Bird sighting: White throated Kingfisher

Recently I had the opportunity to photograph this Kingfisher bird in close proximity. Although the kingfisher birds are a plenty here, it is very hard to get a good shot of photograph of them. In fact our neighborhood hosts a good number of different types of birds.I have seen many varieties that are normally considered very rare to sight and that too in abundant quantities. But all of them are either perched in the electric lines far away or always on a flight mode making it difficult to shoot without a zooming lens.So imagine the joy I felt when I saw this Kingfisher perched in my neighbor's parapet looking at a possible prey in the ground.

He sat there for a long time as if waiting for me to run to my camera and try a good shot of him. I would have had a better angle from the far end of my compound but I was hesitant to go there and make it a chance for him to take off. This much proximity is in itself very rare to come by.

How much ever I tried I could not spot what exactly he was aiming to prey on. After several moments he took the plunge to the ground to perch on a dry leaf mound that was gathered nearby. Maybe the prey escaped or it was not up to his standard,he left it and took off to the sky and sat on the electric wire line just above our terrace. This is the maximum justice I could do on taking a snap from where I was standing.

Here is a tidbit. These kingfishers belong to the category that are found only in India and the nearby countries.They are called White-throated Kingfishers owing to the distinct whitish patch near its neck and are very different from their counterparts found in the western countries. Its feathers are colorful with at least two shades of blue.The exuberant feathers are in full display when they take off and it is a sight to be cherished. You can read more about it here.

It was one of my wishes to photograph the birds in my neighborhood and I used to try whenever I see them frolicking around. So all in all a good day for me in the garden.

A lovely garland

Here is a look at a single day's yield from the floral department in our garden.

Most of the flowers in display are well known to everyone. So skipping them, I will come straight to the saffron/orange colored ones called 'Kanakambaram' in my mother tongue and referred as 'Firecracker' flower in English. These flowers look best when strung together in a stranded fashion.

As wiki points out, kanakambaram is an evergreen shrub which flowers all through the year and propagates via the seeds that form once the flower stalk dries. The seeds explode from the pod (thus getting its English name ) and grow into shrubs when they land in the soil. This is why,if you plant one single firecracker shrub and leave them be,you are sure to find them taking over the entire area to themselves.

Luckily for us, we have a patch of land in the west side of our property which is not easily accessible and quite narrow to work up anything in that area.We planted one single kanakambaram shrub there but it quickly died after producing just about a dozen flowers. We grieved over its death but did not replace it as we felt that the soil is the main culprit for the plant's death. Its just been a year since then and now to our surprise we have at least 12 kanakambaram shrubs growing in that area. All seeded from that one single shrub we had planted. They have started producing flowers profusely.We would be happy even if they take up the entire area in the west as we quite like these flowers and looks like they dont demand too much in terms of nutrients too. We have a couple of jasmine plants as well, so come summer,imagine how lovely these two would look together when strung into a strand. 

Bean fever!

Okay, officially I am on a bean sowing spree now. I had earlier mentioned how easy it is to grow french bush beans(dwarf variety) at home and that currently there is a container full of bean plants growing in the garden.This set of plants are nearing the flowering stage with tiny white(ish) buds appearing here and there.

But having seen how easy the task is, I did not want to stop with just one container. So with my niece's help I prepared another container and sowed another set of seven seeds.

Of course, that is not going to satisfy my eagerness. So I sowed a third set of bean seeds in the backyard,marking our first try to grow them in the soil directly. Here the seedlings growing in a straight line(around eight of them)are of the double beans variety. The ones growing in a semi-circle kind-of shape(in total nine plants)are the french bush beans.

Each of the sets have an interval of two weeks between them,so that the harvests extend over a set of months at least. In total we now have around 7+7+9 = 23 french bean plants and around 15 broad bean plants growing in the garden.

I could have ended the post with just the above,had I not discovered a fact about the state of the seeds that are currently available in the market. See, I had one packet of french bean seeds that lasted only for the first two sets of sowing.The seeds from this packet were of light brown color.The refill seeds that I bought recently from the Sunday market had a mix of pink and light brown color seeds with pink being the majority. I was joyed to see this, as I had heard that the pink seeds give good healthy plants and they tend to be more bushier. But my mom had a doubt whether the pink ones are actually kidney beans(what we call as Soya/Rajma in the local language) since the pink shade was more pronounced and almost close to being called red. We were in a dilemma but still went ahead and sowed the pink ones. Later when I wanted to sow the fourth set (yes, I sowed another set :), I called on my mom again to ask what to do if they turn out to be Rajma. We do not eat that bean variety that much and they sometimes taste bland in our opinion. Somewhere during the conversation, we decided to soak the seeds and check out the color, and lo behold, once I put them in the water,it turned out that the pink ones are not actually pink.



They are indeed the same light brown colored bean seeds but just had a coat of pink painting on them. I was shocked to see this and could not opine anything on this cheap trick that the seller had resorted to in order to sell them. Or..are they really cheap tricks or is any kind of adulteration being done even in the seed market.?

Anyway they all went into the ground as my fourth set of sowing.We will keep an eye on this batch to determine the actual difference in harvests between the normal and the 'colored' ones.