Downburst - a mighty nature of Nature!

On one of the days in June 2010, the Guava tree in my garden was uprooted by the windy rains. That tree yielded delicious fruits twice each year; it gave me the fruits through the window of my house - I plucked them through the window itself! The tree was a wonderful place to both birds and animals that I used to click many pictures and posted them in this blog. It was a tall tree that had grown up for almost eight years then. I was sorrowful about the incident. How could it have been uprooted on a single day?

The admirable marble wonder - Taj Mahal!

My elder brother preserved rare articles that he collected. On demand by me (myself then a school-going boy), he shall take out them carefully and show them to me. He won't give them to me to handle; he will point and show their parts and describe about their beauty; then he will place all of them at the earliest inside his bureau and lock it. So, this bureau remained as a wonder chamber having many wonders within it! One of those articles was a Taj Mahal miniature model.

Protective strip, the Band-Aid!

In my boyhood days I used to spend summer vacations at my brother-in-law's house. Being a pharmacist, he gave me cute medicine boxes from his medical shop. One of those boxes contained samples of medicated bandage strips. I took out one of the them and peeled out the plastic covers from it. It exposed a reddish orange coloured cotton gauze in its centre. The plaster-like outer parts of the strip stuck to my fingers. I wondered how this small pad containing the antiseptic, Mercurochrome 'heals' wounds and abrasions.

Living fossil in evolution - the Lancelet!

The first animal was taught about to me in the first class of my first Science College I studied. I was not able to get a clear idea about it in the lecture. Earlier I had been taught only about fish, frog and rabbit in Pre-University Course. This animal was a different one - it was neither like a worm or a fish! It is the Amphioxus (Bronchiostoma lanceolatum, Lancelet). It is a primitive animal from which vertebrate animals developed by evolution. It is fish-like and of 2 inches length. It has a transparent body without fins. But has no eyes.

A bird hunting on birds - Shikra!

One day at forenoon I heard a bird's call, "tit titee..tit titee." I was curious to locate its source and went on searching for the bird. But I could not. Suddenly I heard the cry of other common birds of the locality accompanied by their helter-skelter flying away. This is to avoid the attacking by a bird of prey. It had perched on the nearby tree - unseen: I saw it fly after a prey from my side! It is the Shikra (Accipiter badius dussumieri, 'Vairee' in Tamil).

Adapting with this animal - the Sloth!

In boyhood days I wondered how the Slender Loris lives with its slow movements. Later on, I viewed an animal that was more sluggish than Slender Loris and is having different and unusual body unlike that of other mammals. Luckily it lives on the tree tops escaping its predators like jaguar and eagles. I refer here only to this animal: Sloth (Bradypus variegatus, Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth).

Playing bright and dark on the sky!

Before 1960s, it was then a routine for the family members of the house to sit on the veranda or steps of the house at dusk and engage in gossips. Elders go on narrating about deeds and stories to the kids. In the midst of it they don't miss to point out at the bright stars shining on the sky. (My mom was then a guide to me apprising me about the 'Belt Stars' of the sky!). Messages about these wonders on the sky were passed on by mouths in such a way. At present also such wonders are shown to the public through daily news papers.

Insect rolling for welfare - Dung beetle!

On walking along the one foot path in rural areas, I often find black beetles moving hurriedly with a small ball of earth. They actually rolled back the ball with their hind legs placed on it; at the same time they also walked back with their fore legs on the ground! These beetles are the Dung beetles (Orthophagus gazella, Scarab beetle, 'Piee vurutti vandu' in Tamil). The ball is nothing but bits of faeces or dung of cattle rolled into a sphere!

Leaf-drinkers in water scarcity!

In school class room it was taught that transpiration is one of the plant's physiological functions. But do we know that 'reverse transpiration' is also a physiological function? Yes, it is so - in certain plants! In them leaf takes in water and sends it to the stem - reverse of what we learnt and expect - root takes in water and sends it to leaves via stem. These plants are described as 'Leaf - drinkers,' as their leaves are 'drinking' water.