| Great inter-racial photograph |
[May. 9th, 2008|08:48 am] |
The photographs on India Nature Watch are a source of wonder, solace, interest, information-- and sometimes amusement.
Here's a "black and white" photograph with a witty caption...
http://www.indianaturewatch.net/displayimage.php?id=47550
What I like is the fact that someone had this thought when he took the photograph!
Off to Bannerghatta, where the next batch of the JLRNTP-1 is starting today...I do like meeting people who take the course (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mohanvee is going to be one of them) and I hope to get in a little birding, too.
Meanwhile, here's one small flower from the raceme of the Queen's Flower:
The scientific name for the tree is LAGERSTROEMIA SPECIOSA....to me, that takes all the beauty and wonder and fun out of that tree...I know that scientific names are necessary, but...I would love to admire a Queen's Flower, but I don't think a LAGERSTROEMIA SPECIOSA would enthuse me too much. So a rose by another name might NOT smell as sweet!
Here's more info about the tree . You would think they would put up a colour photograph (or a colour painting) of such a beautiful flower, wouldn't you? Oh no, they put in a black-and-white sketch, which brings me back to the black-and-white photograph above.... |
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| Bandipur flora |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|03:26 pm] |
Two of the flowers on the Bandipur JLR campus:
I wanted to use the backlight on that lovely creeper and its flower; they are trained to grow around the cottages.
and this one below is the Pongaemia tree (HongE in Kannada), which is a common avenue tree in Bangalore, also; biodiesel is supposed to be extracted from this tree.
It is just about at the end of its flowering cycle now; a few weeks ago, the roads were carpeted with these flowers! |
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| Gold, Mammals and others at Bandipur.... |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|01:09 pm] |
First, the gold that I struck in Bandipur. Gold comes in many forms in the forest. Here's a GOLDEN DRAGONFLY:
And then there was the gold shower of the INDIAN LABURNUM, with its cascades of petals everywhere:
And of course, the gold of the sunset as we finished the evening safari, shot (with some difficulty) through the foliage:
Then come
( the mammals )
Had a wonderful time, saying hello to Bomma, Loki, Basavanna, Ganesh, and others, too....if only I had not had my wallet picked on the way to Bandipur, things would have been perfect...but..these things happen! |
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| LJ ..... |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|12:47 am] |
An LJ post about LJ!
But first, a picture of Plumeria alba or the Frangipani, which I shot in the garden while I was locked out of the flat (but that's another story!)
Last week, it was fun meeting up with usha123; she has a lovely, "green" and eco-friendly home (built that way before such things became fashionable) and she invited us over to see the Spotted Owlets that sat in a nearby tree. We went and stuffed ourselves on the lovely mango rice that she had made for Ugadi; but naturally, with Ms.Murphy's luck, the owlets never showed up! But we had a lovely evening chatting.
And today, I was pinged by wiredforlife, about B R Hills and how to get there, and so on. We had a nice long conversation; he visits JLR properties as regularly as he can, and his favourite is Bhadra he says...but wait until he sees K.Gudi! :)
He's been a reader of my posts and I hope that he's going to comment a little more than he has so far...
I must say that LJ gives me a great sense of community, and while I am sure there are many fringes to it, the part of the LJ pond that I swim in seems familiar and reasonably secure to me. Because I live in Bangalore, many of my LJ friends are my "F2F" (as the techies might say...Face to Face I mean) friends too. I realize that on blogs, "friends" may often be just contacts, not friends, but real friendship does seem to happen on LJ.
But then, I have so many friends whose blogs I follow on Blogger, too, and a few on Wordpress...my friends list takes quite a while to read, and I am happy about that!
My friends' list looks rather like this:
.... a bunch of fairly nice individuals! |
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| Two views of passion... |
[Apr. 3rd, 2008|03:51 pm] |
Passion is necessary to life...
Here's the Passion Flower (passiflora) :
I saw one flower a few days ago in the little park near my home and went to photograph it; I was rewarded by the sight of four; hopefully, many more will be blooming soon...I am not sure if they have been deliberately planted or are just growing there.
It's been, according to the newspaper, the wettest March Bangalore has had in...133 years! So here's "sky ocean" picture:
Am *intensely* irritated and am trying to cool myself down with all the pictures, will succeed soon. I must say, though, that for some time, I was wallowing in it, which is BAD. |
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| Anush and his help.... |
[Mar. 24th, 2008|05:29 pm] |
anushsh helped Karthik put up a page on the common flowering trees of Bangalore on his website, here at
http://www.wildwanderer.com/journal/flowering-trees/
I think it was very nice of Anush to do this, and help a very knowledgeable person share some of that knowledge with others. (I will not, of course, mention here that kalyan has also helped Karthik put up the website; as it is, he is saying that I have added "too much masala" to my account of him in my JLRNTP article!)
I am touched when I see youngsters who make such good-hearted gestures. Way to go, anushsh! |
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| Butterflies and Flowers... |
[Feb. 4th, 2008|03:14 am] |
I need Madhusmita ...or someone...to id all these butterflies, as I lost the piece of paper on which I had written some of them down...
First, let me start with this wonderful incident. Little Tammy came into the Insectarium, and promptly, this butterfly landed on her finger, sending her into squeals of delight:
Here she is, with the St Louis Zoo volunteer behind her:
( More pics for less than two clicks )
I am closing with this ornamental plant that looks like a flower itself:
More pics later...! But meanwhile, here's a lovely tale about butterflies, from <LJ user="madrasi_in_mo"...
http://madrasi-in-mo.livejournal.com/244609.html |
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| Bannerghatta forest area.... |
[Aug. 21st, 2007|11:53 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | agama, bannerghatta, birding, birdwatching, flowers, forest, id, insects, photography, snail, wildlife | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | none | ] |
Taken in the Bannerghatta forest area, 180807...thanks to adarshraju and Geetanjali ...they are great at spotting things!
