Travel the great indoors for a glimpse of your city’s natural world
A lesser flameback woodpecker drums a tree trunk while a pair of brown-headed barbets collect berries for their nest, a shikra swoops down on a gecko and then feasts on…
It’s hello tourism, bye-bye vultures at MP heritage festival
This weekend, Orchha, a town in Madhya Pradesh’s Niwari district will host a government-driven, three-day international tourism festival, Namaste Orchha. The town is known for its 16th-century monuments built by…
Saving sparrows in cities, one nest at a time
“Today, if you ask a child about house sparrows, he perhaps would know this bird exists, but probably wouldn’t have seen it,” said environmentalist and documentary filmmaker Rakesh Khatri. Growing…
Most Indian birds declining, finds new report using citizen science data
For millennia, birds have been inherently intertwined in Indian culture, playing prominent roles in mythology, religion, art, and other aspects of human life. A new comprehensive report on the state of India’s…
Can the Bengal florican make its case at the Convention for Migratory Species CoP?
[This article has been updated after the CMS accepted the proposal about the Bengal Florican. Scroll to the end to read more.] Starting late last week on the 15th of…
Indian government proposes a 10-year plan to protect birds
On February 4, 2020, images of a rare oriental darter struggling to free its beak from a piece of plastic went viral. The incident was reported from Palwal in Haryana…
Pramila Bisoyi’s journey from protecting India’s national bird to the corridors of power
When newly-elected Member of Parliament from the east Indian state of Odisha, Pramila Bisoyi spoke in the House in her mother-tongue Odia, it was the subject of many jibes. The…
A community rallies around hornbill habitat to aid conservation
As you enter the Athirappilly-Vazhachal-Nelliyampathy forests in the southern Western Ghats, you're welcomed with a heavy whooshing sound from the canopies of large trees. For a moment, you might mistake…
How far do hornbills disperse seeds?
Hornbills disperse more than 90 percent of the seeds of the fruits they consume, and the larger-bodied great hornbills and wreathed hornbills can disperse seeds more than 10 km away…
Is the increasing presence of peafowl in Kerala a symbol of climate change?
Sixty-year-old Kunjan Kurumban has lived all his life in the village of Pallavur in Palakkad in central Kerala. But the agricultural worker had never seen a peacock in the vicinity…