The Boss is sleeping - Marredpally Macaques - 2

The other day the troop of about 15 monkeys arrived at about 2 pm and stayed on for exactly two hours. It was clearly siesta time, because almost all of them, located at different positions in the vicinity spent most of the time napping.
This guy, the biggest and the most aggressive of the troop, behaved and was treated like the leader. He took his position on the chickoo (sapota) tree right in front of our balcony and 'slept'. He didn't move till it was about 4 pm and when he did, the entire troop took off immediately after him.



Tomorrow: The boss is sleeping; so shall we!

The Marredpally Macaques- 1

The rather leafy and peaceful neighbourhood of West Marredpally in Secunderabad is home to a largish troop of macaques that has pretty much a free run of the place. No one living here can miss them as they go about their rounds across the area and I've been coming across them almost once in three days ever since I moved to Secunderabad a couple of years ago.
It's not very clear where these animals came from. Some people say that they have been here all along, from the earlier times when these areas were even more thickly wooded. Others say that these are the animals (and their descendants) from the lot that animal rights activists freed from the National Institute of Nutrition some time back.
That, as it may be, they are unavoidable reality in today's Marredpally and from what little I have seen and heard they've not become the menace that they have in other parts of the country. There are the occassional accounts (like from a friend of our's) whose kitchen on the 2nd floor is regularly raided by them.
The area around our house is particularly green with a number of trees - chickoo, gulmohar, neem and a huge and beautiful pipal. Not surprisingly we are regularly visited by the troop - and at different parts of the day. I have been occassionally clicking the animals from the balcony of our house and over the next few days am going to put up a selection of the pics with the different moods of the Marredpally Macaques...

You eye me; I eye U

Mother and child

You mind your business, we mind ours

Rains in Secunderabad

It's the same story in Secunderabad as it is in most of the country - almost no rains. The clouds have been coming and going, but that's about it. The night of 26th June was somewhat of an exception. After a hot and sultry day with clouds and the sun playing hide and seek with each other through the day, things changed at night and we had an hour or so of heavy rain.

Here are some pics in the golden light of sodium vapour from the balcony of my house in the rather green and leafy Mareddpally part of Secunderabad

Fishing and Fisherfolk

Fishing on the River Simsang, Baghmara, Meghalaya - on the border with Bangladesh


Sailing out on the River Godavari, just downstream of the site of the Polavaram dam


Returning home, Byet Dwarka, Gulf of Kutch, Gujarat

This monsoon in Pune

I was in Pune last week and though the weather was cloudy and very monsoon like, the rains hardly came. There were however some dramatic skies and here is a set of pictures from one recent late evening.

Monsoon clouds - Andaman islands

There is something about the water, the air and the clouds of the Andaman islands... In the monsoons in particular, the colours, the intensity and the drama is unmatchable. As the monsoon continues to play truant this year, here are a few pics from the Andamans from the past.

Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park, Wandoor, South Andaman. We were on the beach on Jollybuoy Island and could see the clouds building up and blowing in. I could manage a few pictures before we had to ourselves run for shelter... (July 2003)

Late evening ... from the coast of Neil Island (September 2007)

A dramatic build up clouds over Port Blair, seen and photographed from Ross Island
(September 2007)

Longwood Shola - A little jem of a Nilgiris forest

In April, earlier this year, I had a great opportunity of spending a few days in the Nilgiris (my first visit) and also of getting to know the people at and work of the Kotagiri based Keystone Foundation. It was while I was in Kotagiri that I made this two hour trip one morning to a little jem of a forest - the Longwood Shola. Only about 100 hectares in size, it gives a good sense of what the original forests of the Nilgiris were; has great wildlife populations and is an important water catchment for downstream villages. It is also an Important Bird Area and a recognised Community Conserved Area.
What was also very nice was that the person who took me around was Senthil, who is now with Keystone was instrumental in getting the local communities involved in protecting the forest. Here is a sampling of what I could see in Longwood in just two hours.

The Malabar Giant Squirrel - Longwood has many of these adorable fellows and I was lucky to have seen at least half a dozen that morning.

Gaur - There seems to be a resident herd and also other animals that come and go

Tree fern

On the Andaman Trunk Road

This is a set of pics clicked on February 14, 2003 on the Andaman Trunk Road. I was sitting at the back of the passenger bus and just about managed to get these three pics of the driver of the bus handing over something to the Jarawa lady. In this case these seemed to be biscuits, but this is one of the ways in which a host of things have been introduced to the Jarawa community. The road itself is a big intrusion into the lives and the forests of the Jarawa and though there are Supreme court orders of 2002 to shut it down, traffic continues to ply on it unhindered.

A young Jarawa woman starts to run alongside the bus even as the driver slows down

She reaches out as the driver's hand emerges with something to hand over

She transfers the first object to her right hand and then stretches out the left again to take the next item being given