A Baronet...
And some lovely name-not-known flowers (er, now I am naming them with help from Madhusmita Dutta of the JLRNTP group)
This, she says, is a PASSION FLOWER (what a lovely name!)
and this one is a FLAME LILY:
This flower was all over the hillsides...
and this one is unknown,too...
A baby Rock Agama...
And really amazing..this "flower" started moving across the leaf and I realized it was an insect!
Madhu says this is a kind of MEALY BUG:
Could someone help me with the id's? Thanks! |
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| Lake Manyara National Park..... |
[Aug. 21st, 2007|08:54 pm] |
This post too will contain lots of pics...so those without--a) interest in wildlife, b) time, or c) patience, off you go to the next friend's entry!
I started another post with the sunrise,but this one I will start with the moonset, as that is what we saw as we left very early from the Kirawira tented camp for Lake Manyara. Who can resist photographing a lovely full moon?
( some pictures chosen from the Flickr site; for the rest, click on one and it will take you to the Flickr page )
Having shot so many mammals, I couldn't resist shooting the wildest one of all, or at least, its shadow on the incredibly dusty ground:
And of course, here's the end-of-the-day:
Well...the last post will be about places and scenes in Tanzania...and that will conclude my Tanzania posts, ladies-n-genmun! |
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| Some flowers in Lalbagh.... |
[Jul. 4th, 2007|02:01 pm] |
Yesterday, in the middle of doing a lot of odd (some of them were VERY odd) jobs, I suddenly gave in to temptation as I was passing the Siddapura gate, and executed a neat, irresponsible sneak into Lalbagh...and wandered contentedly around. Of course I visited SSO (sainath's Spotted Owlets)..there were only two of them there this time...but in the course of my wanderings, went past the arch which has the Deadly Nightshade (also called the Potato Plant...I wonder why, when there IS already a real potato plant in existence!)... and here they are:
and
And here is the lovely flower of the Elephant Apple Tree, so called for its large fruit...
Nice, no?
All pics on the S3IS...it's got a great macro function! |
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| At a Tambram wedding... |
[Jun. 28th, 2007|06:10 pm] |
In the middle of taking the required "people" pics, I thought of focusing on the foot of the bride.
She is wearing a beautiful "mayil kazhutthu" (neck-of-the-peacock)Kanchipuram silk 9-yards saree, that is traditonally worn for the actual wedding ceremony; her foot is decorated with intricate maruthANi (mehendi) patterns; she wears a silver anklet, and just a few minutes ago, the "metti" (toe-ring) was put on her second toe, a mark of her being married.
The pAy (rush mat) on which she is standing is one that will be gifted to the newlweds, it usually bears, woven in, the name of the couple and the wedding date (you can see part of the "2007")...the flowers scattered around her feet were showered upon the couple in benison. |
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| Flowers...in the water...on the trees...on the ground.... |
[Mar. 7th, 2007|05:00 pm] |
sainath is in town, and we decided to go to that beautiful public park, Lalbagh .
No matter what time of the year I go to this lovely garden, it's a great experience.
Today, the focus was on what I call "SSO"...Sainath's Spotted Owlets! As soon as we..er...spotted them, I called up amoghavarsha (wasn't that a smart thing to do, letting us locate them first!) who also turned up with his Nikon.
We had a great time taking pictures of the owlets at two different locations in Lalbagh, and also photographed a delightful group of squirrels; but all that will be posted later (and of course you will find MUCH better snaps on their LJ's and websites!)....but meanwhile...here are some of the flowers of Lalbagh..let's start with one in the water...
Lily in Lalbagh Lake
( For more flowers, click on this )
Is it any wonder that with a morning lke that, my spirits are so high now, I am humming happily to myself and am so glad to live in this beautiful city? |
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| Garden Flora--I am in the mood for posting pictures..with a vengeance! |
[Jan. 25th, 2007|08:37 pm] |
As I tried using the Tamron lens on my walks in LA, I snapped many pictures of garden flowers; I realize that it seems rather "infra-dig" (beneath one's dignity, in a very Indian idiom!) to post pictures of garden flowers...but I have no dignity, being still a photographer who is an L board (another Indian idiom for someone who is learning )...so I am going to post some pictures of flowers...
Here's the bird of Paradise, which I thought I had posted on earlier post but apparently did not:
( And here are some more pictures of flowers )
Well, that's my floral tour, and I will use it to cheer myself up every now and then! |
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| African Tulip |
[Sep. 27th, 2006|04:51 pm] |
.....
This is the Spathodia, or African Tulip; it was brought in from the African continent by Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan's times by their emissaries; it has taken to Bangalore is a very popular avenue tree, scattering its beautiful blooms on our roads and footpaths.
Yes, I know the pic could have been a little crisper, but oh well, I am not aspiring to be a great photographer...call that a documentation shot and be done with it! |
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| Lalbagh, Flower Show... |
[Aug. 11th, 2006|12:55 am] |
......
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Want to see the things that caught my eye? My favourite is actually the tree and the etching of the Ashoka Pillar on the glass....
( several pics if you click on this )
and this time, pics by DM, not KM!! I repeat...I am NOT a photographer... |
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happy