Rajasthan – Pelican Yoga

Grand sands (#25 in series: DIY housing, Thar Desert)

Published January 9, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#25 in series: DIY housing, Thar Desert)

As last updated on 02 January 2025, on www.WA.gov.au:

If you are thinking about owner-building your own home or small commercial building, you will need to have been granted owner-builder approval from the Building Services Board before you can be granted a building permit from your local government authority.

Indian bureaucracy is globally-notorious, but in at least some parts of Rajasthan, the “DIY housing sector” is subject to very much less “regulation” than is Western Australia’s.

Grand sands (#24 in series: Thar Desert’s underground “celebrity”)

Published January 8, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#24 in series: Thar Desert’s underground “celebrity”)

The mammalian world’s biggest family – the rodents – includes six genera which (collectively) contain at least 110 living species of “gerbil”

Some of them – on their own turf, at least – are more commonly known as “jirds”.

Jirds are members of the genus Meriones.

As is generally true of gerbils, jirds live in deserts, and other “arid” or “semi-arid” places.

Unsurprisingly, most are nocturnal; but not the Indian desert jird, Meriones hurrianae.

One Indian blogger has described this post’s highly atypical hero as the tiny musketeer of Rajasthan’s Thar Desert.

Grand sands (#23 in series: “The Great Indian Desert”)

Published January 7, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#23 in series: “The Great Indian Desert”)

The Thar Desert’s other name accords with reality: it is India’s biggest desert, although 15% of it is in Pakistan.

Most of it – around 60% – is in Rajasthan; the Thar Desert occupies a little more than 60% of India’s largest state, by area

According to most sources, around 40% of Rajasthan’s human population live within the Thar Desert.

Rajasthan is far from India’s most populous state, but it is currently home to more than 80 million humans.

Unsurprisingly, the Thar Desert is “our” planet’s most densely populated desert, by a large margin.

It is also remarkably rich in wildlife.

Quirky moments (#5 in series: cowtown/metropolis)

Published August 15, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#5 in series: cowtown/metropolis)

The relevant city’s metropolitan population is approximately “Brisbane’s plus Adelaide’s” – well in excess of four million humans.

It is a safe bet that its “other large mammals’ combined population” would comfortably exceed that of all Australian cities.

What you are looking at would be “inconceivable” within an Australian CBD, but to those who reside in Rajasthan’s capital (and largest) city, this would be an unremarkable sight.

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Quirky moments (#2 in series: snakebird v catfish)

Published August 11, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#2 in series: snakebird v catfish)

What is a “quirky moment”?

The answer is largely a matter of the relevant human observer’s/participant’s experience, sensibility, attitude.

One person’s “surprising” or “bizarre” or “amusing” is another’s “to be expected, in this particular context”, “prosaic”, or “unremarkable”

What is happening in the featured image is a case in point.

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Quirky moments (#1 in series: “royal” treatment in a desert “palace”)

Published August 10, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#1 in series: “royal” treatment in a desert “palace”)

…only in India!

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“From behind” (#10 in single-image series: heron, hunting)

Published May 31, 2023 by Pelidoug

“From behind” (#10 in single-image series: heron, hunting)

A heron (or egret) in hunting mode delivers a fascinating, repeating sequence of events.

For unpredictably short or long periods the heron is a study in concentration and stillness, until that stillness is suddenly shattered by the bird’s speargun-like attack.

The prey – usually a small fish, crustacean, mollusc, amphibian or insect – is swallowed, rapidly.

The sequence then repeats…

For obvious reasons, a photographer cannot “capture” this behaviour from a very close vantage point, directly in front of the heron’s beak/“speargun”.

However, one can sometimes get surprisingly close, “from behind”.

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“From behind” (#3 in single-image series: demoiselle cranes)

Published May 24, 2023 by Pelidoug

“From behind” (#3 in single-image series: demoiselle cranes)

Photographically speaking, birds on the wing are – in equal measure – irresistible, humbling and frustrating.

Their irresistible/frustrating aspect is especially apparent when a photographer attempts to capture/convey how a bird launches itself into the air, or returns to earth/tree-branch/rooftop/ledge/water’s surface…

“Successful results” are guaranteed to be rare events, and one’s “successes” usually prove “qualified” rather than “total”.

This post’s image is one such qualified success…

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Three of the same (#6 in series: five-striped palm squirrels)

Published April 28, 2023 by Pelidoug

Three of the same (#6 in series: five-striped palm squirrels)

Funambulus pennanti is a very, very much smaller mammal than is Oryx gazella.

Nonetheless, whereas yesterday’s large African antelopes occupied a tiny portion of the featured image, today’s Asian rodents dominate it.

Many people regard this widespread, very adaptable squirrel species as “particularly cute”.

From an agricultural/human food production/storage point of view, however, five-striped palm squirrels are a serious pest; in Elmer Fudd-speak, these are “weally wascally wodents”.

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Khichan, Rajasthan: Jains and cranes (2 of 2: “social drinking”)

Published September 5, 2022 by Pelidoug

Khichan, Rajasthan: Jains and cranes (2 of 2: “social drinking”)

Imagine the image above, devoid of context, and subjected to a “caption this photo” contest.

A suitably cornball “winner”:
a quiet drink with a few mates.

The featured image was taken with a long lens (560 mm) at 11.12 am on 20 February 2020.

The photo immediately below was taken just a few seconds later, from almost exactly the same vantage point, overlooking a pond/reservoir, a few minutes away from Khichan…

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Tag: Rajasthan