A Drone By Any Other Name

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Drones are generally not pleasant news references. Occasionally, however, there are surprises. Thanks to Reuters for this news on nature photography’s latest tech breakthrough:

BeetleCopter, the low-cost alternative for wildlife photography (2:24)

Jan. 16 – A British photographer and entrepreneur has developed drone technology for shooting documentary-quality wildlife footage at extremely low cost. Will Burrard-Lucas has sold models of his earlier invention – the ground-level BeetleCam – to other budding wildlife photographers, and hopes to do the same with his BeetleCopter.

Watch, Weep, Read, Wonder, Share

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A synopsis of this documentary is here:

Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed several people while in captivity. Along the way, director-producer Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles shocking footage and emotional interviews to explore the creature’s extraordinary nature, the species’ cruel treatment in captivity, the lives and losses of the trainers and the pressures brought to bear by the multi-billion dollar sea-park industry. Continue reading →

Performing Arts of Kerala

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Photo credit: Abhayan Menon

Photo credit: Abhayan Menon

The rhythm, elegance and finesse of the classical dance of Kerala is a result of the various cultural influences that took place in the state. These classical forms are a delicate fusion of ancient classical texts and folk traditions, often related to religious rituals and mythological stories. Continue reading →

Classics-R-Us

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PRIVATE COLLECTION/KEN WELSH/THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY. Fourteenth-century Florentine poet Petrarch so loved the classical authors that he imagined conversations with them.

PRIVATE COLLECTION/KEN WELSH/THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY. Fourteenth-century Florentine poet Petrarch so loved the classical authors that he imagined conversations with them.

Among all the topics we survey, link to and write about on this site, the classics are if anything underrepresented relative to their importance in matters of community, collaboration and conservation. History is probably the most visible, thanks to Seth’s recent series on Iceland. Book reviews and shout outs to great professors are also visible with some frequency. Maybe enough, maybe not. Anyway, once more to the trenches, on the side of the humanities but not against practical considerations; the liberal arts matter to our future, not just to our past as this essay reaffirms, so let’s not lose them:

In 2011, the University of California at Los Angeles decimated its English major. Such a development may seem insignificant, compared with, say, the federal takeover of health care. It is not. What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift in our culture that bears on our relationship to the past—and to civilization itself. Continue reading →

Windows For Bird Conservation

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Thanks to Conservation Magazine‘s weekly newsfeed for this briefing on bird-friendly building practices:

The infrastructure that provides people with essential services sometimes has a surprisingly large side effect on other species. Seemingly benign buildings may be one of the deadliest serial killers.

People have long observed birds collide with windows at their home or office. The cumulative effect of all those collisions across America has previously been estimated to range widely from 100 million to 1 billion birds killed a year. A new study to be published in  The Condor analyzed previous studies and datasets for a clearer consensus. The result, even with some uncertainty remaining, was still a whopping 365 to 988 million birds. Continue reading →

Thai Pongal – Festival of Tamil Nadu

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Photo credits : Renuka Menon

Photo credits: Renuka Menon

Thai Pongal is a harvest festival celebrated in Tamil Nadu on January 14th every year for four days. Tamilians decorate their homes with sugarcane and leaves from banana and mango trees, and draw on the floor with kolams (decorative patterns made with rice flour). Continue reading →

Prehistoric Kerala Rock Art

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Deep meanings: A newly discovered anthropomorphic motif on a rock in the Thovari hills near the Edakkal caves in Wayanad.

Deep meanings: A newly discovered anthropomorphic motif on a rock in the Thovari hills near the Edakkal caves in Wayanad.

The Hindu reports today on a discovery in Wayanad, where Raxa Collective hopes to offer travelers cultural heritage conservation experiences in the near future:

This is the first time an anthropomorphic figure, a recurring motif of pre-historic rock arts sites in the world, has been reported from the site.

An anthropomorphic figure has been discovered among the prehistoric petroglyphs (rock engravings) on the Thovari hills near Edakkal caves in the Wayanad district of Kerala.

