Last spring, I spotted a smallest bird of about one inch length fly past my guava tree. I wondered about it that I have discovered a tiny bird myself. Recently I was in my garden standing before the Periwinkle plant that was in its full bloom. To my amazement that tiny bird I discovered earlier came into the scene again; it visited each flower; collected nectar like a hummingbird and flew away!
Each morning as it dawns, we see different colours displayed by Nature before our eyes. But at night's darkness we don't see anything colourful around us. But we can get here our environment coloured, and get also our skies coloured - by using Fireworks! (Pyrotechnics). Attracted by the colours produced by the fireworks, I tried some experiments myself then as a school student.
To have a free flow of water in channels we shall have to desilt it periodically. That is also being done in our body to have a free flow of blood to our brain. Pressure of blood flow dislodges any block such as clots or cholesterol present inside the blood vessels, or enzymes are rushed to the block's site and is dissolved by it.
In books of comics, mermaids were shown as heroines/princesses of the tales. Mermaids have a female human body and a fish tail instead of the legs. Though their existence is fictitious only, they are compared with the mammals, Sea cows (Dugong) here. I too find an another animal resembling a mermaid.
I have seen birds fall down to the ground, stretch out their wings and fight with each other for territorial claims. Yet there are some birds that do this wing stretching solitary. It is not their sun-bathing or an act to catch their prey. But it is a tactic called as Anting.
I had wondered in my childhood how an elephant could digest the contents of a fruit without breaking its hard shell. My sisters had informed me about this that elephant swallows the entire fruit, and after digestion we could see the whole fruit intact in its dung - but without its contents! It explains well about the great digestive power of the animal but it may be an exaggeration. OK. What is that fruit?
It is a well known fact that every Hindu temple ritual is being conducted on certain fixed and approved days of the month. These days' names can be found printed on each date-slip of a daily calendar. Do they belong to Astrology only? No, they have been so named simply, with respect to the phases of Moon only. They are called as Tithis (Lunar days, 'Thithis' in Tamil). For every thirty days these tithis repeat themselves. Among them there are two groups each having fifteen tithis.
One day I was walking barefooted on the cellar of the house. I felt a pinching pain on one of my toes. I found a vermin move away from my foot. It is the Common Centipede (Scutigera forceps, 'Pooraan' in Tamil)! Though its name implies that it has hundred legs, it has only fifteen pairs of legs.
The word, camouflage was introduced to me when I joined N.C.C. (National Cadet Corps) at school. Then the ways of camouflaging practiced in battlefield were taught. Later I learned that animals also practice this camouflaging to evade a predator attack. Animals change their colors similar to that of their surrounding environment to become invisible!
