In his 1895 book, The Valley of Kashmir, Sir Walter Lawrence, who served in the Indian Civil Service in British India and was posted as the Settlement Commissioner of Kashmir,…
Hundreds of Egyptian vultures — an endangered scavenger — flock to India in October where they spend the winter voraciously feasting on the plentiful supply of livestock carcasses at a…
In 1980, the social forestry wing of the Assam state forest department in northeastern India launched an experimental programme that aimed to measure how well tree cover could protect against…
Once in the running to become India’s national bird, the great Indian bustard (GIB) is now fluttering for survival. Earlier found across several states of India, it is now on…
For filmmaker Sesino Yhoshu, watching tens and thousands of Amur falcons (Falco amurensis) roost by the Doyang reservoir in a remote corner of Nagaland was an awe-inspiring moment. It stirred…
In the natural world, when two or more species come together in the same area for a certain time, they form a community. The birds that visit your backyard in…
We set out before dawn to escape the cruel summer heat of the Tirunelveli plains. By sunrise we had already gained altitude and entered the dense deciduous forests of the…
India’s on-shore wind energy sector is often touted as a success story. Now, the Indian government is looking to tap the enormous offshore wind energy potential. The latest move however,…
In 1987, Asad Rahmani, ornithologist and the former director of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), wrote in the journal Oryx that the greatest threat to the great Indian bustard…
Thirty-six vultures, including those belonging to two critically endangered species, were killed in an alleged illegal bait-poisoning incident in Assam. Thirty-six of the scavengers succumbed after consuming poison-laced goat carrion…
Far removed from the mainland, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal support and nurture over a thousand species of animals that are exclusive to this part…
In December 2004, an unexpected wall of water swept across the Indian Ocean, leading to death and devastation across several countries, including the slender sliver of land in Bay of…
With the vulture, it was the tragedy of the commons. Once, these large, ungainly birds were ubiquitous – seen in both cities and countryside, perched on trees and electric poles,…
It was just another day for the farmers of the Koratagere village in the Tumkur district of Karnataka. On the way to their fields, they heard the pitiful cries of…
In Mumbai, when a new highway had to cut through mudflats where flamingos come in, the quid pro quo by the Maharashtra Government was to notify a flamingo sanctuary. Thus,…
On Dec. 9, researchers discovered the remains of an extremely rare bird in India’s Thar Desert, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. All that remained was a pile of bones,…
For the tough, weather-beaten farmers in the rural heartland of West Bengal, agroforestry is an age-old tradition that even finds mention in their folklore. In the remote village of Bhattadighi,…
As dusk falls upon the wetlands in Kanchipuram district in Tamil Nadu, a diverse array of waterbirds, from storks to ibises to pelicans, congregate by the edge of the water.…
In the hot, arid grasslands of central and western India, a volley of birdsong is not always what it seems. It may not be a flock of different birds, but…