Plenty of Zebras

In the corner of the new garden, is a tangled bed of a flowering bush called as Blue Chitrak - Plumbago articulata. A native of South Africa ,the blue chitrak is a common garden plant .

 I had often seen the wild cousin of the blue chitrak , our very own white chitrak , Plumbago zeylanica , in the wild and sometimes around neglected hedges around city banglows .

The pretty butterflies are Zebra Blues , these too, I had seen plenty of times on the outskirts of the city .

What I had not bothered to do was to look up the books . Had I done that , I would not have been surprised to find a nice big bunch of zebra blues hanging around the Plumbago.

It's their host plant,shouts Wikipedia !

But then ,is not observing nature , be it in the jungles or in the garden , all about such wonderful surprises ?

Back to the jungle

We have just shifted to a new home ! The jungle in this garden is so much better.
Firstly it's now possible to have a look at the sky whenever I want. And there are two spathodia trees which are growing to our eye level, so no binocs needed to watch all the birds that love to roost there  . There is also a long hedge of bamboo and ficus in which I found a few of last seasons munia nests.Have not seen many butterflies though....

This garden definitely looks promising . Hope to write a lot about it...

What's in a name ?

The pink blossoms finally had a visitor. A nice little yellow butterfly. I was delighted as these particular flowers , which we had planted last year with very high hopes, had finally managed to attract their second visitor of the year. I see plenty of butterflies flying by from the window, some even breed in the garden, but they sure don’t like to stay for lunch.

I clicked a picture, and after the butterfly left , went to the books to find something to write about it.

The grass yellow is as simple as it gets. In fact, if I jog my memories and try to recall the first butterfly I had ever seen in my life , I think it would be a this one. The first butterfly I ever ran after and caught would be this one. This would also be the kind that I first tried to photograph and later did not bother to photograph at all since there was always something better to click.

The book did a funny thing to this yellow butterfly. The book didn’t stop after calling it a grass yellow. I had to make a choice. There’s the One spot grass yellow and the Three spot grass yellow and the Small grass yellow and a Spotless grass yellow. Then there is the Chocolate grass yellow and finally the Common grass yellow.

When I realized that I love nature, I did not even know that butterflies had names. My love for nature never diminished in spite of my scientific ignorance. Question is , has it really increased due to my ever expanding scientific knowledge ?

Greenish Warbler ???

Sometimes I feel that chucking the DSLR for a compact was a wrong move. The ‘megazoom prosumer’ that I am using does a wonderful job most of the time, it’s three times lighter and doesn’t make a sound and can fit in my waist pouch with its 400mm lens, but I do remember the times when the focus used to lock on a subject through a tangle of twigs.

This nostalgia was brought forth by a bird that we have started seeing these days .

It is tiny and fast and notoriously camera shy . If this bird is one which I think it is, it reminds me of Lao Tsu. It is so perfectly ordinary and extra ordinary at the same time. I think it is a greenish warbler, maybe, it is not.

The Tailors

The tailor birds love to hunt on the tree by our window. The birds are there first thing in the morning to soak in the sun and have their breakfast.Post monsoon is when the tree puts out new shoots.The underside of the tender leaves is soon covered with soft bodied insects which the tailor birds relish.The insects dont move around much and the young tailors who have just left the nests in the monsoons find them easy to catch.

Red Breasted Flycatcher

An uncommon call made me rush to the window. Had to play a bit of hide and seek to finally find what this winter had brought to the garden.


The heap of dead branches we had piled up in a corner seemed to be his favorite place to hang out.

It was a male red breasted fly catcher.

He was frisky at first but I was able to take a photo from the window on the second day.

We were just about getting used to his calls from his favorite corner of the garden ,when he decided it was time to move on.. He stayed with us for 4 -5 days.

Hoping he stops by every year.

The tiny visitor

Got up a little early this Saturday due to what seemed like an alarm going off. But the alarm is generally switched off on Saturdays and the sound seemed to be coming from some place high up near the ceiling.

Then a gentle fluttering sound got me sitting up in bed to ensure that our pet cat was not around.
The little fluttering something, still making the ‘alarming’ sounds finally settled down on the curtain rod and turned out to be a tailor bird chick just out of the nest.

On seeing me waddling sleepily towards it , camera in one hand , the chick first flew straight up to the ceiling fan and hung there bat like for some time. It then made a dash to a dark corner just out of reach.

The chick was constantly making the peeping sounds and these increased in volume as I tried to hold it. The increased intensity of the chick’s calls got one of its parents to the window sill. The adult bird too was calling continuously and may be its call calmed the chick a bit. I too changed my tactics and instead of trying to hold the chick, offered it my hand to perch on.

To my relief and surprise the chick readily accepted this invitation. It sat on my finger comfortably, posed for a few snaps and even stopped shouting! I walked it to the window sill and to its waiting parent and they both flew off to the branches of the champak tree.