Walking on the shores of Elliot's beach in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, with an 18-member-group of children is naturalist, educator and activist, Yuvan Aves. He asks them, “Oh! So, this is…
“Our habitat was once a thick jungle in which trees such as Magnolia sp., Dipterocarpus sp., Pinus sp., Phoebe hainesiana, Quercus sp. and more, as large as three to four metres…
Few terms are more paradoxically promising to a scientist than ‘open data’. ‘Funding approved’ is better, but that’s not the subject of this review. Open data promises ‘data’, the cornerstone…
Black kites have a vantage view of Indian cities. The ubiquitous bird has adjusted to urban areas and lives close to humans. The sight of these birds of prey occupying Delhi’s…
Bird migration is a phenomenon worth celebrating. And celebrate they do at the Government High School Cinchona, in the hilly town of Valparai in Tamil Nadu. Every year, grey wagtails…
Many popular and lesser known bird habitats in Mumbai city are facing a threat from urban infrastucture work, while some have managed to survive despite the urban landscape closing in.…
Stretching from the Nicobar Islands very close to the equator to the Western Himalaya in the north, India covers about 30 degrees of latitude, with a long coastline on its…
Flanked by the Outer Ring Road, where unceasing traffic spews noxious fumes, and a concreted canal where heaps of plastics float amid sewage, the Hennur Lake biodiversity park in Bengaluru…
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…
Farida Sheikh remembers her house in the slums in Ahmedabad feeling like a furnace, where summer temperatures have reached up to 50 degrees Celsius. But for the last four years,…
For believers of Vastu Shastra and Feng Shui, the kachua (turtles or tortoises) attracts good fortune. Decorative items, rings and pendants depicting these creatures are common talismans and some homes…
Pinky Alawa and Sapna Rawat cautiously approach a woman drawing water from a hand-pump in the hilly part of central India, in Alirajpur district in Madhya Pradesh. The pump is…
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…
Mysore city (or Mysuru) in Karnataka sure knows its birds. A lesser-known secret of the city that wears a royal cape is its thriving birding scene. On any given day,…
Through the use of the visual medium, the Green Hub Project in northeast India engages and empowers youth across eight states in the region, especially from remote tribal areas and…
A school teacher in Meghalaya spent the last four days of his holidays travelling around 30 villages looking at trees. Resly Roy Pariong was scanning trees in backyards, gardens and…
Early on a Sunday morning, before the sun had even risen, hundreds of Mumbaikars stumbled out of their beds. They went crisscrossing through the city and then flocked to certain…
On the evening of June 24, 2015, members of the Konkan Cetacean Research Team received an ominous call. A blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), the largest animal in the world, was…
The smell of sea hangs thick in the air as we gather round and listen to the dos and don’ts. “Don’t pick up anything even if it seems beautiful,” Sejal…
In the new year technology is expected to aid citizen action to keep a check on water quality in Bengaluru’s ailing lakes. With a lack of funding preventing citizen groups…