Continue reading →

Bald Eagle Encounter In Paonia, Colorado

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Sitting

This Bald Eagle is one of at  least two that fly through the valley where I live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This one surprised me by swooping down meters away from me as I read a book outdoors on a warm winter day. Springing from my post on the roof of my house, I scrambled down onto  the deck and into my kitchen in a mad dash for a camera. The eagle had thankfully not left its position in a tree barely thirty feet from my house in that time. With a harsh glare radiating from the sun just short of dead center behind the eagle Continue reading →

Hill Palace – Kochi

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Photo credits : Aju

Photo credits: Aju

The Hill Palace, built in a blend of Dutch and traditional Keralan architectural styles, was built in the year 1865 and spreads over 20,000 square feet in forty-nine buildings. Once the official residence of the maharaja of Cochin, today Hill Palace is one of Kerala’s largest archaeological museums. Continue reading →

At Play In A Greek Kitchen

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William Brinson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Suzanne Lenzer. Prop stylist: Deborah Williams.

Click the image to the right to go to the story (and take a few minutes to watch the video), which contains a brief cooking lesson in the form of a travelogue. It will either get you reaching for your cookbook, or your travel planner. As we prepare the opening of a restaurant facing a harbor whose waters have hosted ships from the Mediterranean for thousands of years now, we find ourselves with a soft spot for any and all mentions of the foods from that faraway region.

5a979914-eca2-4613-b6ea-e92213533640_2.707f21163a3b20e8172a52d4e1bf533b.jpegWe have been offering authentic Malabar cuisine, in its present day form, in multiple venues over the years already.  Now it is time to go back to some of the less considered influences. For that reason, a quick trip to a kitchen in the Greek islands is a welcome diversion. In his article Life of Pie the food writer Mark Bittman has described the same food in the same location where Amie and I recently ate what we thought was the best hortopita, a variation on the more well known spanakopita, we had ever tasted. And by chance we were on a scouting mission on the island of Ikaria, so this article and the forthcoming cookbook are both perfectly timed for us:

When Diane Kochilas said we were making phyllo, I confess I was intimidated. But as Kochilas taught me, although “phyllo” means “leaf,” that leaf need not be the paper-thin type we’re accustomed to seeing in flaky Middle Eastern pastries. It may be, as it is here, a thin but readily made dough, rich in olive oil, smooth to the touch and easy to handle. Continue reading →

Simian Visitors to Cardamom County

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Nilgiri Langur

It’s been a while since we shared with you pictures of visitors from Periyar at Cardamom County. Here are a few photos of a family of  Nilgiri Langur that took a quick stop at our resort on their way to their final destination: the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Continue reading →

Just Stop, Leave, And Do Not Come Back

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A Dakar rally competitor passes indigenous people between Bolivia and Chile. The rally, it is claimed, turns their land into a tourist attraction. Photo: Felipe Trueba/EPA

A Dakar rally competitor passes indigenous people between Bolivia and Chile. The rally, it is claimed, turns their land into a tourist attraction. Photo: Felipe Trueba/EPA

From 2008-2010, several contributors to this platform were spending time in the Patagonia region of Chile working on various projects, and during that period first came to know of the obscene event known as the Dakar Rally.

With no offense intended to motorbike racing, car racing or other enthusiasts of motorized sport, it is impossible to reconcile the destruction this event causes with any supposed positive outcomes. We can think of plenty of healthier alternatives to this method of getting around the southern part of South America. And yet, the event organizers have continued making their case to a government that has continuing granting an unwarranted privilege, and the annual event it is still going strong in spite of all the evidence of its negative spillovers:

The Dakar Rally of 500 off-road vehicles bumping and skidding through clouds of dust may be one of the world of motor sport’s most spectacular sights but archaeologists, environmentalists and indigenous groups are warning the 14-day event is ruining Chile’s ancient heritage.

Chilean government studies seen by the Guardian confirm the damage done to geoglyphs, protected sites, burial grounds and tracks on the Inca trail during previous races, but such is the race’s importance for tourism that it has once again been given the green light. Continue reading →