Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Monday, May 30, 2016

Our avian neighbours

remember our post on birds of pR back in 2011? well, the willing bird lover arrived in the form of our friend Sridhar with a brand new dslr! we set out at day break and dusk on couple of days and came home with these. 
1) Painted stork
2) golden oriole

3) little green bee eater

3) little green bee eater - eating dragonfly

4) loten's sunbird - female

5) orphean warbler or plain prinia?  not sure please help!

6) Jerdon's bushlark

7) ashy prinia
7) ashy prinia - singing



8) Pied bushchat - male

8) pied bushchat - female


9) pied crested cuckoo

10) plaintive cuckoo

10) plaintive cuckoo - another view

11) red headed falcon

6) Jerdon's bushlark

6) Jerdon's Bushlark
12) paddyfield pipit
13) small green billed malkhoa

14) spotted dove

15) spotted owlet

16) white browed bulbul

17) silverbill or white throated munia

18) white breasted kingfisher

19) red vented bulbul

20) magpie robin
21) cattle egret - female - breeding

22) indian robin - male

23) Common Iora - male and female

23) Common Iora - female

23) Common Iora - male & female

24) koel - female

25) lesser goldenbacked woodpecker

26) crimson breaster barbet aka coppersmith

27) crow pheasant or greater coucal

28) black drongo

29) forest wagtail




30) baya weaver - female

31) indian roller or blue jay

32) brahminy mynah

32) brahminy mynah

33) hoopoe

Thanks again to sridhar for taking these fantastic pictures and to siddharth for quick spotting.

Here are a few more species spotted by us regularly but not captured in camera. we will update this post as and when sridhar visits us again and shoots a few more pictures.  A couple in (?) are the ones that only one of us have spotted. They will be confirmed with more sightings.

34) common babbler
35) blue rock pigeon
36) yellow wattled lapwing
37) red wattled lapwing
38) white breasted water hen
39) watercock aka kora (?)
40) indian peafowl
41) grey francolin
42) black shouldered kite
43) shikra
44) montague/pale harrier
45) white browed wagtail
46) common mynah
47) jungle crow
48) palm swift
49) ashy woodswallow
50) roufus tree pie
51) brain fever bird
52) pond heron
53) little egret
54) black headed munia
55) white rumped munia  (?)
56) purple sunbird
57) purple rumped sunbird
58) rose ringed parakeet
59) eurasian collared dove



Saturday, May 28, 2016

paddy production - an indicator

in the previous 2 posts - ruin after rain - part 1 and part 2 i had indicated a surge in paddy production.
here is some evidence to back this.
the state govt (parallel to the center (via the food corp of india)) procures paddy for the public distribution via ration shops (PDS), aanganwadis (ICDS), mid-day meal scheme in government schools and the amma canteens.

the surge in production has meant a surge in procurement and thus what you see below.

in this location, the supervisor indicated a total inventory of around 8000 tons of paddy.
from the time of taking these photos additional rows had been added. there is certainly one more such location in the vicinity and may be more in the overall district.
this is apparently a common sight in thanjavur - the main rice growing area of tamilnadu. and the entire crew is from there.
the stacking is highly artistic and the rain protection is superb. each sack is 40 kgs and each stack has 2992 sacks -> each stack has around 120 tons of  paddy. phew...




to answer a common query - this production surge is not likely to see any impact in the price of rice in retail. these economics are beyond us for now!