The Green Ogre: weekly update

If you've missed anything this week, the weekend edition of The Green Ogre should sort you out...

I've been away on a family vacation most of last week, soaking up the monsoon in south Goa. Rain-washed Goa is refreshing. The Western Ghats slope down in a verdant riot that skids to a stop beside the ocean, buffered only by deserted beaches of soaked, clingy sand. Butterflies, dragonflies and birds were everywhere. Despite a domestic ban on birding, I sneaked sly glances at stork-billed kingfishers, prinias, spotted munias, black drongos and even a crimson sunbird that dropped by the hotel garden to say hello as I was dunking my daughter in the pool. Gorgeous, I say. And now, having returned sufficiently vindalooed, balchaoed, rechaedoed and bibincaed, I'm pleasantly surprised to see that my fellow-Ogres have been hacking away.

This week, we continued our Agumbe Diaries and presented more finds from our sojourn in that neck of the deep, dark woods. On Monday, Sahastra introduced us to the Bicoloured Frog, one of the most attractive creatures to hop on the forest floor. In fact, if you're not watchful, you might mistake it for the forest floor itself.
MORE>

Sex is always a subject for steamy discussion. Despite Sandy's depraved jokes about the amatory pursuits of frogs, I gleaned some wisdom from watching all sorts of creatures in love. Dragonflies interlocked in subtle arcs as they mated on twigs. Grasshoppers and bush crickets carried on unabashed, hopping away together only when we almost crushed them underfoot. Lesser Whistling Ducks wheeled in the air, piping joyously, while Rufous Woodpeckers introduced new mates to the treasure trove of ants' nests in the treetops. Love was so in the air, and so inspired were we by monsoon mating mania that that we shot like zoopornographically obsessed paparazzi.
MORE>

Having said too much already, and having pushed this blog to the brink of NSFW-ness, we thought it best to clam up on Wednesday. But then, Arun's busy frame of mud-puddling lime butterflies raised so many curious eyebrows and engendered a spate of new questions.

Dung Beetles aren't the most charismatic of insects. They are dark, round, fat and inconspicuous except when they whir absent-mindedly past your ears or crash dizzily into lamps at night. Worse, their crappy lives revolve around what other animals leave behind. But then again, rain affords you the luxury of time. Time enough to stop and stare at a cow pat for five hours, and we were amazed at how a Dung Beetle made short work of it. Andy essayed this ode to the lowly dung-muncher.
MORE>

Last Day's Luck is a phenomenon that has mystified most nature-walkers. After three days at Agumbe we had heard so much about snakes that we expected them to stalk us from every bush and tree stump. No such luck. And then, a few hours before we were to depart, a Green Vine Snake showed up and allowed us the luxury of a long, relaxed photo-session.
MORE>

Among things that crawl, snakes scare the mojo out of most people. And a leaping frog has been known to turn dull altos into shrieking sopranos. But leeches?! Those eyeless, elastic strips of skin that crawl the mulchy rainforest floor? Sandy is so terrified of leeches that he gave us a hard time on the trip, repeatedly checking under our feet and rushing off unannounced into the bathroom to strip himself down for vainglorious de-leeching attempts. He refused to cross a stream and enter the dark rainforest for fear of his wetting his shoes -- later, when we returned from the walk soaked in rain and bristling with living leeches, he looked relieved that Fate hadn't picked him for that brief adventure. Leechophobia drove Sandy to such a paroxysm of panic that he wrote a fantasy-laced opus on these bloodsucking monsters.
MORE>

That's your weekend edition of The Green Ogre. Enjoy!

What you missed while you were slaving away at the office

If your office blocks the beautiful Internet that lies outside of your work network, and if you're not too savvy about the whole proxy thing, you've probably missed out on an entire week's worth of The Green Ogre. Fret not, help is at hand. This weekly summary will bring you up to speed.

Our amazing Agumbe Diaries have revealed some lovely experiences from the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station, where we held the first Green Ogre Monsoon Conclave in June. Here's a summary of the week's best:

The Blue-eyed Bush Frog (Philautus neelanethrus) was unknown to science till 2007 when it was reported from the Sharavathi Valley. Out on a post-dinner amble at the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station, we were introduced to this intriguing but shy amphibian. It turned out that it was really the prince of frogs, and immensely kissable.

What's a rainforest without rain? Chicken Biriyani without chicken? Spending three full days in pouring rain didn't dampen our enthusiasm for it as we expected. In fact, when we came away we were Noahs after the flood, irked by anyone who complained about rain.

Ancient Greek poets compared cicadas to dulcet-voiced queens. But erm, only male cicadas sing. And they do mostly by day. So what was this one, which we met in Dandeli, doing out by himself so late at night? Curiouser and curiouser...

Yak, yak, yak! Sometimes it's important to shut up and let a photograph do the talking. And that's what we did on Wednesday. But hey, doesn't this picture inspire more conversation? Do slugs eat orchids? And what was the butterfly doing there? What kind of relationships do they share? So much for silence. Go on and leave a comment...

The most fascinating discoveries in a rainforest are often not the large animals but the tiny, elusive ones. If it weren't for Andy, we would have passed up this extraordinarily beautiful Malaysian Moon Moth. Interestingly, all this moth ever does in its adult life is sleep and make love. Now, we know a great many people who'd envy that – imagine just having to live on love and fresh air!

Birds in a rainforest are not easy to come by. You hear them all the time but the dense canopy and tangled understory keep them away from view. And so it was by sheer luck that we stepped into a forest glade when the rain took a break, and were treated to an amazing aerial acrobatic display by a Racket-tailed Drongo.

Look out for more good stuff next week!

We’ve moved! Here’s where you can find us

The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 10

The Green Ogre Weekly Update July 3