Archive for Animals

September 23rd 2010

Bannerghatta National Park Big Cats In Trouble

by Anwin in Animals, Bangalore, Cats, Flickr, Hobbies, Pics, Snakes, Trip     tags: , , , , , , , , ,       7 Comments

Poor guys, they seem to have got some bug or something. It has been a sad week with 5 big cats dying in the past week at Bangalore’s Bannerghatta National Park or Biological Park. Two of them were old Bengal tigers and a White Tiger who, officials say, has died of an almost 3 months battle with kidney disease. And another, a cub which probably died of salmonella and E.coli. Really really sad.

Read more here and here.

Anyway, I feel someone has supplied real bad chicken meat there. Hmm…

Some of my old friends (who I hope are still running around):

He was quite majestic looking and not at all bothered about people around.

This guy was a bit uneasy around us. He was lying under the shades when we came and proceeded to get into the man made pool for a quick dip.

This guy was totally cool. All pictures were taken this April – on the 24th to be precise.

Some other pictures I liked:

One of the truly free guys. He was on the rampage and fighting turf wars all around us on the footpaths and on the trees.

Mother and two baby monkeys (Rhesus monkeys) watching out for the big guy in the previous picture.

And two butterflies ‘going at it’ at the butterfly park adjacent to BBP ;-) .

Please do check out my flickr set too.

March 15th 2010

7 Cat Species Found In Assam In One Forest

by Anwin in Animals, Cats, Pics     tags: , , ,       1 Comment

I didn’t know that we had so many cat species in India until today. Apparently, National Geographic reports, 7 different cat species were photographed in the same rain forest the Jeypore-Dehing in Assam. That piqued my interest – the number of cat species found.

Photo Credit – Kashmira Kakati.

According to http://www.wildlifeindia.co.uk/ there are 13 species of cats in which includes the Tiger, Lion, Leopard, Jungle Cat, Marbled Cat, Leopard Cat, Snow Leopard, Clouded Leopard, Golden Cat, Desert Cat, Lynx, Caracal and the Pallas Cat.

Link through Neatorama.

Disclaimer: I took the screenshot of the cat so quality of picture not great.

July 28th 2009

My Wife Holding A Mouse By Its Tail

by Anwin in Animals, Miscellanious, Pics     tags: ,       5 Comments

The picture’s shaky but I swear it was Nafisa holding the little mouse by its tail. My wife who is afraid of roaches playing with a saved-from-drowning mouse.

mouse

The poor thing got a new lease on life.

June 16th 2009

Spectacled Cobra In Bangalore House

by Anwin in Bangalore, Snakes           3 Comments

So, there we were, Nafisa and I. At home, just back from office. I was a bit tired. When Nafisa got a call from Karthik saying he had caught a “King” Cobra. So I did go and take some pictures of the “King” or should I say Prince?

Cobra 008

I have heard from others that our area (NGEF Layout, OMBR Layout) has a lot of snakes and cobras too. However, this is the first time I have seen or my friends have seen before. Read more at Karthik’s – http://planetphoenix.com/2009/06/08/another-day-at-the-indiblogger-office/.

May 25th 2009

Vandalur Zoo Chennai Trip

by Anwin in Animals, Pics, Weekend getaway     tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,       26 Comments

A couple of weeks back Nafisa and I found ourselves at Renie’s house in Chennnai a.ka. IndiBlogger headquarters. The reason for the sudden visit was to visit my Dad who was supposed to undergo an eye operation. Finally, that didn’t happen and it got postponed to June 2nd week.

So what did that leave both of us to do? We had the Sunday off to do anything we wanted. Renie had already planned that we could visit the Vandalur Zoo which has been designed like a National Park near Chennai. And on a Sunday afternoon we put that into action.

We entered the zoo and started tripping on the animals right from the primates area. Below is a photo of a monkey, one of very first sights, probably a langur or a lion tailed macaque.

vandalur_monkey

He/she was a quite bugger and quite far off to take good pictures.

The next was a big attraction near the entrance. The chimps were on an uproar and there was some kind of territory confrontation happening between two different groups of two chimps each. So there was so much shouting and stress in the chimp camp that there was a huge crowd just to witness this.

vandalur_chimp

Next were the birds which Renie normally doesn’t visit. But I like to trip on the birds too, so we went looking at the birds. Some of the interesting ones below:

vandalur_peacock

A white peafowl / peacock.

vandalur_cassowary

A Cassowary.

And then some mean looking Indian Bisons – also called Gaur.

vandalur_gaur

vandalur_gaur1

Above, a mother and calf.

And then, the Royal Bengal Tiger. He was really far off to get a decent shot.

vandalur_tiger

And then, the MAIN REASON why Renie wanted to go to Vandalur zoo, the White Tiger. Wow, this guy was a very good specimen with a majestic look. He walked around and put on a show for us, almost daring us to come inside. Damn good stuff.

vandalur_white_tiger

We spent quite a long time with the White Tiger before leaving for home. On the way, we said hi to the Asian Elephants.

vandalur_elephants

And, as usual, the best photos were taken with Renie’s Nikon. A sample given below:

vandalur_white_tiger1

Visit Renie’s Vandalur Zoo pictures at flickr for some amazing photos. And my pictures from flickr as a slideshow below: