10,000 Birds

JULY 9, 2015

Clearings around the house offer favourite grazing to small herds of Chital deer and a playground to Gray (or Hanuman) Langurs. One Nilgai – the largest of Asian antelopes and a few Sambar deer later, we hit a jackpot: there is one jackal-like animal sitting among the dry leaves!

Tigers 231

Tigers Dogs India Snow Leopard 231

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 22, 2015

There’s a Sloth Bear in tall, dry grass, barely 50 metres from us, but all we can see is a dark, shape-shifting shadow that eventually becomes all but invisible. On a branch above the road, one Black-winged Kite is scratching its throat and… we brake! The Telia Lake.

Tigers 238

Tigers India Killing 2012 238

10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2018

Now, there are still 10 million of them there but, due in part to a population dip after 1970, it is, in the reign of the second Elizabeth, illegal to kill them intentionally. By the time of Queen Elizabeth I, they were considered vermin, a bounty placed on their small heads. What’s magic about 1970? What, for that matter, is normal?

Humane 102

Humane Species North America Sparrows 102