Gujarat – Pelican Yoga

Quirky moments (#10 in series: avian avatars)

Published August 23, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#10 in series: avian avatars)

I dislike anthropomorphism, especially when it “cutesifies” animals that are not cute.

I wish we humans would learn to appreciate other animals in their own right, as themselves, rather than wilfully misreading their behaviours and facial expressions.

For instance, quokkas’ characteristic facial shapes/expressions do not in fact signify happiness.

That said, I am sometimes hugely amused by a particular animal’s fortuitous resemblance to a particular, famous/infamous human…or human-made humanoid.

One crisp Namibian morning I saw and heard a very loud local bird; its common name refers to its alarm call.

Why would a “Go-away bird” remind me of England’s self styled “Queen of Romance Fiction”?

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“From behind” (#8 in single-image series: watching the birdwatchers)

Published May 29, 2023 by Pelidoug

“From behind” (#8 in single-image series: watching the birdwatchers)

I took this photo in the latter part of an amazing three hours, which had begun shortly before sunrise, well within Jamnagar’s city limits.

Jamnagar, in western India, is a whisker inland from the Arabian Sea, in Gujarat.

Nearby is what bills itself as the world’s largest petrochemical plant.

You can’t see any feathers in this photo, but its humans are watching and/or photographing birds – water birds of many species, in profusion…all thriving in a far from pristine, definitely-urban wetland.

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Hope, feathers, music, poetry, beauty…

Published June 12, 2022 by Pelidoug

Hope, feathers, music, poetry, beauty…

…are all integral to this post, which is a sequel to both the immediately-preceding one and to the 28 January 2022 post on “Hope”.

If you do not already know Emily Dickinson’s poem Hope is The Thing With Feathers you should click here before you read/see/listen to the rest of this post.

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Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

Published May 5, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

If the almost-titlepiece of Rhiannon Giddens’ new album were new to your ears, you would probably assume it was a venerable “traditional” song, probably from Appalachia.

Listeners who already knew many traditional Appalachian songs would likely be mightily surprised that they could have hitherto missed such a superb, particularly haunting one.

In fact, Calling Me Home was authored by Alice Gerard; it was titlepiece of her 2002 album, issued in the year of her 68th birthday. (An even better album is Follow the Music, which Alice Gerrard recorded – mostly “live” – in her 80th year)

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Wild asses: #4 in “western India” series/ #2 in “Tibetan Plateau” series

Published October 24, 2020 by Pelidoug

Wild asses: #4 in “western India” series/ #2 in “Tibetan Plateau” series

Asia’s wild asses are different from Africa’s, and larger too.

All but one kind are generally reckoned subspecies of Equus hemionus, the Asiatic wild ass or onager.

Pictured above and below is the khur or Indian wild ass, Equus hemionus khur.

Once widespread, in large numbers, khur now only number several thousand individuals, most of them in the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, western India.

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Stillness, stilts (#72 in “a shining moment” series)

Published June 4, 2020 by Pelidoug

Stillness, stilts (#72 in “a shining moment” series)

A perfectly peaceful, spacious scene?

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Wings (#58 in “a shining moment” series)

Published May 21, 2020 by Pelidoug

Wings (#58 in “a shining moment” series)

Most of the birds pictured are migratory waders, becoming airborne from a wetland in Kutch, Gujarat, western India.

If you don’t already understand how birds fly, this post will point you to some lucid explanation.

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Peregrine 2 (#39 in “a shining moment” series)

Published May 2, 2020 by Pelidoug

Peregrine 2 (#39 in “a shining moment” series)

This post’s peregrine – like yesterday’s – was photographed in the Great Rann of Kutch.

The plumage tells me that he was an adult, and his smaller size tells me that he was indeed a “he”, yesterday’s immature bird was rather larger, so almost certainly female.

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