lower elevation and that it passes through the forests and into the villages where it surprises or scares people and sometimes kills a yak for food. Several climbers claim to have seen an unusual animal on their way up Mount Everest. A few have taken photographs of very large footprints in the snow, claiming they belong to the Yeti. It has another name that many people will recognize: Abominable Snowman. Think of a big human-like animal covered in white hair, with huge canine teeth and very big footprints.
But now, no one’s looking for the Yeti.
Bird of the Day: Yellow-headed Caracara
Tacacori, Costa Rica
Still Standing – the Last Jews of Jew Town
The Paradesi synagogue in Jew Town, Fort Kochi, Kerala. Credit: Alyssa Pinsker
Xandari Harbour, going beyond a hotel, doubles as a gateway to history. Located between the tourist paradise of Fort Kochi and the heritage rich bylanes of the spice markets of Mattanchery, it sees people and time come and go. Among the tales we hold precious is the heartwarming lifestory of the Jews of Jew Town. A handful left, behind doors and windows they sit – reminders of a people who found warm refuge in an alien land. Reminders of a page of a history turning to close.
In a small neighbourhood in the South Indian city of Cochin, Kashmiri shopkeepers in Islamic dress stand in front of shops emblazoned with banners reading “Shalom!” Inside, Hindu statues and shawls vie for space with Jewish stars, menorahs and mezuzahs. Although this multiculturalism might seem strange, the majority-Hindu city is well known for its substantial Muslim and Christian populations. Less known is that there’s also a fast-dwindling native Jewish community, known as the Paradesi (Foreign) Jews, who once populated the neighbourhood of Jew Town.
Bird of the Day: Rufous-necked Hornbill
L- male; R- female
Outskirts of Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, West Bengal
October eBirding at Xandari
A Mottled Owl seen on Halloween, 2015
This past month at Xandari was a good one for the resort’s eBird hotspot, since it saw the beginning of the migratory bird season in earnest (some species start migrating from North America in September or even late August). Not only were 91 distinct species seen throughout the month, but 15 of these species were newly observed on property (including three new representatives each of both raptors and warblers; four new swallows; and even a new hummingbird that was probably fleeing the rain-induced cooler temperatures at its higher elevation habitat). These fresh observations have bumped the hotspot’s species count up to 137, putting Xandari in a tie for 54th place by species count within the entire province of Alajuela, which as the third-largest province of Costa Rica includes some of the stronger birding sites in the country, like Arenal and Poás volcanoes and Caño Negro National Park (not to mention all the private reserves––like Xandari’s––that get lots of bird-watchers every year).
Last night, fittingly for Halloween, Jocelyn and I saw a Mottled Owl (not the first time at Xandari, but the first time filmed that I know of):
Bird of the Day: White-rumped Vultures
Kabini River, Karnataka
Bird of the Day: Eastern-wood Pewee
Tacacori, Costa Rica
Cod’s Feeling the Heat
Zach Whitener, research associate at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, holds a cod while collecting samples for a study. PHOTO: Gulf of Maine Research Institute
As climate change has warmed the Earth, oceans have responded more slowly than land environments. But scientific research is finding that marine ecosystems can be far more sensitive to even the most modest temperature change. A telling effect of rising temperatures is the problems fishing is plagued by.
Cod was once so plentiful in New England that legend had it you could walk across the local waters by stepping on the backs of the fish. Now, though, this tasty species is in such trouble there that cod fishing is practically shut down. And scientists say it looks like rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine explains why regulators’ recent efforts to help the cod while allowing fishing were a failure.
Bird of the Day: Chloropsis
Bokkapuram, Tamil Nadu
