Monday, July 12, 2010

Butterfly at work!

Photo: Arunangshu Sinha, Kolkata
Location: Kolkata

Black-Hooded Oriole -II

We once published a photo of this Black Hooded Oriole here in this site. This one is one of our favourite birds. You can see them mostly during spring around the rural areas. Locally, we call them 'Halud pakhi' (because of the colour) or 'Istikutum pakhi' (because of the sound it makes).



Photo: Shankar Sinha, Panskura, WB, India
Location: Panskura

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The weird and wonderful beauty of nudibranchs

This blurry image shows the closest (to my knowledge) I've ever come to a Nudibranch ("nude-gilled" marine mollusc), separated only by a glass wall in the Monterey Bay Aquarium a year ago when I accompanied Sanzari's class on a field trip. It was but a small splash of bright color among a mess of other critters in a corner of the rocky tidal shore area of the exhibits (if I remember correctly). It wasn't even specifically identified on the info panel on its enclosure - I only discovered later what it was. And I remembered this image today when I saw this fantastic gallery of Nudibranch portraits at National Geographic. Go check them out. They just might brighten your day too!


Photo: Madhusudan Katti, Fresno, California, USA