Pictures of common birds from a tiny sanctuary that we call home. We bought a barren piece of land to build our house on and are slowly trying to turn it into a mini sanctuary. All these pictures are from within our compound. #IndiAves#TribeIndiAves
It’s easy to do and great fun. Every new species that we see is a ‘major discovery’ for us
It soon becomes a pretty cool outdoor studio for lazy blokes like me. No carrying heavy equipment over rough tracks cause we can shoot with a beer glass in one hand. Makes life easier
We still haven’t got anything spectacularly rare but it’s not bad to have Bluethroats or Barred Buttonquails outside your bedroom
Hell, even the Booted warbler, a common bird, suspended between two reeds while trying to drink water is not a bad sight with your wake up coffee
It’s great to see Kestrels from the dining room - don’t tell me they are common, I know. I love the fact that Baya & Black breasted weaver birds - both nest at home
We - my wife, our 9 year old cub and I - we share our home with a lot of species and it’s just awesome
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Introduction not a reintroduction. We are not “reintroducing” a species that went extinct recently in India, instead we are “introducing” an alien predator in a habitat where they never ever existed.
I am not convinced that there was a wild population of cheetahs in India, that went extinct recently. There would have been cheetahs in Baluchistan but not in the present day India, at least not in the last few centuries.
Thousands of cheetahs were imported from Central Asia and Africa by the rich in India for over a 1000 years, mostly to be trained as “hunting leopards” for hunting or to be hunted down themselves
Cheetahs - an Introduction or Reintroduction. India’s Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 forbids the introduction of exotic species to India’s wilds, even if they are genetically close to their Indian subspecies. It is illegal to even provide them with wild prey in captivity.
The cheetahs that we are getting are captive bred African cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus), a different sub species (or genetically different) from the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus). Therefore, it’s being called a “Reintroduction’ because Introduction is illegal
“Assessing the potential for reintroducing the cheetah in India”, a report from 2010 claims that 27 cheetahs could be sustained in the 347 sq. km of Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary. Kuno was a sanctuary at the time and half the present-day size of Kuno National Park.
05:11 pm Ranthambhore 23rd June 2022 - A tigress called Laila in Bhakola valley. We saw her sitting in a pool of water behind some bushes about half an hour ago. They s was the third or fourth picture I took, after she got up and started walking.
She crossed to our jeep’s left to spray mark a tree and then walked into a narrow entrance to a valley that widen up ahead. We drove on to park at where we thought we might catch up with her - a beautiful setting that tigers normally avoid.
Normally avoid - but today was an exception. I love these Rock formations and couldn’t believe she was walking through them.
Let me show you some ancient architecture from Ranthambhore national park on #WorldPhotographyDay
This building, same as the one in the previous picture, is known as the Choti (or small) Chattri, so called because there is a larger one nearby called (not very creatively) Badi (or big) chattri. It’s basically a elevated, dome-shaped pavilion with a Shivling under it
Then there is this one very close to Choti Chattri. The platform is still there but not the rest.
Been on safaris in Ranthambhore for two weeks now. When I started it was hot & the forest was dry. Hardly an colours except in the few evergreen groves along permanent water sources. Pictures had a brown background
Two days later it rained for a few hours which is a lot for us here. That totally transformed the forest. Water became available all over so the animals scattered across the forest. They now didn’t need to stay close to water holes. Water is everywhere
Once the predominant tree here - Anogeissus pendula or Dhonk as we call it locally - turns green, the number of animals that one sees in the lower reaches goes down drastically but the background becomes very interestingly green.